Truth and reparations: A perpetual challenge for the marginalized in Peru

Abstract

The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad; CVR) is considered one of the most comprehensive in Latin America. Peru set forth a plan for reparations to address the gross inequalities underlying the war, yet nearly twenty years since the CVR report was submitted, extreme discrimination of victims undergirds the systemic challenges that impede the allocation of due resources and recognition of rights for war survivors. This article draws from a larger case study with a female war survivor from the Department of Ayacucho. By highlighting the challenges survivors face in accessing reparations, this research illustrates how a lack of judicial accountability, scarcity of resources applied to reparations, politicized narrative surrounding victimhood, and failure to adequately reconcile with the past, exacerbates marginalization that prompted the war and undermines the CVR's goal of transitional justice.