Peru: Many With Disability Left Off Voting Lists
January 20, 2020 12:01AM EST
Act Immediately to Guarantee Voting Rights for 2021 Election
(Lima, Peru) – Thousands of Peruvian citizens with disabilities who had previously been under legal guardianship by courts have not been included on the national voting registry in time to vote in the January 26, 2020 congressional elections in Peru, the Society and Disability (SODIS), Peruvian Down Syndrome Society, and Human Rights Watch said today.
In 2018, Peru adopted a landmark law, Decree No. 1384, that abolishes guardianship and recognizes that people with disabilities are entitled to rights on an equal basis with everyone else. There is no legal reason not to include people with disabilities on the voter registry, the groups said.
“It is disgraceful that despite the 2018 reforms abolishing the guardianship system, thousands of Peruvians with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities previously under guardianship remain excluded from the electoral register,” said Pamela Smith, SODIS executive director. “Voting is the right and civic duty of every Peruvian, and discrimination cannot be tolerated.”
Because the electoral register for the January 26 elections is closed, people with disabilities who were under guardianship and were excluded from the registry cannot be added at this stage. But they must be added for Peru’s general elections in 2021.
More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/20/peru-many-disability-left-voting-lists
