Women’s rights activists in Peru have expressed outrage after the country’s president responded to the murder of a woman who was burned to death by a stalker by saying “sometimes that’s how life is”.
Eyvi Agreda died on Friday from infections caused by the attack in April which left 60% of her body covered in second and third-degree burns.
Agreda’s assailant, Carlos Hualpa, doused her with petrol on a bus and set her alight, telling her: “If you aren’t mine then you’ll be nobody’s.” According to her family, he had harassed her for two years, but police had not responded to her complaints.
Late on Friday, Peru’s president Martín Vizcarra offered his sympathies to Agreda’s family and demanded a life sentence for Hualpa – but then provoked widespread fury by adding: “Sometimes that’s how life is and we have to accept it.”
Eyvi was killed by Carlos Hualpa but also machismo in the state and in society
Feb 8, 2017 - The head of Peru's 'Nuevo Peru' leftist party, Veronika Mendoza, speaks during a press conference in Lima on February 8 in which she talked.
Member of Congress For Cusco | |
---|---|
In office 26 July 2011 – 26 July 2016 | |
Constituency | Cusco |
Personal details | |
Born | 9 December 1980 (age 38) San Sebastián, Peru |
Political party | Nationalist Party(2008–2012) Broad Front(2012–2017) New Peru(2017–present) |
Other political affiliations | Peru Wins(2010–2012) |
Alma mater | Paris Diderot University New Sorbonne University National University of Distance Education |
Website | Official website |
Verónika Fanny Mendoza Frisch (born 9 December 1980), popularly known as Vero Mendoza, is a French–Peruvian psychologist, educator, and politician. She was a Member of Congress representing the Cusco region from July 2011 until July 2016.[1] She was the candidate of the Broad Front in the 2016 presidential election.
Early life, education, career[edit]
Verónika Mendoza was born on 9 December 1980 in the San Sebastián district of Cusco Province, in Peru’s southern Andean highlands. She is the daughter of Marcelino Mendoza and Gabrielle Marie Frisch D'Adhemar, a French citizen. Owing to her mother’s nationality, Mendoza holds a dual, both Peruvian and French, nationality.[2]
She studied at the Virgen del Carmen school in the city of Cusco and the Université Paris Diderot, in Paris, France, from which she graduated with a degree in Psychology in 2003.[1] Subsequently, she received a Master’s Degree in Social Sciences from the New Sorbonne University in 2006, and then a Master’s Degree in Education, with an emphasis on Spanish language, from Madrid’s Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, in 2009.[1] Mendoza also speaks Quechua, an indigenous and official language of Peru.[3]
Mendoza worked as a Spanish-language instructor at the Centre Acadomia Prépa Paris. Later, she served as an instructor at the Asociación Pukllasunchis in Cusco, and as a professor at the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno.[1]
Political work[edit]
While in Europe, Mendoza worked as coordinator for support committees for the Peruvian Nationalist Party. In Peru, she was appointed the party youth’s press secretary in 2009, and as spokesperson for the party’s women’s commission the following year.
In the 2011 Peruvian general elections she ran for Congress, in representation of Cusco, on the Gana Perú coalition’s ticket. She was elected to the office with 47,088 votes. Her term expired in July of 2016.
In 2011, she was named Vice President of the Peruvian Congress’ Committee for Culture and Cultural Heritage. She is also a member of the Congressional Commission on Andean, Amazonian, and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, the Environment, and Ecology. Mendoza is a member of the Campaign in Defense of Water and Territory.
She has served the head of the Cusco Congressional delegation.[4] She resigned from the Gana Perú Congressional delegation on 4 June 2012, following violent repression of protesters and strikers in Espinar Province. Shortly thereafter, she joined the Popular Action—Broad Front parliamentary group.
Presidential candidacy[edit]
After winning the party’s primary elections in October 2015, Mendoza became the Broad Front's (Frente Amplio) candidate in the 2016 presidential election. She finished third in that contest, with 2.8 million (18.8%) valid votes cast in her favor.[5]
References[edit]
- ^ abcdDeclaración Jurada de Vida del CandidatoArchived 2016-03-09 at the Wayback Machine, curriculum vitae presented to the Peruvian national electoral authority, 2016 (accessed 19 March 2016).
- ^'Verónika Mendoza: 'De ninguna manera renunciaré a mi pasaporte francés' ('Veronika Mendoza: 'In no way I give up my French passport'), Peru 21, 13 October 2015
- ^Dosek, Tomas; Paredes, Maritza (3 June 2016). 'Peru might elect an authoritarian president. These four maps tell you why'. The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 June 2016.
- ^'Verónika Fanny Mendoza Frisch', at the Peruvian Congress web portal
- ^Peru, Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), Presentaciòn de Resultados, Elecciones Generales 2016Archived 2016-06-10 at the Wayback Machine, uploaded 17 April 2016 (Accessed 17 April 2016)