Hundreds of girls, women go missing

More than 900 women and girls have gone missing in Peru during its coronavirus lockdown, a top women's rights official said on Tuesday, calling for the creation of a national missing persons register to address the "alarming" number of disappearances.

Records must be kept to track those who go missing, whether they are found alive or dead and whether they are victims of sex trafficking, domestic violence or femicide, said Isabel Ortiz, a women's rights commissioner in the National Ombudsman's office, an independent body that monitors Peru's human rights.

A total of 915 people - 606 girls and 309 women - have been reported missing from the start of lockdown on March 16 through June 30, Ortiz said.

"The figures are really quite alarming," Ortiz told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

Countries worldwide have reported increases in domestic violence under coronavirus lockdowns, prompting the United Nations to call for urgent government action.

Latin America and the Caribbean are known for high rates of femicide and violence against women, driven by a macho culture and social norms that dictate women's roles, Ortiz said.

Before the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of women throughout Latin America, including Peru, were staging mass street demonstrations demand government action against gender-based violence.