The Constitutional Court of Peru ordered the demolition of a wall built on a hill in the east of the capital, Lima, which separates a wealthy neighborhood from a slum. The construction, as defined by one of the judges in the court’s decision announced this Thursday (29), is discriminatory.
According to Judge Gustavo Gutiérrez, the court’s position was unanimous. “It cannot be possible for us to divide Peruvians by social class. This is inadmissible, it doesn’t happen anywhere in the world. I think this sentence will set an important precedent,” he said.
The construction, which became known as the Wall of Shame, divides the hilltop communities of Villa María del Triunfo and Pamplona Alta from the district of La Molina, where the luxury condominium Las Casuarinas is located.
It must now be demolished within 180 days, in response to a lawsuit filed by a resident against La Molina authorities in 2018.
The construction, about 10 kilometers long, has sections over 2 meters high, covered with barbed wire. It began to be built in the 1980s, winding its way around the hill, under the pretext of protecting the municipality from the advance of the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla, considered a terrorist organization in the country.
Over the years, as the favelas in the region expanded, the Muro da Vergonha was also being expanded. The Imaculada Conceição College, administered by Jesuits, which financed part of the work in the 1980s, said that the intention was to prevent invasions from approaching the institution; more recently, residents of the Las Casuarinas condominium have begun to argue that the wall was erected for security reasons.
In Peru, the 1980s and 1990s were marked by intense migration from the altiplano and Andean regions to Lima, of people fleeing violence —also linked to the action of Sendero Luminoso— and in search of jobs. The phenomenon led to the disorderly occupation of the mountainous regions on the outskirts of the capital.
Judge Gutiérrez said, in an interview with RPP radio, that the Constitutional Court’s decision should contribute to social peace and that the destruction of the wall does not mean that there will be room for land invasions and drug traffickers in the region.
In the action that was accepted by the court’s decision, a resident denounced violations that the Wall of Shame imposed on the rights to come and go, equality and not be discriminated against due to economic and social condition.
The barrier was one of those shown in the series “A World of Walls”, which Sheet published in 2017.
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