The Minister of Education of Peru, Morgan Quero, said on Wednesday that human rights are not “for rats,” when asked about the 49 people who died from the repression of law enforcement in the anti-government protests of late 2022 and early 2023.

“Human rights are for people, not for rats,” Quero replied when asked by a journalist why the Executive had not pronounced on the deaths of demonstrators on International Human Rights Day, which is commemorated on December 10.

“Yesterday was human rights day, the Government has not pronounced on the 50 deaths of the protests,” asked the journalist of the newspaper La República, before the minister burst in with his response.

Controversial statement by the Minister of Education of Peru

The minister had attended an official event, at the end of which the press asked him about the debate opened yesterday by the president, Dina Boluarte, about applying the death penalty to rapists of minors.

In this regard, Quero said that his ministry has removed more than a thousand teachers involved in cases of sexual abuse of minors.

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The video with the minister’s statement was widely spread on social networks and generated numerous criticisms and requests for resignation.

I reject

“My rejection of Mr. Morgan Quero’s expressions. Only a government without any moral taste like that of Boluarte can have a minister of Education who only demonstrates ignorance and contempt, equating the lives of victims of human rights violations with rats,” said Congresswoman Ruth Luque on the social network X.

The explanation of the Peruvian minister

Shortly after, Quero held a telephone interview with Channel N to clarify “the unfortunate circumstance” resulting from his statement, and initially maintained that his words “had been misrepresented”.

But when asked where the misrepresentation was, he acknowledged that he assumed that the question was about the previous topic that he was dealing with with the press.

“I assumed that the question was about the same thing (the rape of minors), because we were in a wide corridor and, perhaps, my mistake was to assume that the question was also about the issue of the death penalty,” said the minister, adding that, believing that he was being asked about the rights of pedophiles, it was “that forceful.”

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When the Canal N journalist asked him if his words deserved a public apology, the minister said no.
“No, I repeat again, I assumed it was a question within the context in which this dialogue with the media had evolved (…) I deeply regret the pain of the victims and families who were affected in these circumstances,” he said.

The Peruvian Minister of Education already starred in a controversy a few months ago by calling the violations suffered among schoolchildren in Awajún communities, in the Peruvian Amazon, as “cultural practice.”