When contestants in this year's Miss Peru contest exposed the alarming numbers related to violence against women, the international media gave a standing ovation. But in Peru, not everyone clapped.
During the pageant, images linked to the #niunamenos (not one more) campaign and pictures of cases in the press filled the background while contestants walked on stage. Jessica Newton, the pageant's organizer and the person behind the initiative, said she came up with the idea after learning that several of the 30 contestant finalists had been abused or harassed. Peruvian social media exploded with comments for and against the protest.
The storm of opinions over the pageant reignited the controversial hashtag #PeruPaisdeVioladores (Peru, Country of Rapists), sparking heated debates online. The hashtag came as a response to the case of a census worker who was sexually attacked while gathering data for the 2017 national census.
For many, the hashtag was an abusive generalization and therefore an unfair way of representing the country while for others, the numbers were far more alarming than making clear that not every man in Peru was involved in sexual assault: