Ahora Nación, the Peruvian Senate bench led by Alfonso López Chau, has rejected an accusation of religious discrimination made by Senator Milagros Jáuregui, saying it will not accept childhood protection being turned into a political tool.
Jáuregui had accused a group of senators of discriminating against her over her defense of children's rights from a conservative position, according to the statement Ahora Nación issued in response.
Peru restored a bicameral Congress this year, replacing the single legislative chamber used since 1993 with a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The dispute between Ahora Nación and Jáuregui has played out inside the new Senate.
New child protection commission created
The disagreement follows the creation, on Monday, September 7, of the Special Multiparty Commission for the Integral Protection of Childhood and Adolescence. Senators approved it by 31 votes on an initiative from Renovación Popular, and it was presented on the floor by Senator Alejandro Muñante.
Objections over duplicated work
Senator Susana Matute, of the Partido del Buen Gobierno and president of the Commission on Health, Education, Culture, Women and Social and Digital Development, objected to the new body on the grounds that it duplicated work her own commission already carries out. She said its 2026-2027 work plan, approved two days earlier on the same Monday, already covered protecting children and adolescents from sexual and physical violence.
Mirtha Vásquez, a senator with Ahora Nación, also questioned the initiative and placed it within a broader pattern of setbacks in sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality. She said it was notable that it was Jáuregui herself pushing a comprehensive childhood protection commission, when it was Jáuregui who had exposed girls and adolescent victims of rape. Vásquez added that while fujimorismo and its allies refuse to create a specialized commission on Indigenous Peoples, they were now seeking to set up commissions for matters already covered by ordinary working groups, and she called for equal criteria to be applied when approving new commissions.
Two existing bodies on the same issue
A Special Multiparty Commission for the Protection of Childhood has existed since 2021, created in the context of the health emergency. It was expanded in June 2025 with 104 votes to remain in force until the end of the 2025-2026 term, meaning it is still active. As a result, the commission promoted by Renovación Popular and Fuerza Popular now coexists with two other bodies already dealing with the same subject.
Ahora Nación's response
The bench said its objections were political, not religious. It rejected any attempt to present its political questioning as acts of religious discrimination and said it fully respects freedom of belief. Ahora Nación said its observations are limited to the public conduct of the lawmakers involved and to the suitability that should be expected of anyone leading a commission focused on children and adolescents.
The party recalled that it had proposed its own special commission to follow up on the serious situation of girls, boys, adolescents and women who are victims of sexual violence and affected by HIV in the Amazonas region. It said it would not accept that cause being politically instrumentalized or used to impose particular agendas, especially against those already facing violence, abandonment and discrimination.
