Peru: Factsheet, August 2024 – Peru

Peru remains the second destination country for Venezuelans, with more than 1.54 million at the end of 2017.
2023, of which 493,476 asylum seekers and 4,906 recognized refugees. Peru hosts the largest number of Venezuelan asylum seekers worldwide and Lima is the city with the largest Venezuelan population outside Venezuela (more than one million people).

UNHCR estimates the prevalence of monetary poverty among Venezuelans at 32 percent and extreme poverty at 10 percent. Upon arrival in Peru, refugees and migrants find themselves in highly vulnerable situations, unable to generate income to support themselves and exposed to a higher risk of falling into poverty and negative coping mechanisms such as child labor, sexual exploitation, begging for food, etc. UNHCR assumes that displacement will not increase dramatically in the coming years

The humanitarian-development nexus is a priority. UNHCR is working with national, regional and local authorities and others to promote access to rights and services for the forcibly displaced population. UNHCR is increasing support for normative and policy changes to strengthen access to public services. UNHCR is following an area-based approach to prioritize interventions in districts with a high concentration of Venezuelan nationals, high levels of poverty and a strong political commitment from their mayors to include the forcibly displaced in their programs and services.

CONTEXT

In December 2023, the Peruvian government participated in the II Global Refugee Forum (GRF) and committed to improving the asylum system through a data validation process to include forcibly displaced and stateless people in national statistics. It also implemented a mechanism to determine statelessness and ensure the socio-economic inclusion of refugees and migrants.

In 2023, the government launched a regularization campaign and began to reduce the backlog of asylum applications as part of its GRF commitment. The first step includes a data validation exercise to re-establish the correct number of asylum seekers in the country. This will improve access to the asylum system and ensure fair and expeditious processing of asylum applications.

The humanitarian-development nexus is a priority. UNHCR is working with national, regional and local authorities and others to promote access to rights and services for the forcibly displaced population. UNHCR is increasing support for normative and policy changes to strengthen access to public services. UNHCR is following an area-based approach to prioritize interventions in districts with a high concentration of Venezuelan nationals, high levels of poverty and a strong political commitment from their mayors to include the forcibly displaced in their programs and services.