Sexual harassment prevention in Peru: employer duties beyond the global speak-up policy

Most multinational groups have a strong respect-at-work policy and a confidential hotline, often run by a third-party provider and monitored by a central ethics team. Those tools are valuable, and in Peru they are not enough. Peruvian law turns sexual harassment prevention into a regulated procedure with mandatory bodies, prescribed training, visible local channels and deadlines measured in business days. A complaint handled perfectly by group standards can still breach every local requirement if it follows the global timetable.

This article explains the Peruvian framework for compliance officers and regional HR teams, and how to connect it to the group’s speak-up architecture without duplicating it. It is part of our guide to employment compliance in Peru.

Legal framework

The core rules are Law 27942 on the Prevention and Sanction of Sexual Harassment, substantially amended by Legislative Decree 1410 in 2018, and its regulations, Decreto Supremo 014-2019-MIMP, amended by D.S. 021-2021-MIMP. The regulations are issued by the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP), but reporting obligations run to the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion (MTPE), and compliance is inspected by SUNAFIL, Peru’s national labor inspection authority.

Under the Productivity and Competitiveness Law, sexual harassment is a form of serious misconduct (falta grave) that can justify dismissal, and it is also treated as an act of hostility that the affected worker can invoke against the employer. Failing to adopt preventive measures or to investigate and sanction can itself constitute an infringement under the inspection regulations.

Prevention duties that apply before any complaint

The prevention side is where group programs most often fall short, because it requires local, documented activity every year.

• Annual evaluation. Employers must evaluate annually whether harassment situations or risks exist. The evaluation can be integrated into a workplace climate survey.
• Training. At minimum, one training at the start of the employment relationship and one annual specialized training for HR, the committee or delegate and others involved in investigations. The specialized training is not required of micro and small enterprises registered in REMYPE, the national registry of micro and small enterprises.
• Dissemination. Periodic communication of the conduct that constitutes harassment and the applicable sanctions.
• Channels. Internal and external complaint channels must be publicized visibly, and complaint forms and information on the procedure must be available.
• Internal policy. Employers with 20 or more workers must have internal policies that specify channels, procedure and deadlines, which cannot exceed the legal ones.

The intervention committee or delegate

Workplaces with 20 or more workers must have a Comité de Intervención frente al Hostigamiento Sexual (sexual harassment intervention committee). It has four members: two representatives of the workers and two of the employer, one from HR and one designated by the employer, with gender parity. Worker representatives can be elected together with the health and safety committee elections. Decisions are adopted by simple majority, and the HR member has the casting vote. Below 20 workers, a delegate performs the committee’s functions.

For multinationals, the committee is frequently the missing piece. Group programs route cases to a regional investigations team; Peruvian law requires a local body with elected worker representatives. The two can coexist: the regional team can support the committee with investigative expertise, provided the committee retains its statutory role and issues its own report.

The complaint procedure and its deadlines

A procedure can start at the request of the victim or a third party, or on the employer’s own initiative. The complaint can be verbal or written and is filed with HR. The following table summarizes the key deadlines.

Protective measures deserve particular care. Suspension of the alleged harasser is treated as an imperfect suspension, meaning the employment continues and pay is maintained. Offering vacation to the victim is not a valid protective measure unless she or he requested it. Specific coordination rules apply where the people involved belong to an outsourcing or staffing contractor.

Connecting the group hotline to the local channel

The practical design has three elements.

First, routing. Configure the hotline so that any report involving possible sexual harassment in Peru is escalated to designated Peruvian HR contacts immediately, with the date of receipt recorded as the start of the local procedure.

Second, roles. The central ethics team can support, advise and monitor, but HR in Peru issues protective measures, the committee or delegate investigates and reports, and HR decides. Group investigators who assist should do so within that structure.

Third, records. Keep a local case log showing each statutory step and its date. That log is the evidence the entity will rely on if the case is inspected. The internal work rules should reflect the same procedure; see internal work rules in Peru.

Checklist for regional compliance

• Confirm headcount by workplace and whether a committee or a delegate is required.
• Verify that the committee has been constituted with elected worker representatives and gender parity.
• Adopt a local policy (for 20 or more workers) with channels, procedure and deadlines no longer than the legal ones.
• Publish internal and external channels visibly and make complaint forms available.
• Run onboarding training with Peruvian content and annual specialized training for HR and the committee.
• Carry out and document the annual harassment-risk evaluation.
• Configure hotline routing to Peruvian HR with same-day escalation.
• Maintain a case log with every statutory step and the dates of MTPE reports.

Common mistakes

Treating the hotline as the procedure. It is an entry point, not the process Peruvian law requires.

Investigating centrally without the committee. A report from a regional investigator does not replace the committee’s report.

Protective measures that penalize the complainant. Offering the complainant vacation they did not request is expressly excluded as a valid measure, and any measure that moves the complainant rather than the alleged harasser should be justified carefully.

Missing the MTPE reports. Both the complaint and the decision must be reported, each within six business days.

Using the outcome to discipline without proper procedure. If the decision leads to a sanction, the disciplinary rules still apply; our article on disciplinary measures in Peru covers proportionality and procedure.

Consequences

Failures expose the employer to inspection findings and fines, reputational damage and claims by the affected worker, who may invoke acts of hostility. For a multinational, an additional risk is inconsistency: a case closed centrally on the group’s terms but mishandled locally can surface later in an inspection or litigation with the group’s own records as evidence.

Preventive recommendations

Build the harassment framework into the local obligation matrix described in building an employment compliance program, align the worker-representative elections with the safety committee where practical, as the regulations allow (see occupational health and safety obligations in Peru), and test hotline routing at least once a year with a dummy case.

Key takeaways

Peru does not ask multinationals to abandon their speak-up culture. It asks them to run a local procedure with local bodies and short deadlines. Connect the two deliberately and the group program becomes stronger, not duplicated. Our sexual harassment prevention service helps regional teams design that connection and train the people who operate it.