28 Facts About Eliane Karp

Eliane Chantal Karp Toledo is a Peruvian anthropologist.

Eliane Karp was the First Lady of Peru from 2001 to 2006, as the wife of the erstwhile Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo.

Eliane Karp specializes in the study of Andean indigenous cultures.

Eliane Karp completed her baccalaureate at the Lycee Francais in Brussels, Belgium, and later earned a BA in anthropology in Israel, studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a specialization in Latin American studies.

Eliane Karp holds a Master of Arts in anthropology from Stanford University.

Eliane Karp completed a PhD in anthropology at Stanford University in the United States.

Eliane Karp has taken courses on indigenous communities at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and has done graduate work on anthropology and economic development at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

Eliane Karp first came to Peru in the late 1970s to study its indigenous communities.

In 1992 Eliane Karp and Toledo divorced and she returned to Israel with their daughter.

Eliane Karp served as an officer for Middle East in European Investment Bank.

Eliane Karp returned to Israel, and worked at Bank Leumi, where she was in charge of developing relationships with foreign banks.

Eliane Karp recently served as an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.

Eliane Karp is a former Visiting Professor and Visiting Scholar at Stanford University department of Anthropology.

Eliane Karp was a distinguished fellow in residence at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and has been a visiting professor at Salamanca University - Instituto de Iberoamerica.

Eliane Karp donned traditional Andean costume, rallied voters in Quechua, and demonstrated the couple's commitment to indigenous issues.

In 2001, Eliane Karp became the first lady of the Republic of Peru when Toledo was elected president, a position she held until 2006.

Shortly after Toledo's inauguration, his administration created the National Commission on Andean, Amazon and Afro-Peruvian Communities of Peru, of which Eliane Karp served as president.

In 2003, partly in response to these criticisms, Eliane Karp resigned from CONAPA, which was restructured as a national institute rather than a commission.

In 2001, Eliane Karp started Fundacion Pacha, a non-profit organization that oversees development projects for indigenous Peruvians.

In 2002 Eliane Karp reached out to billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates in order to fund a vaccination program for the Candoshi tribes people.

Eliane Karp has shown support in favor of a push for more women in the Peruvian congress, and she acknowledges quotas as a means of achieving this.

In March 2012 Eliane Karp returned to Peru to pursue a teaching position at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and in the fall she returned to teach anthropology in the Andean studies postgraduate program.

Eliane Karp has announced she will undertake a book which examines the role of indigenous populations as they integrate into the democratic political process.

In May 2012 Eliane Karp participated in a human rights conference organized by the Program on Human Rights and the Center for Latin American Studies of Stanford University, in which she called for a debate about the rights of indigenous peoples in Peru.

In October 2012 Eliane Karp recounted her meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, saying that it was inspiring and that she was impressed that Suu Kyi was able to stay so calm while being imprisoned for 15 years.

Eliane Karp likened the situation to when she met the Dalai Lama, who is living in exile, and urged support for a petition going through the United Nations to help combat human rights violations.

On 12 May 2023, after her husband was extradited to Peru from the United States, Eliane Karp fled to Israel from the US using her Israeli passport to avoid arrest on money laundering charges from the Peruvian justice.

On 18 May 2023, Peru's Prosecution Office opened an extradition request to Israel, with a deputy assistant to the prosecution saying that even though Israel and Peru do not have an extradition agreement, Eliane Karp's extradition "is not impossible", and that new paths for the proceeding to take place will be considered.