Political interference has plagued Bolivia’s justice system for years. Under both former interim President Jeanine Áñez and current President Luis Arce, the government overly stretched the definition of “terrorism” to prosecute political opponents. Overcrowded prisons, inadequate health care, and excessive use of pretrial detention continue.
In March, the Constitutional Court recognized civil unions for same-sex couples, and in September the court found that unrestricted use of mercury was causing serious harm to indigenous communities in the Amazon and ordered the government to protect their rights.
Gender-based violence and violations of sexual and reproductive health and rights remain very serious problems. As a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Bolivia has often sided with repressive governments and failed to uphold the rights of victims.
Judicial independence and due process
Bolivia’s justice system has historically served “the interests of the regime,” the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) noted after a visit in March 2023. President Luis Arce has failed to deliver on promises of judicial reform to make the judiciary independent of politics.
In December 2022, Santa Cruz Governor Luis Fernando Camacho was detained on terrorism charges, which are too broadly defined in Bolivia. Camacho was accused of orchestrating the resignation of then-President Evo Morales in 2019. Human Rights Watch reviewed the indictment but found no evidence to support the terrorism charges. Camacho remains in pretrial detention as of October 2023. His family and lawyers claim he has not received proper treatment for a serious chronic illness.
Former interim President Áñez has been incarcerated since 2021 and was initially charged with terrorism. After reviewing the documents, Human Rights Watch determined that the terrorism charges were unfounded and grossly disproportionate. In a separate case in 2022, a court sentenced Áñez to 10 years in prison for dereliction of duty and decisions contrary to law (a crime very broadly defined in Bolivian law) for her actions when she assumed the role of interim president in November 2019. Áñez was unable to appear in person for the trial, as the judges said they could not guarantee her health or safety in the courtroom.
Cesar Apaza, leader of the Association of Legal Coca Growers, has been in pretrial detention since September 2022. He suffered a stroke in February. His family alleged that authorities did not provide him with proper medical care. In July, the Ombudsman said the Attorney General’s Office, at the Ombudsman’s request, was investigating allegations that authorities had tortured and ill-treated Apaza.
About 50 percent of Bolivia’s judges remain “interim,” the IACHR said in March. About 80 percent of prosecutors are also “interim” as of December 2022, according to data obtained by the Bolivian nongovernmental organization (NGO) Fundación Construir. Judicial officials without tenure may be vulnerable to retaliation, including arbitrary dismissal, if they make decisions that displease those in power.
Bolivians were due to hold elections in 2023 to choose high court judges and members of the Council of Magistrates, the body that appoints and removes judges, from lists drawn up by Congress. In the past, the ruling party has repeatedly stuffed the list with people with ties to the government. The elections are being delayed because, for the first time, the ruling party lacks the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally select candidates. The terms of the current judicial officials expire in January 2024. The constitution does not provide for temporary appointments or term extensions in case elections do not take place as scheduled.
Detention conditions
Bolivia’s detention centers are housing more than three times as many detainees as they were originally built to accommodate: from 2021 to 2022, the prison population has increased by 19 percent to 24,824 inmates, according to official data obtained by Fundación Construir.
Bolivia’s justice system makes disproportionate use of pretrial detention, including against opposition leaders: As of December 2022, 66 percent of detainees were awaiting trial, Fundación Construir said.
Justice for Abuse in 2019
As of October 2023, no one has been held accountable for the 37 deaths and alleged police torture and other abuses that occurred during protests over the October 2019 elections. A 2021 report by the IACHR-sponsored Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) documented serious shortcomings in investigating the abuses.
Freedom of expression and access to information
Pagina Siete, one of Bolivia’s major newspapers, closed in June. The paper’s president accused the government of denying it state advertising, barring private companies from advertising in Pagina Siete, and imposing arbitrary audits and fines, reducing Pagina Siete’s revenues. In March, the IACHR expressed concern about how the government allocated state advertising, which is not regulated in Bolivia.
Bolivia has no legislation to implement the constitutional right to access information.
Environment and Indigenous Rights
A June 2023 study found that three-quarters of members of 36 indigenous communities in the Amazon had mercury levels nearly twice the safety limit set by the World Health Organization based on the analysis of hair samples. Such dangerous exposure to mercury can cause very serious harm to people, especially children, and lead to lifelong health problems. High doses of mercury exposure can also be fatal. The most affected communities consumed fish obtained downstream from gold mining activities that use mercury.
In September, the Court recognized the harm caused to these indigenous communities and ordered the government to implement protective measures and respect their right to free, prior and informed consent to projects that will affect them.
In 2016, Bolivia ratified the United Nations Minamata Convention on Mercury, which requires countries to protect people from the harmful effects of mercury. But mercury is widely used in mining in Bolivia with little oversight, and is smuggled into countries such as Peru that have banned mercury imports, officials told Human Rights Watch. In 2021, Bolivia was the world’s second-largest mercury importer, after India, according to World Bank data.
The state-run lithium company announced agreements with Chinese and Russian companies for the industrial mining of Bolivia’s vast lithium deposits through 2023. Little information has been made public about the terms of the agreements or their social and environmental impacts, raising concerns given Bolivia’s record of allowing mining without respecting the rights of indigenous people and local communities.
Deforestation in Bolivia is set to rise 32% to record levels between 2021 and 2022, driven mainly by the expansion of soy cultivation, according to a report from the World Resources Institute. Only Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo have lost more primary tropical forests than Bolivia.
Bolivia ratified the Escazu Agreement in 2019, which mandates access to information and public participation on environmental issues, and protections for environmental activists, but has done little to implement it.
Economic and social rights
About 36% of Bolivians were considered to live below the country’s poverty line and 11% in extreme poverty as of 2021, down from 42% and 19%, respectively, in 2016. Inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient (where 0 means absolute equality and 1 means absolute inequality), fell from 0.6 in 2005 to 0.4 in 2021, official data showed.
According to government statistics, 724,000 children between the ages of 5 and 17 were engaged in the worst forms of child labor, including commercial sexual exploitation, mining, and hazardous agriculture, in 2019. In March 2023, in its concluding observations of its periodic review of Bolivia, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the country increase the frequency of inspections to eliminate child labor under the country’s legal minimum working age of 14.
Women and Girls’ Rights
Women and girls remain at high risk of violence. In 2022, prosecutors registered more than 51,000 reports of domestic violence, including 94 femicide cases. From January to September 2023, there were 65 femicide cases. The Ombudsman’s Office has criticized the “discretionary” processing of judicial cases of attempted femicide, resulting in suspects being charged with lesser offences.
Under Bolivian law, abortion is a crime except in cases of rape or when necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman, and women and girls who seek legal abortions are likely to face stigma, abuse and re-victimization.
In March, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called on Bolivia to decriminalize abortion and revise the legal definition of rape to exclude the need for violence or intimidation and the absence of consent to sexual intercourse.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In March, the Plurinational Constitutional Court issued a decision granting civil unions to same-sex couples, a long-standing request from activists. The court called on Congress to revise national laws on LGBTI rights to bring them in line with international standards. Same-sex marriage remains illegal in Bolivia.
The ruling did not address the right of transgender people to enter into civil unions, which was prohibited by the same court’s 2017 ruling that also denied transgender people the right to adopt or be elected to public office and limited their right to privacy regarding the sex they were assigned at birth.
Rights of people with disabilities
Bolivia has not aligned its laws with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Bolivia’s laws do not recognize the denial of reasonable accommodation as a form of discrimination based on disability. The government has failed to address discrimination against persons with disabilities and ensure inclusive education, accessibility, access to justice, legal capacity, and an adequate standard of living.
Key international actors
The government decided in January not to renew the mandate of the field office of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has served as a key independent human rights monitor since its establishment in December 2020.
As a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Bolivia has consistently opposed scrutiny of countries’ records and failed to protect rights. In 2023, it abstained from voting on a resolution to extend the mandate of the UN Group of Experts investigating systematic human rights violations in Nicaragua, and voted against extending the mandate of a similar group in Syria, as well as the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia, Burundi, Iran and Belarus. It also voted against the establishment of an international fact-finding mission on Sudan.