“The result of perpetual rights violations by the Bolivian government against its people,” according to the Foundation for Sustainable Development, “has fueled a palpable sense of desperation and anger throughout the country.”[1] The country's chief human-rights problems, according to a 2010 U.S. State Department report, are “killings and torture by security forces; harsh prison conditions; allegations of arbitrary arrest and detention; an ineffective, overburdened, and corrupt judiciary; a 'partly free' media; corruption and a lack of transparency in the government; trafficking in persons; child labor; forced or coerced labor; and harsh working conditions in the mining sector.”[2] According to a Human Rights Watch report, the administration of President Evo Morales has created a hostile environment for human rights defenders that undermines their ability to work independently.
[3] With regard to the report of The Economist dated December 1, 2017, in February 2016 Bolivia's left-wing president, Evo Morales, asked voters through a referendum whether he should be allowed to run for a fourth term in office in 2019.
[4] A 2001 report by the UN Committee against Torture praised new legislation and other efforts by the Bolivian government to improve human rights; but the report also expressed concern about the “continuing complaints of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, resulting on many occasions in death, both in police stations and in prisons and military barracks”; the “impunity accorded to human rights violations...resulting from the lack of any investigation of complaints and the slow pace and inadequacy of such investigations”; the lack of enforcement of laws setting maximum detention periods; prison conditions; the sometimes deadly “disciplinary measures” inflicted on soldiers; the “excessive and disproportionate use of force and firearms by the National Police and the armed forces in suppressing mass demonstrations”; the harassment of human-rights activists; and the return to Peru of refugees “without complying with procedural formalities.”[5] Although Bolivian law technically guarantees freedom of speech and of the press, the relationship between the government and the news media is hostile, and the government has been charged with “taking actions designed to restrict independent media or to encourage self-censorship.” While there are a variety of news media that operate without restriction, including many that are critical of the government, people living in some rural regions have no source of news other than government radio.
Also, insulting public officials is a crime punishable by a jail term of up to three years; an independent Press Tribunal has the power to sanction journalists.
Often, however, political protests have devolved into violence, and military and police forces have used violent measures to restore order.
Generally speaking, Bolivian workers enjoy only a limited right to bargain collectively without government involvement.
In 2013, Bolivia passed a new comprehensive domestic violence law, which outlaws many forms of abuse of women, including marital rape.
“Women's individual, economic, and social rights are inferior, severely limiting their ability to be agents for economic and social change.”[9] A 2008 report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women called on Bolivian authorities “to take the necessary measures to ensure the full implementation of existing legislation on gender equality,” “to streamline procedures for review of the compatibility” of its laws with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and “to repeal without delay all legislation that discriminates against women, including discriminatory provisions in its criminal and civil law and to ensure the enforcement of laws prohibiting discrimination against women.” The UN committee also called on Bolivia to take action to promote women's advancement in society, to fight gender stereotypes, to overcome the institutionalization of traditional sexual attitudes and prejudices, and to combat sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Children between ages 11 and 16 who are believed to have committed an offense have no right to trial and may instead be indefinitely detained in special centers on the orders of a social worker.
Although Bolivian law requires that wrongs against individuals and groups who once owned land under this system be redressed, injustice on this front is still widespread.
[2] Amnesty International complained in a 2012 report that Bolivian authorities had made decisions about construction of a highway across the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure, TIPNIS) without consulting the indigenous people who live there.
This lack of consultation resulted in a confusion and conflict, with some indigenous people supporting the road and others opposing it, and the government reversing its plans more than once.
[10] Human Rights Watch asked Bolivia in 2011 to ensure "a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation" of alleged police abuse of peaceful indigenous protestors near Yucomo on September 25 of that year.
[11] Bolivian law bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, and transgender persons are allowed to legally change their name and gender.
There are LGBT rights groups, and gay-rights marches and gay-pride parades take place with official approval and are protected by police.
Although torture is forbidden under the Bolivian constitution and law, security forces frequently engage in it, and punishment for such violations is rare.
The military justice system tends “to avoid rulings that would embarrass the military.” Officially, defendants enjoy the right under the Bolivian constitution to a speedy trial, to an attorney, to due process, and to appeal.
Although the Bolivian constitution prohibits capital punishment, in many areas the lack of efficient policing and of a well-functioning court system leads to so-called “community justice” – in other words, mobs taking the law into their own hands and violently murdering criminal suspects.
[12] The Human Rights Foundation, in a 2008 press release, made clear that lynchings and other “barbaric actions such as hanging, crucifixion, stoning, live burial, and burning,” which had been committed by mobs in Bolivia in the name of “communal justice,” could not be reasonably be considered legitimate acts of justice, and warned that more and more such mob actions were taking place.
Noting that President Evo Morales had “said that disenfranchised groups should employ communal justice” and that he supported “lashing as a 'symbolic' means of imparting communal justice,” HRF declared that Morales’ position was “untenable in light of guarantees enshrined in Bolivia's constitution.”[13] Bolivian prisons are overcrowded, dilapidated, and lawless, and food supplies and medical care are almost invariably insufficient.