The Attorney General’s Office reported this Saturday that in 2023 it handled 51,770 cases of gender violence, that is, an average of 142 cases per day. The overall figure is higher than the previous year (2022). Most of these complaints originated in domestic or family aggressions.
“According to a comparative by management, it can be seen that in 2022 51,401 cases were reported, while in 2023 the figure closed with 51,770, which means that there is an increase of 369 cases, of which the most reported crime at the national level is family or domestic violence,” said the Attorney General of the State, Juan Lanchipa.
The authority of the Public Prosecutor’s Office regretted that domestic violence continues to be the most reported crime with 39,096 cases, according to the data registered in the Free Justice Ecosystem of the Public Prosecutor’s Office through the Directorate of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Gender and Juvenile Crimes.
Most of these crimes were committed in the departments of Santa Cruz (18,131), La Paz (12,428) and Cochabamba (8,196), which make up the country’s “central axis” or most populated departments.
In the rest of the country’s six departments, reports of violence range from 51 to 336. Most of these cases are related to family or domestic violence (39,096), sexual abuse (3,866), rape (2,999), rape of minors (2,803) and statutory rape (1,782), among others.
Likewise, the Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that of the 51,770 cases registered, 22,985 are closed and the rest are in different stages of investigation or judicial process.
Lanchipa clarified that in the country there are “black figures” since many cases that were not reported happened in remote and “difficult to access” regions where the victims “do not have the option of filing a complaint”.
“We have to act in an urgent and more specialized way, to advance in the care of these people,” he added.
Bolivia has had a law since 2013 that protects women from all types of violence, a norm whose modification was announced in mid-2021, but which the Plurinational Legislative Assembly has so far not dealt with. Feminist organizations protested several times that the law is not fully implemented. Penalties for aggressors are hampered by the slowness of the procedures.
CENTRAL AXIS
Most of these crimes originated in domestic or family aggressions and were committed in the departments of Santa Cruz (18,131), La Paz (12,428) and Cochabamba (8,196).