From 2020 to date, in Bolivia, 7,181 complaints were registered for statutory rape, a crime whose validity was observed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court). The body will detect that it is the cause of impunity in crimes that, by their nature, should be classified as rape, which is also aggravated because the victim is a minor.
“We urgently need to deal with issues related to our children and adolescents. Since March, with a report and a thorough work done by the Senate and Deputies, Bill 010 was unanimously approved, which talks about the incorporation of the criminal type of incestuous rape, eliminates statutory rape and reconstitutes the lack of consent as the element for the establishment of the crime of rape”, indicated the MAS deputy Olivia Guachalla.
Article 309 of the Bolivian Penal Code states that statutory rape occurs when “by means of seduction or deception, having carnal access with a person of either sex over fourteen and under eighteen years of age”. The penalty for this crime is deprivation of liberty for three to six years.
According to the annual reports of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, this is a crime that is increasing year after year. In 2020, 1,091 cases were reported, while in 2023 the figure reached 1,782, showing an increase of more than 63.3%.
Likewise, between January and July 2024, 1,027 cases have already been registered, which suggests that the figure at the end of the year will exceed that of 2023. It is important to remember that these data correspond only to the complaints that reached the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Rape and impunity
The case of Brisa Angulo, a 16-year-old teenager who was raped by a family member between 2001 and 2002, is one of the cases that show the lack of access to justice for victims. After a pilgrimage through courts and different Bolivian instances, she managed to be heard in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The ruling against the Bolivian State came 20 years later, in 2022. The ruling affirms that the State violated Brisa’s rights and re-victimized her.
In the body of the document, the IACHR Court recommends the State to make changes in the Penal Code, including the annulment of the crime of statutory rape. However, to date the issue has not been addressed in the Legislative Assembly, despite the existence of four bills in committee on the subject.
The observation notes that this criminal offense, as it was and is provided for in Bolivian legislation, is incompatible with the American Convention. It affirms that, in any hypothesis of carnal access with a person between 14 and 18 years of age, without their consent or in a context in which their consent cannot be inferred due to seduction, deception, abuse of power, coercion, intimidation or any other reason, it should be considered a crime of rape.
Among the measures of non-repetition, the IACHR Court stipulates that the State must, within a reasonable period of time, eliminate the crime of statutory rape from its legal system.