The president of the Association of Victims of Feminicide and Infanticide in Bolivia, Rosiario Méndez, regretted that to date the Legislative has not dealt with the bill to favor the orphans of feminicide, who are estimated to exceed one thousand children and adolescents, since law 348 came into force in 2013.
“The state is very slow, it is very lethargic, it does not care, there is now the political show of the magistrates’ elections, and for them that is the most important thing, the orphans are left without parents and they are also orphans of the state because it does not take care of them,” he told ANF.
The Association submitted a bill for feminicide orphans to the Chamber of Deputies in May, and to date there has been no progress.
In July 2021, the Ombudsman’s Office even presented a bill proposing a monthly bonus and comprehensive assistance for children and adolescents who lost their mothers to femicide.
“The project has been presented, but it is not advancing, we have no response to date, I believe that the State has also presented it, but it is not advancing, it has remained there; it would be good for the orphans to have support,” added Méndez.
There is a bill for comprehensive care for orphans, daughters and sons who are collateral victims of femicides, presented by Congresswoman Betty Yañiquez in November 2022, which has not made any progress either.
Méndez said that the Association’s bill considers the support of psychologists for the orphans and relatives of the victims as fathers and mothers, however, “the State has not paid attention to us, the only thing they have told us is that the Prosecutor’s Office has a Gesell Chamber and there they will provide support with the two psychologists, but how can they provide support if there are only two people and they have to attend to other things”.
For the activist, there is a real lack of interest on the part of the authorities who refuse to create more items for the psychological support of families in cases of femicide and infanticide.
“For us the magistrates, judges and prosecutors are very corrupt because each one of us has lived it, and we are in this process of not finding justice, however, all the attention now is only for them,” she said.