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Bolivia commemorates International Women’s Day with the persistent problem of violence against women and concern about cases of violent deaths with increasingly younger victims, such as the case of Noelia, a teenage human rights activist whose murderers were two minors.<\/p>\n
Bolivia is \u201camong the countries with the highest rates of violence against women\u201d and 75% of the female population has suffered some form of violence in their lives, explained to EFE the head of the UN Women office in Bolivia, Nidya Pes\u00e1ntez.<\/p>\n
According to Pes\u00e1ntez, femicides are \u201ca great concern\u201d because they are \u201cthe result of a process\u201d of violence that can begin with words or gestures, and escalate to a violent death.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Bolivia registered 81 femicides and between January and February of this year 12 cases were reported, according to the Attorney General’s Office.<\/p>\n
Authorities emphasize that the number of femicides was lower compared to previous years, but feminist organizations have warned several times about the deplorable average of 110 cases per year since 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The figure) has obviously gone down, but we always say that they are still losses of women’s lives and that they cannot be counted merely as numbers,\u201d Carla Guti\u00e9rrez, director of the \u201cGregoria Apaza\u201d Center for the Promotion of Women, told EFE.<\/p>\n
She also regretted that \u201cfemicides of younger and younger girls\u201d are occurring, that these events occur in stages of pairing well before marriage and \u201ccases of violence that are seen in schools\u201d.<\/p>\n
That was the case of Noelia, whose body was found on February 14 in a vacant lot in El Alto, the neighboring city of La Paz.<\/p>\n
Noelia was 17 years old and was part of a group of young activists trained in the prevention of violent dating, explained Guti\u00e9rrez, whose organization carried out the training with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).<\/p>\n
After an outing with some friends, the girl was sexually abused \u201cand that was the cause of the femicide,\u201d lamented Guti\u00e9rrez.<\/p>\n
The perpetrators are two teenagers also 17 years old, one of them, the one who confessed to the crime, had just met the girl, and the other was her friend and is being investigated as a possible \u201cco-perpetrator\u201d or accomplice.<\/p>\n
The young man who confessed was sentenced at the end of February to 6 years in a rehabilitation center for juvenile offenders.<\/p>\n
The sentence is less than the 30 years without the right to pardon established in Law 348 against male violence in force since 2013 because the defendant is a minor.<\/p>\n
Guti\u00e9rrez pointed out that \u201cit is very complex to have to take on a case against another minor\u201d, although these are \u201cminors who have been capable of committing sexual aggressions and femicides, which are very serious crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese types of crimes cannot be judged so lightly,\u201d the activist reflected, as the confessed perpetrator, who will serve 18 years in six months, will be released from detention probably in three years.<\/p>\n
Noelia’s case was condemned by the United Nations System, which warned that femicides are \u201cmanifestations of the most brutal and extreme violence against women\u201d.<\/p>\n
A violence that seems to have become normalized and is accompanied by a \u201clack of knowledge\u201d of how these events can lead to femicide, Pes\u00e1ntez emphasized.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not believe that Bolivian society has normalized feminicide, but violence as a mechanism for disciplining women\u201d who in some places are still seen as \u201cinferior beings\u201d and who \u201cneed to be protected,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The State, \u201cas guarantor of rights,\u201d must invest in prevention, in \u201cessential services\u201d to attend to the victims of violence and in the restitution of their rights so that these events do not go unpunished, he added.<\/p>\n
For Guti\u00e9rrez, normalization occurs because the patriarchal system is still \u201cvery strong\u201d and because the media expose cases of violence as \u201ca media show\u201d devoid of information or reflection.<\/p>\n
In his opinion, \u201ca lot of work needs to be done in terms of awareness and information\u201d, both by the State and society.<\/p>\n
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