COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD CONSIDERS REPORT OF BOLIVIA

The Committee on the Rights of the Child today considered the initial report of Bolivia on that country’s efforts to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Introducing the report was Elizabeth Patiño Duran, Vice Minister for Youth and the Elderly of Bolivia, who said Bolivia had a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society where the majority of the population was young. The society was characterized by the fact that 50 per cent of children under 15 years identified themselves according to their ethnicity. The 1999 code on the rights of the child had clarified the role to be played by each government body. Contrary to the practices of other countries, various Government bodies had responsibilities in the implementation of the rights of the child.

In preliminary remarks, Committee Expert Norberto Liwski, who served as
Rapporteur for the report of Bolivia, thanked the members of the Bolivian delegation for the invaluable information they had provided and their intellectual honesty and courage in addressing the problems of Bolivia. He said the Committee’s concluding observations would reflect the spirit in which the delegation had responded to questions and would aim to strengthen the implementation of the provisions of the Convention. He hoped that the children of Bolivia would overcome discrimination with the help of the whole society working towards that aim.

Other Committee Experts contributed to the debate by raising questions pertaining to trafficking in children; education and HIV/AIDS; child labour; children living in poverty; malnutrition; violence against children; school dropouts for girls; missing children; and the budget allocated for children and youth programmes.

The Committee will release its formal, written concluding observations and recommendations on the report of Bolivia towards the end of its three-week session, which will conclude on 28 January.

The delegation of Bolivia was also made up of Alvaro Moscuso Blanco, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bolivia to the United Nations Office at Geneva, and representatives of the National Senate, Ministry of Housing and Permanent Mission of Bolivia in Geneva.

As one of the 192 States parties to the Convention, Bolivia is obliged to present periodic reports to the Committee on its efforts to comply with the provisions of the treaty. The delegation was on hand throughout the day to present the report and answer questions raised by Committee Experts.

When the Committee reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 26 January, it is scheduled to take up the second periodic report of Nigeria (CRC/C/70/Add.24).

Report of Bolivia

The third periodic report of Bolivia (CRC/C/125/Add.2) says important laws and policies pertaining to children and adolescents were introduced in connection with the education reforms launched between 1993 and 1997 and the reform of the public health system marked by the creation of the Basic Health Insurance scheme offering medical care to children under five years of age. The old Juvenile Code was superceded by the Code for Children and Adolescents, and work continues on the establishment and strengthening of the Local Ombudsman for Children and Youth offices created in 1996. These offices are a free municipal service providing social and legal protection and defence for children and adolescents and their rights.

According to the report, one of the basic principles of the Convention is the recognition of the dignity and worth of the human person as having fundamental and inalienable rights, and the recognition of the right of children and young people to special care. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America with a poverty rate of 59 per cent in 2002. Around 5 million people are poor, out of a total population of some 8.3 million. Of those, some 2.5 million are under 18 and around half a million under 5.

The report notes that rates of infant mortality and child mortality are still high in Bolivia. Child mortality accounts for 50 per cent of total deaths for the population as a whole. Infant mortality rates are also high by comparison to regional rates. Child mortality in Bolivia in 1999 was 79 per thousand live births, whereas the regional average was 39 per thousand. However, Bolivia’s infant mortality rates can be seen to be gradually declining.

Presentation of Report

ELIZABETH PATIÑO DURAN, Vice Minister for Youth and the Elderly of Bolivia, said Bolivia had a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society where the majority of the population was made up of young people. The society was characterized by the fact that 50 per cent of children under 15 years identified themselves according to their ethnicity.

The county had made progress in some areas, Ms. Patiño said. The 1999 code on the rights of the child had clarified the role to be played by each government body. Contrary to the practices of other countries, various Government bodies had responsibilities in the implementation of the rights of the child. There was no separate or exclusive Government body that was responsible for the coordination and implementation of children’s rights.

Ms. Patiño said that 40 per cent of children under 5 years were covered under the maternal insurance scheme which gave them access to health care and other health related privileges. Under the childhood nutritional services programme, 4 per cent of children under 6 years were eligible for such services.

The situation of exclusion from schools had gradually been reduced, particularly for girls, the Vice Minister said. However, in some rural areas, the exclusion of girls was still evident.

In the area of juvenile justice, children between 16 and 18 years old who were deprived of their liberty by courts were detained in adult penitentiaries, Ms. Patiño said, adding that it was a dramatic situation which the Government was working against by revising the code. Children between 13 and 15 in trouble with the law were placed in correctional institutions. Children between 10 and 12 were not prosecuted.

On violence against children, Ms. Patiño said that 90 per cent of children were subjected to violence of one kind or another in the home or in the school. The problem could not be tackled without the collaboration of civil society, which should be involved in preventing such violence. Some children were also subjected to sexual and other physical violence.

About 800,000 children were economically exploited in Bolivia, despite the State party’s ratification of the relevant conventions against child abuse and child labour, the Vice Minister said. The Government had appealed to the International Labour Office to assist it in its efforts in that area.

The Government of Bolivia was working closely with UNICEF against the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the country. Many children, particularly in the rural areas, were affected by such exploitation which the Government rejected. The Government was doing all it could, through legislative reforms and policy implementation, to tackle problems such as sexual exploitation, trafficking in human beings and questionable international adoption.

Questions Raised by Committee Experts

NORBERTO LIWSKI, the Committee Expert who served as country Rapporteur for the report of Bolivia, said Bolivia was the first country in the region that had carried out agrarian reforms in 1952. The population was 49.9 per cent indigenous with urban predominance because of domestic migration.

Mr. Liwski said Bolivia had made progress in many areas, but it had failed to make progress in the social and economic fields. What strategy and activity was designed within the youth policy to build an inter-cultural vision of the Convention?

He said the gross domestic product growth of 4 per cent had further gone down to 2 per cent. The regression in the economic and social areas had greatly and negatively affected the population. Both the GDP and per capita growth had diminished; and the unemployment rate had gone up. The social expenditure for the youth was not sufficiently sustained. At present, 36 per cent of the resources for social expenditure were covered internally while the rest came from the outside. What strategy had the Government adopted to alleviate poverty?

The lack of administrative transparency had caused a lot of damage to the funds allocated to the nutritional programme, Mr. Liwski said. The nutritional programme protected only 62,000 children.

With regard to non-discrimination, he said there were reports of discrimination against indigenous children, children with disabilities and girls. What concrete policy was being adopted to prevent the existing discrimination against those vulnerable groups?

Concerning the right to identity, the Rapporteur said there were 800,000 children without proper names – not registered with two surnames. What measures had been taken in that connection?

MARILIA SARDENBERG, the Committee Expert who also served as country Rapporteur, said Bolivia had enjoyed political stability for many years. What had been the impact of that stability on the rights of the child? She said there should be a change of the attitude according to which children were considered as objects. In addition, legislation and policy should also reflect such change.

Ms. Sardenberg said the allocation of resources to children should reflect political visibility for children, and the policy should not have only an adult-centred vision. She asked about the integration of traditional medicine and knowledge into the mainstream of policy making in health and education.

Other Committee Experts also raised questions pertaining to malnutrition, the function of the Ombudsman, abortion, discrimination against girls and their exclusion from schools, the law on minimum age for marriage, and lack of data, among other things.

Other Experts also queried the delegation on issues pertaining to the dissemination of the provisions of the Convention, children accompanying their imprisoned mothers, the status of children with disabilities, the low rate of vaccination, efforts to improve breastfeeding, the high prevalence of tuberculosis, the situation of HIV/AIDS, the large number of drug addicts, management of child abuse, the situation of migrant children from neighbouring countries, training of judges, school dropouts, the policy on street children and missing children.

An Expert asked if there was a policy to reduce the number of children in care institutions. The Expert said that the current insurance system covered pregnant women and children under 5. Was there any plan to expand the insurance to cover the entire period of childhood? What was being done to stop criminal gangs from exploiting children in the labour market.

Response by Bolivian Delegation

Responding to a number of questions with regard to the prevailing poverty in the country, the delegation said that Bolivia was not a poor country, but it was an impoverished one. The lack of resources and an appropriate strategy had had negative effects against the social and economic development of the country.

Policies designed by people who did not have a good knowledge of the rights of the child, and particularly a policy implemented at the higher hierarchy and centrally from La Pas, were not effective, the delegation said. At present, municipalities were enabled to play a role in protecting and promoting the rights of the child and to implement the State policy on children. Other branches of the Government were also responsible for the implementation of the provisions of the Convention.

The Ombudsman was a moral authority and its local offices were doing important work at the local level, the delegation said. The Ombudsman was also competent to investigate cases of violations and made its recommendations to the higher State echelon.

A strategy was developed in concertation with a number of State institutions to make the views of children heard, the delegation said. Children were allowed to speak out their opinions concerning issues that related to them, contrary to the traditional practice that adults spoke on their behalf. Further steps were also taken, with the adoption of legislation, to improve the participation of children in the protection and promotion of their rights. State institutions were strengthened to play an important role in advancing the rights of the child.

An Expert asked about relationship between the Government and civil society, to which the delegation said that civil society, by virtue of its accumulated knowledge that the Government might not have, played an important role in the promotion and protection of children’s rights. The Government was also open to criticism from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and was willing to cooperate with them.

Teachers and parents alike thought that they had the right to punish their children because of the cultural and social attitude which considered children as objects, the delegation said. Such a practice was also attributed to the adult-centred culture. The new policy had advocated for the rights of children and for rights-centred approach in the implementation of the rights of the child. The aim of the policy was to restore the dignity of the child.

UNICEF had expressed a concern for a number of years that children were not ensured of expressing their views in matters concerning them, the delegation said. The new policy on children had changed that situation and they were heard in custody, adoption and other affairs concerning the child.

The Government was making efforts to implement a comprehensive policy with regard to children, using its scarce resources, the delegation said. However, in some cases, parts of funds aimed at children’s projects were spent for bureaucratic purposes instead of directly relating to the rights of the child.

The number of children accompanying their parents in prisons increased during Christmas time, the delegation said. The children joined their mothers or fathers in prisons to spend the festivity period with them. However, the fact that children remained with their parents in prison had created a safety situation for the children compared to the outside world where, without their parents, they would be exposed to insecurity.

Children between 12 and 16 deprived of their liberty were held in institutions specially organized to accommodate them, the delegation said. The situation was much better than those children between 16 and 18 who were detained in adult facilities, which was the case at present.

The number of adolescents who committed offences was low, the delegation said. If such children were apprehended while committing the crimes, the public might lynch them, and even kill them. The Government was able to prevent such incidents from happening through its laws and practices. Although the number of juvenile judges was less in number, the judges examined few cases relating to juvenile delinquency.

HIV/AIDS was entering the agenda of the Government’s health programme, although it was a marginal issue, the delegation said. There was no policy strategy on the issue, except that the Ministry of Health was identifying information on the issue to design preventive mechanisms. Steps were taken to bring the issue of HIV/AIDS from myth to a challenge.

Asked if the coca leaf growing had an impact on children, the delegation said that children had died when repressive measures were taken against drug traffickers. Some children were involved in the consumption of drugs and other substances, but not cocaine. The Government had taken measures to combat the phenomenon.

Preliminary Remarks

NORBERTO LIWSKI, the Committee Expert who served as country Rapporteur, thanked the members of the Bolivian delegation for the invaluable information they had provided to the Committee and for their intellectual honesty and courage in addressing the problems of Bolivia. The Committee’s concluding observations would reflect the spirit in which the delegation responded to the questions and would aim to strengthen the possibility of further implementation of the Convention. The Committee’s recommendations would also enhance the work undertaken by the Government in the field of constitutional reforms, implementation of programmes and family planning. He hoped that the children of Bolivia would overcome discrimination with the help of the whole society working towards that aim.

MARILIA SARDENBERG, the Committee Expert who also served as country Rapporteur, said that changes were taking place in Bolivia and Bolivian children were in competent hands. The Government should continue to work to bring about a change in attitudes. The delegation had shown that the country could make progress.

Note : For use of information media; not an official record
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