Report IACHR. Case No. 13.080 (Bolivia)

• Case Number: 13.080
• Submitted Date: 17 July 2020
• Case Type: Cases in the Court
• Respondent State: Bolivia
• Alleged Victim: Brisa Liliana de Ángulo Lozada
• Court: Inter-American Comission of Human Rights

REPORT No. 141/19

CASE 13.080

REPORT ON MERITS

BRISA LILIANA DE ANGULO LOZADA

BOLIVIA

OEA/Ser.L/V/II.173

Doc. 156

28 September 2019

Original: Spanish

Approved by the Commission at its session No. 2154 held on September 28, 2019
173 Regular Period of Sessions

Cite as: IACHR, Report No. 141/19. C. 13.080. M.. NAME. Brisa L. De A. Lozada. September 28, 2019.

www.cidh.org

1. INTRODUCTION

1. On January 20, 2012, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter "the Inter-American Commission," "the Commission," or "the IACHR") received a petition presented by the Child and Family Advocacy Clinic of Rutgers University, the International Human Rights Law Clinic of American University, the Oficina Jurídica para la Mujer, and Maria Leonor Oviedo Bellott (hereinafter "the petitioner")1 alleging that the Plurinational S. of Bolivia (hereinafter "the B.S.," "the S.," or "Bolivia") was internationally responsible to the detriment of B.L. De A. Losada (hereinafter "the alleged victim") due to its failure to protect her, investigate, and punish the sexual violence she suffered as a child.

2. The Commission approved the admissibility report number 25/17 on M. 18, 2017.2 On A. 7, 2017, the Commission notified the parties of the report and gave them the time provided for in the Rules of Procedure to submit additional comments on the merits. The Commission made itself available to the parties to help them reach a friendly settlement, but the conditions were not met for launching that process. B. parties submitted comments on the merits, and all the information received was duly transferred between the parties.

2. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES

1. Petitioner:

3. The petitioner alleges that B.L. De A. was the victim of sexual violence as an adolescent and was later re-victimized by the S. when she sought redress and protection, which violated her human rights by (i) not protecting her from the cruel and inhuman sexual violence she suffered as an adolescent, causing harm to her dignity; (ii) maintaining a justice system that treated her cruelly, inhumanly, and without regard for her dignity, while failing to investigate, try, or punish her rapist; and (iii) discriminating against her as an adolescent and a woman.

4. Regarding the facts, the petitioner states that Brisa is a U.S. and Colombian citizen who was living with her family in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. It states that between September 2001 and May 2002, when she was 16 years old, she was sexually assaulted and raped repeatedly by her cousin, E.G.A., a Colombian citizen, who is 10 years older than she is. She said she was also abused and beaten by her attacker, which she originally hid from her family because she was afraid of his threats. The petitioner states that in May 2002, on noticing Brisa’s dramatic physical and psychological decline, her parents took her on a trip to the United S.s, and there they learned about what had happened. After the girl tried to commit suicide, her parents returned with her to Bolivia to report the crime to S. authorities.

5. From that moment on, the alleged victim claims having experienced a process of revictimization at the hands of the police, prosecutors, judges, medical and judicial staff, which she described as skepticism, insensitivity, and abuse. S., the petitioner alleges that Brisa was subjected to two cruel physical examinations, with those in charge of conducting a forensic examination being all men, who acted without any care or consideration despite Brisa crying throughout the procedure. D. the course of the investigations, the girl had to describe what happened to her repeatedly to a prosecutor, who did not take the necessary measures for the interviews to be conducted with the required privacy and without interruption, and the prosecutor frequently tried to blame her for provoking the sexual assault, pressured her to stay quiet and retract her accusation, and threatened to imprison her if it turned out she was lying. The petitioner also alleges she was subjected to multiple psychological evaluations and trials during which she felt like she was the one on trial, not her attacker.

6. It also states that the judicial authorities did not take the necessary measures to hold the attacker in provisional detention, putting at risk the personal integrity of the alleged victim, who was threatened and persecuted, to the point that there were two arson attacks on her house. It adds that after long and multiple criminal processes with no result, the accused fled to Colombia, from where he continues to threaten the alleged victim through phone calls. L., it alleges an irrational and unjustified delay by the justice system and an ineffective and chaotic legal proceeding, in the framework of which the attacker still has not been criminally convicted. After two full trials were annulled, the third has not been able to take place because the accused took advantage of the repeated overturning of the judgments to flee to Colombia. It states that the B. government has done little to recapture the attacker after he fled the country; the C. and the police have taken no measures to ensure that the third trial moves forward.

7. L., it states that Brisa’s story is not an isolated case, but rather a part of the context of sexual violence suffered by women and girls in Bolivia, a country with the highest rates of sexual violence in Latin America and in which 70% of women have been victims of sexual violence, with a third of all girls suffering some form of sexual violence before turning 18. It alleges that the revictimization by the B. judicial system, to which Brisa was a victim, is also not an isolated incident, as this is how victims of sexual violence in Bolivia are commonly treated. V. few reports of sexual violence move forward: 77% of the cases reported are lost or abandoned between the filing of a report with the Family Protection Brigade and its registration before the judiciary; only 11.04% of those cases receive a response from the courts, the vast majority through family courts; only a tiny percentage, 0.04%, are criminally prosecuted.

8. The petitioner also argues that Brisa's case made considerable progress only because of private efforts and pressure that Brisa's parents brought to bear on the authorities, and that otherwise, the case would have been dropped at an early stage. A., the accused acted within an environment of impunity that the B. justice system has created for those guilty of sexual violence against teens. A. it should be noted that a series of laws have been passed in Bolivia to protect women, girls, and adolescents from violence—including the Code on Children and Adolescents (Law 548) and Law 348 on the protection of women, which mark an important development in Bolivia's efforts to eradicate sexual violence against children and women—the country still lacks the capacity to guarantee that protection. It also states that in order to protect the best interest of children, the estupro law—which establishes less penalties for abusers who violate children between the ages of 14 and 18—must be repealed, adding that "the B. authorities assume that adolescent victims consent to their rapes, giving the rapists a way of avoiding appropriate punishment."

9. T., the petitioner alleges that Bolivia is responsible for violating the girl’s right to special protection, the right to not suffer sexual and gender-based violence, the right to dignity, the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, the right to equal protection under the law, and the right to judicial protection from the S., all set forth in articles 5(1), 5(2), 8, 11, 19, 24, and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter "the Convention" or "the American Convention”); articles 7 and 9 of the Convention of Belém do Pará; and other international instruments. It also argues that pursuant to articles 1.1 and 2 of the Convention, a S.P. that tolerates the violation of rights protected under the Convention is responsible for the actions of the citizens who violate those rights. It notes that Bolivia has a long history of accepting sexual and gender-based violence against teen girls and not preventing it or punishing those responsible, thus permitting them to continue victimizing girls with impunity. T., the petitioner asked the Commission to intervene to remedy Bolivia's acts and omissions,...