wr2014_web_0

AMERICASKey International ActorsBolivia supported a campaign by Ecuador to undermine the independence ofthe Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and limit the funding andeffectiveness of its special rapporteurship on freedom of expression. While theywere unable to win support for this effort at the March 2013 meeting of theOrganization of American States General Assembly, both governments, as wellas other members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), madeclear their intent to press for these changes in the future.In June 2013, the Committee against Torture (CAT) urged Bolivia to adopt legislationestablishing torture as a crime in its own right as defined in theConvention Against Torture and expressed concern at delays in investigationsinto allegations of torture.In October 2013, in a draft version of its concluding observations on Bolivia’sthird periodic report, the UN Human Rights Committee urged Bolivia to implementalternatives to preventive detention and to strictly limit its duration, andto eliminate the requirement of prior judicial authorization for therapeutic abortionand abortion in cases of rape and incest, among other recommendations.In April 2013, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers expressed concern at persistentdiscrimination against migrant workers and refugees in Bolivia and theabsence of any record of compensation paid to migrant workers whose rightshad been violated.Also in April, Bolivia became the second International Labour Organizationmember state in Latin America to ratify the Domestic Workers Convention,which provides critical protections for millions of domestic workers—mostlywomen and girls—who perform essential household work in other persons’homes.215