Photos: Marie-Eve Monette and Archivo Página Siete 

Fighting against a broken system 

On the 25th of November every year since 1981, Bolivia participates in the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In recent years, Bolivia has progressed towards achieving gender parity in many respects. In the realm of politics, UN Women praised how Bolivian women occupied just over 50 percent of the country’s parliamentary seats in 2018, representing the third-highest percentage across the globe. More generally, the ratification of Law 348 in 2013 promised to protect women from the threat of violence. 

However, despite an array of social policies, legislative actions and the inclusion of female voices in politics, the national statistics of gender-related violence remain critically high. Fabiola Alvelais, author of ‘No Justice for Me’: Femicide and Impunity in Bolivia, claims that ‘Bolivia has one of the highest rates of gender-related violence in all of Latin America.’ While citizens are starting to see improvements in gender equality in politics and the workplace, the home remains one of the most dangerous spaces for Bolivian women.

The Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Clinic estimates that seven in ten Bolivian women suffer from some form of physical violence, and that in the majority of these acts the perpetrator is a romantic partner or a man living under the same roof as the victim. Alvelais explains that for women who seek legislative justice for gender-based discrimination and abuse, the success rate is extremely slim. Abusers are rarely prosecuted, and Alvelais estimates that only 4.7 percent of reports of violence against women are brought to Bolivian courts. Furthermore, even when brought to trial, the cases are economically and psychologically taxing, and can be up to 15 to 20 years before a verdict is reached. These statistics of course do not consider any unreported incidents or cases of psychological, sexual or economic abuse.

Bolivian feminist organisations – including Aquelarre Subversiva, Mujeres Creando, Warmis en Resistencia, Feminismo Comunitario Abya Yala, Ni Una Menos and many others – have brought attention to and demonstrated against gender-based violence for many years. Several of these organisations have created important spaces for epistemological exchanges among women of all ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, races, religions, sexualities and genders. As many participants of these movements are indigenous women themselves, they understand the complexity of feminism in Bolivia and recognise its inherent intersectionality. Deconstructing social, political and culturally ingrained systems in Bolivian society such as the patriarchy and machismo, as well as combatting the injustices behind the racial and class hierarchies, are included in regional and national feminist agendas. Many of these movements have a powerful online presence. Their Facebook pages and websites are often interactive safe spaces where women can share their stories and discuss the changes they would like to see in Bolivia. Many also use art as a tool to incite discussion and societal transformation, ranging from performance and street to written and (audio-)visual arts.

Bolivian feminist organisations have brought attention to and demonstrated against gender-based violence for many years.

Both men and women are also calling upon the arts to denounce gender-based violence in Bolivia. Since film has been and will continue to be a tool for protesting against injustice and demanding societal changes, Bolivian filmmaker Italo B. Velez decided to stand in solidarity with Bolivian women and write the script for Antes de que nos olviden (Before We Are Forgotten), a medium-length film that will be produced with the support of the internationally acclaimed Fundación Grupo Ukamau – an organisation initiated by the Grupo Ukamau cinema collective – and director Jorge Sanjinés in the hopes of opening spaces for dialogue and reflection about feminicide and the delay of justice in Bolivia.

Antes de que nos olviden tells the story of two sisters, Maurin and Luisa, who after the murder of their mother are forced to live with their uncle, Vicente. Due to their precarious economic situation, Maurin has to work daily at a market in La Paz. Vicente takes advantage of her absence to sexually abuse Luisa, who, unable to bear the assaults any longer, takes her own life. When Maurin learns the reason behind Luisa’s death by suicide, she presses charges against her uncle. However, despite Vicente’s guilt and Maurin’s best efforts, the corrupt justice system ensures that the trial lasts for more than 15 years. Maurin, gravely affected by the turbulent trial that lasts for so long, may have to make a heavy and difficult decision.

Although Antes de que nos olviden is a fiction film, it unfortunately reflects the sad reality too many Bolivian women still have to face and survive on a daily basis. By November 20th, 2019, the number of women victims of femicides in Bolivia had already reached 103. According to the Observatorio de Género–Coordinadora de la Mujer, a Bolivian digital platform that shares information about women’s rights and the abuses of these rights, 13 women were victims of sexual violence daily in 2018. Maurin and Luisa’s story may be fictional, but it seeks to reflect this reality and spark dialogue about what is required to put an end to gender-based violence in Bolivia.

While Bolivian women have become increasingly empowered over recent decades, respect for women’s rights should be a cause common to both women and men, and men should support the ways in which women are building their autonomy, requesting that their rights be respected and demanding justice. For Italo B. Velez, men need to actively participate in this dialogue, in the destruction of prejudices and the eradication of patriarchal structures and models. To this end, the Antes de que nos olviden team has joined forces with the organisations Feminismo Comunitario Abya Yala – a Bolivian collective that believes in intersectionality, fights for decolonisation and challenges the patriarchy while promoting the Bolivian-Andean ‘Good Living’ way of life that pursues harmony and balance in all things – and the aforementioned Observatorio de Género. As a result, the film Antes de que nos olviden will be used, after its release, as a starting point for community dialogues organised together with these organisations.

The Antes de que nos olviden team is currently raising awareness about about their film, designing their first crowdfunding campaign (due to launch in 2020) and applying for filmmaking grants from Latin America, Europe and the United States. In order to share information about gender-based violence in Bolivia, and to build a community dedicated to eradicating this violence through film, they have created a Facebook page (@AntesdequenosolvidenBolivia) and designed a trilingual site for the film (www.antesdequenosolviden.com), both of which they invite you to visit.

Photo: Gonzalo Laserna −BX Collaborator

Cover Issue #85

CONTRADICTIONS

Bolivia is a paradox. It’s one of the richestlands in South America (with vast depositsof lithium, silver, tin, natural gas and more),and it’s also one of the continent’s poorestnations, with extreme income inequality. Dueto Bolivia’s varied climate and topography – from the arid altiplano to the dense rainforests of the Amazon and thedry forests of the Chaco – its plant and animal diversityis unmatched. But for the Bolivian people, these natural resources have turned out to be both a blessing and acurse.

This curse materialised with the 16th-century arrival of the Spaniards, who tried to homogenise and dilute the diversityof indigenous identities in order to exploit these resources.This continued until recently as the criolla upper classreinvented Bolivian identity upon the central notion ofbeing mestizo, and indigenous people were thwartedunder the assimilatory and reductive term of campesino. 

Since 2006 and the election of the current president, Evo Morales (the first indigenous president in the history of Bolivia), the country has had to grapple with thesecontradictions which have been defining it for hundredsof years: How to respect and value the diversity of ethnic particularities while at the same time uniting a nation around common ideas and values such as vivir bien? How to protect nature and culture and yet still exploit naturalresources whilst addressing environmental concerns andprotecting people’s rights? And how to build a unifying Bolivian national identity?

This issue of Bolivian Express deals with these weighty contradictions but also with the smaller concerns that surround us and are part of our everyday life: thealtiplano weather where one wears short sleeves at 4pm and a winter coat by 7pm, the eco-trucks carting away garbage whilst spewing dark gasoline emissions, the grumpy caserita who begrudgingly does you a favour byselling you a chocolate bar and the thousands of otheridiosyncrasies which make Bolivia the place we know andlove – but don’t always quite understand.But there are also a few less obvious contradictions thatare much more problematic and paint a darker Bolivia.Prisons here are places where children sometimes live,exiting and entering freely while their parents stay lockedinside. Despite achieving gender parity in the highestinstitutional offices and ranking second in the world infemale representation in government, Bolivia still hashigh rates of domestic violence, femicides and sexualharassment. Ultimately, to answer these questions and move past itsentangled history, Bolivia will have to base its future onlived and shared experiences; on its unique tapestry ofparticularities, specificities and richness; and on newlyforged paths that allow modernity and indigeneity tomove forward together, whilst the coountry navigates thecontradictions of its own identity.

Editorial Issue #85, by CAROLINE RISACHER

Read more here: http://www.bolivianexpress.org/magazines/85

Photos: Courtesy of International Space Education Institute and Alvaro Flores

Bolivians demonstrate their talent at international NASA competition 

In 2017, NASA, the US space agency, stated its aim to put ‘the first woman and the next man’ on the Moon by 2024. This would be the first time in 52 years a person would leave their boot print on the Moon. That programme is named Artemis after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, a nod to the previous lunar exploration programme that landed the first man on the Moon. The mission is seen as a stepping stone to inhabiting Mars one day.

But the challenges ahead are tough and plentiful. To inspire students to think about and work on these obstacles, each year NASA hosts a competition called the Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The challenge asks students to design and build a human-powered rover, or ‘moon buggy’, capable of traversing a simulated extraterrestrial surface. Teams are required to carry out tasks like those faced by astronauts on previous lunar missions, within a time limit that simulates the limited oxygen supplies that astronauts have on the Moon. This year four Bolivian teams entered. Additionally, three young Bolivian women were part of an international team from the International Space Education Institute in Leipzig, Germany. One hundred teams took part in the competition, with a record number of entries from countries outside the United States, totaling 11 in all. 

Alina Santander, Valeria Burgoa and Cristina Santander were part of the international team that went on to win the top prize in the high-school division. Alina Santander and Burgoa helped build the moon rover, while Cristina Santander worked on telemetry. Even today, the physical sciences are dominated by men; in this regard, these young women from Bolivia are showing the rest of the world how its done. ‘I can weld, I can cut metal, I can do all this stereotypically manly stuff,’ said Alina Santander. One of her personal goals is to get more women interested in science by delivering talks on the subject and teaching about its relevance. By the age of 18, she had already given two TED Talks encouraging people to engage with science. After participating with the International team from Germany in 2017, she decided it was time for Bolivia to be represented in the competition. She collaborated for a year with the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz to achieve one of Bolivia’s first-ever entries into the competition in 2018. That year, another team entered from Santa Cruz.

                                                                                        Photo: Alvaro Flores

Economic hardship is a problem commonly faced with science projects in Bolivia. But ‘[Bolivians] can use our creativity to make the same things with a smaller budget,’ said Alina Santander. To make the best of their limited finances, the team from Viacha (a small city just southwest of La Paz) innovated in every way possible. Their novel rover design caught the attention of other participants and NASA engineers attending the event. ‘They had never seen anything like it,’ explained the team’s mentor, Alvaro Flores. And even though they took part in the high-school category, where participants can be as old as 18, team members were between the ages of 12 and 15. The rover’s wheels were ‘inspired by the Eygptian pyramids’ and made from rubber rather than steel, allowing the rover to move smoothly over rough terrain. Over the years, Flores has collected hardware and built a laboratory in his home where his team went to build their rover and prepare for the competition. He is also looking to inspire the next generation of Bolivian scientists. 

After the competition, NASA official Bob Musgrove spoke of how ‘the creativity, skill and resourcefulness demonstrated each year on the rover course are the very traits that paved our path to the Moon in 1969.’ With such talent, perhaps it will be an astronaut with a Bolivian flag attached to their spacesuit among the first to leave a boot print on Mars.