Country Report: Bolivia September 2026
By Renata Lampert
Bolivia faces a continuing state of socio-political crises characterized by systemic impunity, institutional fragility, and escalating systemic violence targeting vulnerable populations. The elections of 2019 triggered the acceralation of the Bolivian socio-political collapse. President Evo Morales resigned after an Organization of American States (OAS) audit reported irregularities in his election. Jeanine Áñes led the interim government and presided over a sharp escalation in violence carried out by state security forces against civilian populations.
In November 2019, state forces deployed lethal violence to suppress mass protests from Indigenous and pro-Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism) protestors in Senkata (El Alto) and Sacaba (Cochabamba), killing at least 22 civilians and injuring over 230. Following the massacre, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI-Bolivia), established under the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR), investigated and classified the military and police operations in Senkata and Sacaba as massacres involving extrajudicial executions, torture, and severe illegal detentions. Despite the findings by the GIEI-Bolivia and the government’s transition back to democratically-elected President Luis Arce, the Bolivian judicial system remains deeply politicized and ineffective. The perpetrators of the Senkata and Sacaba massacre were not held accountable due to systematic delays, corruption, and judicialization of politics, perpetuating the culture of impunity.
Systematic violence and institutional fragility continue to threaten Bolivia’s key targeted demographics. Lowland Indigenous peoples face existential threats arising from state omission and unregulated and unsustainable extraction. Indigenous groups in the Bolivian Amazon, such as Chiquitano, Ayoreo, Tacana, and Ese Ejja, are persistently affected by land encroachments, illegal logging, and agricultural frontier expansion that bypass constitutional land guarantees (Territorios Indígenas Originarios Campesinos-TIOCs) and the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). Unregulated alluvial gold mining along major river systems, such as the Beni and Madre de Dios basins, has resulted in a catastrophic bioaccumulation of toxic mercury. Studies reveal that almost 90% of individuals who were tested in riparian communities register mercury levels far exceeding World Health Organization safer thresholds. High concentrations are known to cause severe neurological impairment, birth defects, and cognitive deficits in children. State failure to regulate gold cooperatives and enforce environmental protections directly threatens the physical continuity and food security of riverine populations reliant on local ecosystems.
Women and children face widespread gender-based violence (GBV). According to the Bolivian Public Prosecutor’s Office, the state records over 40,000 complaints of GBV annually, under Law 348. Bolivia has one of the highest rates of femicide in South America. Systemic procedural bottlenecks, underfunded investigative bodies, police corruption, and judicial delays perpetuate impunity and leave most criminal complaints unresolved while forcing victims to navigate a hostile, ineffective, and highly-institutionalized legal apparatus.
Human rights defenders, land rights activists, and journalists operate in a hostile environment, characterized by physical violence, intimidation, and judicial instrumentalization. Community leaders and environmental land defenders face routine death threats, physical assaults, and arbitrary criminalization when they resist illegal mining, deforestation, or arbitrary land seizures. Bolivia has ratified but failed to implement the 2019 Escazú Agreement, which binds states to protect environmental defenders, public access to environmental information, and participation in environmental decision-making. Media workers covering political corruption, extractive conflicts, and regional blockades are subject to verbal harassment, equipment destruction, and physical violence from state security forces and organized civilian groups. Without protective state frameworks, the selective prosecution of civil society actors leaves rights defenders acutely vulnerable.
Genocide Watch identifies overlapping risk factors in Bolivia for Stage 3: Discrimination, evident in the systematic circumvention of TIOCs and FPIC, alongside state of failure to prevent environmental destruction and toxic mercury exposure, and Stage 6: Polarization characterized by entrenched political divides, judicial instrumentalization, and escalating harassment of civil society and independent media workers.
Genocide Watch recommends:
Bolivia should create and enforce strict laws to regulate gold mining cooperatives and suspend operations utilizing mercury until health standards and environmental protections are fully met, fulfilling the court ruling in favor of CPILAP.
Bolivia should enact oversight bodies to enforce FPIC across all TIOCs prior to authorizing extractive projects.
Bolivia must implement GIEI-Bolivia recommendations by prosecuting officials responsible for the Senkata and Sacaba massacres.
Bolivia should create specialized units within the Public Prosecutor’s Office to enforce Law 348, training more female investigators, prosecutors and judges to guarantee that victims and families can seek justice.
Bolivia should introduce legally binding deadlines to ensure that complaints of GBV are addressed promptly.
Bolivia should operationalize the Escazú Agreement by fully funding physical protection protocols for environmental and human rights defenders.
