CAPTIVE COMMUNITIES:  SITUATION OF THE GUARANÍ INDIGENOUS PEOPLE AND CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY IN THE BOLIVIAN CHACO
 

IV.              THE GUARANÍ PEOPLE AND THE SITUATION OF THE CAPTIVE COMMUNITIES IN THE BOLIVIAN CHACO

A.                 The Guaraní indigenous people and the Chaco region of Bolivia

81.              The Guaraní indigenous people, according to the national census of 2001, is made up of a population of 81,011 persons 15 years and older, 71.7% of whom reside in the department of Santa Cruz, 10.8% in Chuquisaca, 8.4% in Tarija,^[99] and the rest in various departments of Bolivia. Most of the Guaraní are found in 16 municipalities of the provinces of Hernando Siles and Luis Calvo in the department of Chuquisaca, the provinces of Gran Chaco and O´Connor in the department of Tarija, and the province of Cordillera in the department of Santa Cruz, which constitute the region known as the Bolivian Chaco, which borders on Argentina and Paraguay. Of all the Guaraní, 56% reside in urban areas and 44% in rural areas. The Guaraní who reside in urban areas are engaged in activities related to the services sector, mainly commerce, whereas those who reside in rural areas are mainly peasant farmers (campesinos) or workers on agricultural estates.

82.              There are 320 Guaraní communities in the Bolivian Chaco that are organized traditionally in Capitanías, which constitute the political structure that represents the interests of the community members. These communities are known as “free communities” in the sense that they are not tied to a certain geographic location since they permanently move among various regions for different reasons, whether due to ecological changes or pressures from estate owners that lead them to exit a given territory. This mobility has been a cultural characteristic of Guaraní families and communities along with other factors such as the merging and fragmentation of groups of Guaraní, the collective and individual movements and the resettlements, as a result of which one can observe that within the Guaraní people there is a continuing process of recomposition.^[100] A total of 25 Capitanías have been counted in the Bolivian Chaco.^[101] The maximum authority is the Mburuvisa Guasu (Great Captain), who has a group of advisers, and each community has a Mburuvisa (captain), who is assisted by a set of councils and advisers.^[102]

83.              The Assembly of the Guaraní People (APG: Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní),^[103] created in 1987, is the main representative organization of the Guaraní people and is affiliated with the Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (CIDOB). The APG and other organizations began a process of territorial reconstitution of the Guaraní “nation” in order to recover their ancestral lands and to be able to develop in keeping with their own view of development, health, and education.^[104]

84.              Economic activity in the Chaco consists mainly of farming and ranching.^[105] The Guaraní in the Chaco are engaged mainly in raising corn, beans, cassava, plantain, and citrus fruits, and if allowed by the ranchers they can do some hunting and fishing.^[106]  Subsistence agriculture prevails in the indigenous and peasant sector, yet this becomes difficult, as with the Guaraní of the province of Cordillera, where the land available is less than one arable hectare per inhabitant.^[107] As for the captive communities, a miniscule plot of arable land that the estate owner assigns as he pleases may correspond to each family; usually these are the poorest quality lands.^[108]

85.              It should be noted that in the Chaco region there has been an upswing in economic activity related to the production of hydrocarbons, since it is the region that has the largest hydrocarbon reserves in Bolivia. Tarija has the largest national reserves, 85.7% and 84.4% of natural gas and crude oil, respectively; Santa Cruz has 10.6% of the natural gas and 7.2% of the oil; and Chuquisaca has eight exploration areas, and its reserves are equivalent to 1.3% of Bolivia’s natural gas and 0.7% of the oil in the country.^[109] These reserves are of special interest for the groups that hold political and economic power in the region, and are a motive of conflict in the region.

86.              The Chaco is a region marked by great socioeconomic inequalities, where the extreme poverty affecting the indigenous peoples and the rural population generally is apparent. The poverty rate in the region is 76.48%, according to the 2001 census data. Nonetheless, in rural municipalities such as Huacaya, the percentage of the population affected by poverty is 97.8%, in contrast with the records of cities such as Camiri or Yacuiba, where the poverty rates are 31.2% and 48.7%, respectively.^[110]

87.              The Guaraní people were able to resist Spanish colonization, and it was not until the republican era, and in particular after the battle of Kuruyuki in 1892,^[111] that the Guaraní began to be dispossessed of their ancestral territories. It was precisely at the end of the 19^th century that large latifundia were established in the Bolivian Chaco with the forced insertion of Guaraní families and communities as laborers on these estates in conditions of semi-slavery.^[112] Throughout the 20^th century, the Bolivian State encouraged this system of domination as it granted large expanses of lands in the Chaco to families associated with the regional political elites.^[113] As a result of these actions, there is a model of latifundium characterized by a high concentration of land, scant investment in animal husbandry and farming technologies, the priority use of a non-remunerated labor force, and the paternalistic relationship between estate owners and laborers.^[114]

88.              The agrarian reform of the 1950s did not bring the same benefits to the Guaraní people in the Chaco as to the indigenous peoples in the Andean region of Bolivia. In effect, that reform, in some respects, strengthened the economic and political power of the estate owners of the Chaco, who had strong ties to the government parties.^[115] The dictatorial governments gave free title to those estate owners who had ties with them in the 1970s, contributing to the consolidation of latifundia in the region. Accordingly, the latifundium model continued to exist in the Chaco along with the use of forced Guaraní labor.^[116] 

89.              The Guaraní were forced to submit to the conditions imposed on them because they had no access to their own territory affording the possibility of providing for their own sustenance. This situation facilitated the exercise of control by the estate owners over the Guaraní laborers, resulting in a situation of total dependence and discriminatory treatment.^[117] It should be noted that such labor dependence, while maintained in essence, has taken different forms over time. In particular, in response to different crises in agriculture, many Guaraní had to abandon the estates and continued working on a temporary basis or receiving merchandise as payment.^[118]

90.              At present, it is estimated that approximately 600 families of the Guaraní indigenous people are still living in conditions of captivity and forced labor on the various estates of the Chaco.^[119] The State refers to this situation as relations of “servidumbre, servidumbrales o empatronamiento”^[120] (bondage, servitude, or debt bondage) and to the persons affected as familias “hacendadas.”^[121] These families or "captive communities," as they are also known, have lost their land and their association with the other communities, thereby losing their own forms of social, economic, and cultural organization, which has resulted in the destructuring of their identity. Those families are on estates located in the municipalities of Huacareta and Muyupampa in the department of Chuquisaca, as well as in the jurisdiction that corresponds to the Capitanía of the Alto Parapetí, in the municipalities of Cuevo and Lagunillas, department of Santa Cruz, as well as in the provinces of Gran Chaco and O’Connor in Tarija.^[122]

91.              According to a study, there are different models of estates in the Chaco. Some rely exclusively on Guaraní labor in conditions of servitude, others combine the use of servitude with the labor of seasonal laborers, and still others use only a salaried work force.^[123]

92.              In the last 20 years several Guaraní communities have been reestablished and taken shape that are considered free because they are not on lands of private estates. Nonetheless, many of their members have to go back to work as laborers on the estates, to be able to survive in the face of the scant production on the small plots known as “chacos,” where the corn is barely enough to eat poorly for half the year.^[124]

93.              In addition, the IACHR was able to verify the existence of Guaraní communities such as Itacuatía in Alto Parapetí that have settled on an estate but are made up of Guaraní who left other estates or were expelled by the employers. Those communities operate as a territory in a given area on the estate, in some cases awaiting recognition by the State.

B.        Working and living conditions of the captive communities

94.              In the Chaco region, one observes that the captive communities live in conditions characterized, in general terms, by the excessive physical labor to which their members are subjected; they are Guaraní indigenous persons of all ages and conditions, including boys, girls, adolescents, older adults, and persons with disabilities. They live under the threat of corporal punishment and frequently must work to satisfy debts that the estate owners force them to contract in an irregular and fraudulent fashion. This situation results in relations of vertical domination, in some cases paternalistic, in which the Guaraní workers exist subject to the will of the boss.

95.              The number of workers varies with the size of the estates and their forms of production. A report by the ILO notes that on large cattle ranches, such as Chiriguanía-Chuquisaqueña, which extends over more than 2,500 hectares, approximately 100 Guaraní families work, and in some extreme cases 300 families, while in the provinces of the Cordillera in Santa Cruz, the figure is less than 30, and there are even some estates on which one finds only two or three families.^[125]

96.              The type of work done is defined by roles historically assigned to women and men based on gender stereotypes. The women mainly do kitchen work and must take food to the men at work, generally walking several kilometers. They also perform other work such as shelling peanuts, combing wool, cleaning the estates, caring for the small livestock, and laundering clothes.^[126] The men on the estates are engaged in farming, animal husbandry, or caring for the boss’s cattle.^[127] 

97.              The work days are generally more than 12 hours a day, and in many cases they are assigned to perform a specific task that must be finished that same work day, which is normally impossible.^[128] A Guaraní man in the community of Itacuatía narrated the following: “When I was a boy, I got up to work at 3 in the morning, because before that was the time the bell tolled to go to work at that hour.”^[129] According to a Guaraní woman who was subjected to these conditions, they had to work from 6 in the morning until nightfall, even when they were ill, and were always paid two bolivianos for their work.^[130] Testimony by other persons confirmed that the payment they received was practically negligible or they received no payment at all, and the treatment they received was degrading:

The work that we are doing, at times they don’t pay us for it, or they don’t pay us well, and they treat us like animals. They tell us that we are animals but they give the animals 5 hectares per head of cattle…. There are laws for the cows, but there are no laws for us.^[131]

98.              The Guaraní are allowed to work a small plot of land on the estate, on which they can plant crops or keep very few smaller animals. According to the testimony received, this plot is usually arid and hardly fertile. After completing the work day established for them by the boss, the Guaraní continue working on small plots so as to eke out a minimal subsistence based on what they are able to grow.

99.              The Guaraní in bondage are subjected to the limited exercise of their political rights, scant integration with the regional economy, and physical violence.^[132] The Guaraní families do not have access to formal education outside of the relations of bondage, and run the risk of gradually losing their traditions such as their own forms of economic reproduction and their own cultural elements. They live under constant threat, which forces them to continue working on the boss’s estate, as evidenced in the following account in which the Guaraní workers were even afraid to speak with the IACHR:

Those of us brothers and sisters who are here are afraid to speak before this Commission and tell the truth, we have to speak always what we are feeling….  For years we have suffered due to the work, in the early morning, in the afternoon, sometimes at night. We don’t know what Sunday is….  They don’t even allow us to have a party….  I know very well from what year I went to work as a laborer on the estate, I began when I was seven years old … to feed the pigs, and then there wasn’t a single day of rest. When I would not leave my house early to go to work I was lashed, for that reason I am afraid to speak, now I am going to tell the truth so this Commission finds out the truth. We do not have liberty, we do not have justice, we cannot produce like these owners produce. A while ago I showed you, all the good lands have been fenced in – and we have been removed to a piece of land that is not fertile, that’s why I have come to speak.^[133]

100.          What the Guaraní are given in exchange for the work they perform on the estates is in kind and/or minimal sums of money, which range from 10 to 15 bolivianos for men and less than half that for women. This remuneration, in addition to repudiating applicable labor laws and being perceived as a consequence of the long work days, in no way covers the workers’ basic subsistence needs. The estate owner is the provider of food, clothing, medicines, coca leaf, and even alcohol at prices that are excessively higher than the market price. As a result of the insufficient remuneration, a situation is created of permanent and successive indebtedness to the estate owners. A Guaraní woman explained to the IACHR that she began to work for an estate owner when she was 15 years old, and her sole payment was in the form of clothes:

… at that time I don’t know if he paid me or not. At that time he simply gave me…. Once a year, he would give us clothes and … we never knew money or coin. At that time … we hadn’t even seen the face of bills or coins.^[134]

101.          The situation of indebtedness is generated by the registry the bosses have of their workers in a notebook in which they note their name, the activities they perform, the advances given in kind or in cash in payment for the work done. This notebook is the only document for making the “arrangements” that are made, and in almost all cases the workers end up owing the boss. This generates obligations of future work, a situation that may become lifelong and that may even be passed down from one generation to the next.  For that reason, many Guaraní recount that they were born on that estate where they now have children and grandchildren, constituting a small community. There have even been cases in which the owners and bosses of estates transfer personnel with debts, deciding on persons’ liberty. Thus, the buyer pays the debt to the previous owner and the workers continue to owe it to the new one.^[135] The same Guaraní woman mentioned above recounts:

I am from the community of Itacuatía. I was born there, I have always lived there. My father was from Villa Mercedes… in my youth, I also worked with my grandparents for the boss – then they brought me.… I have always worked, I have worked since I was 15 years old, but with different bosses…. I have worked many years as a slave….^[136]

102.          In other testimony taken by the IACHR, a Guaraní man recounted that when he worked for an estate owner “he [the boss] told me, your father was here and he buried my father, and he told me you’ll stay here until you bury me. And so it was, when the boss died recently, that I was able to leave the estate.”^[137] Another Guaraní man explained to the IACHR: “For us it is modern slavery, because there is a historic debt … the children cannot go because they have to pay [the] account left by the mother or father…. The families that are on [the estates] have no right to leave freely to seek work elsewhere. And if a Guaraní insists on going to work on another estate, this boss generally sells him to a neighbor.”^[138]

103.          The situation of bondage and forced labor is maintained by the conditions of poverty and scant education in which the majority of the members of the Guaraní people live in the region, as a result of the living and working conditions imposed by the estate owners. In the rural Chaco more than 90% of the population is living in poverty in most of the Guaraní communities. Over 55% of the Guaraní are illiterate; of these, 60% are women and 40% men; and of the Guaraní who live on estates, nearly 80% are illiterate, 70% of them women and 30% men.^[139] Infant mortality in the provinces with Guaraní population is alarming: Santa Cruz, 78 per 1,000 live births; Chuquisaca, 98 per 1,000; and Tarija, 74 per 1,000.^[140]

104.          On creating and maintaining this situation of poverty and illiteracy, the estate owners establish the working conditions: hours of work, pay for day worked, form of payment for debts acquired, the frequency of the arrangements, how advances are administered, and the type of work to be done, among others.^[141] The following testimony is from a man interviewed by the IACHR during its working visit who explained: “There is no education from birth. Therefore many of us are illiterate, that’s why we continue to sign with our thumb. We want to protest, there is nowhere to turn, and they treat us like animals, that’s why we’re living here.”^[142]

105.          The Guaraní families in this situation live in absolute misery and their living conditions are precarious and infrahuman. They generally live in huts whose conditions are insalubrious and generally inadequate for a dignified life. These huts are located in marginal areas of the estates and where the land is not productive. The huts have a single room in an area no greater than 20 m² that includes a sort of bed on which all the members of a family sleep. Their belongings are in the open air, and the kitchen is made up of stones set on the ground that hold the receptacles.^[143]

106.          During its visits in 2006 and 2008, the Commission learned of and even received testimony related to events involving the physical abuse of Guaraní by "huasqueadas" (lashings), burning of their crops, and killing of their animals as punishment for “disobedience.” In the words of a Guaraní man in Itacuatía, “they deal with us with sticks and whips … they have always known how to whip him, they abused him. These acts of violence have always existed.”^[144]

107.          The estate owners with whom the IACHR met denied the present-day existence of a relationship of servitude with the Guaraní families on their estates. Some alleged that there was servitude in the past, but that at present the situation is in line with the law. In this regard, the prosecutor (Fiscal de Materia) assigned to the province of Cordillera told the IACHR:

In the wake of this problem they [the estate owners] are legalizing the labor contract. In these cases the contract was oral, and in the wake of this problem they are drawing up written contracts and left it that they were going to get them to me. For one of the conditions for losing one’s property is not having a regular labor situation, so they’re rushing to regularize now.^[145]

108.          The estate owners argue that the labor relationship does not constitute servitude because they pay in kind, such as food, clothes, and services. In addition, the IACHR received information from estate owners who indicated that there is a collaborative relationship between them and the Guaraní families in the context of economic difficulties that are affecting the whole country, especially the Chaco region. For example, the president of the Asociación de Ganaderos y de Hacendados del Alto Parapetí (Association of Ranchers and Estate Owners of the Alto Parapetí) told the IACHR:

The government is not reaching all sectors as it should. The ranching sector, the productive sector, tries to live and is living with its poverty. We are not saying that the Guaraní are slaves. But there is a symbiotic relationship between work and survival. We continue drinking water from the area where the animals go and defecate, that is where we ranchers draw water, and the Guaraní as well. The abandonment of the State affects us all, us ranchers as well as the Guaraní.”^[146]

109.          Based on these perspectives, the estate owners do not perceive the situation as a regime prohibited by the Constitution, but as a labor relationship with obligations performed and agreements between parties that are periodically cancelled and renewed.^[147]

110.          The Guaraní are stereotyped as “lazy” people who “don’t have any initiative for anything” and that one must "goad" them to get them to work.^[148] According to the account by a Guaraní man from the community of Itacuatía:

[the bosses] say that there is no slavery, they want to see us tied up … with the horse ahead taking us … that is what their fathers knew how to do before, but now the children say that no…. It’s a lie that they [too] live [and] work as we do…. A lie that people work only eight hours and that they pay 25 pesos, that’s just what they say [eso es solo nombre].^[149]

111.          The IACHR has also been informed that the estate owners have used their position of power to attempt to diminish the work that members of the Guaraní people have been doing to end the situation of servitude that affects them. According to the information received, this has been evidenced in offers of lands and money by estate owners and members of regional civic committees to the Guaraní who agree to abandon the Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní (APG) and to create parallel organizations.^[150]  According to testimony received by the IACHR from community members from Itacuatía: “The powerful ones came from Santa Cruz … they came as if we were hens, provoking divisions in the community.”^[151]  As explained in another testimony, “The Comité Cívico de Santa Cruz has organized a secretariat of indigenous peoples, and so they are no longer from the CIDOB [Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia], [other Guaraní] are going to that committee.”^[152] Such measures are taken by the estate owners with a view to undermining any type of independent organization of the Guaraní. In another testimony received by the IACHR in Itacuatía, a Guaraní said: “We had a mobilization on February 28, the organization arrived from Santa Cruz, and divisionism began … it’s not good for the organization, we were 14 families, and now just six. We’re divided now….  The boss doesn’t like us coming to the organization.”^[153]

112.          Some estate owners indicated that the Guaraní families are free to leave their estates and that this in fact has happened many times in recent years. The IACHR received information from Guaraní that this in effect has occurred, but that there have also been expulsions. In recent testimony taken by the IACHR in Itacuatía, a Guaraní man indicated: “Before I worked on that estate; since we joined the organization, they threw us out. I worked there until last year. I always participate, they threw us out because we’re with the organization and they don’t like that, that’s why we left” the estate. Another Guaraní man said: “Those of us who are with the organization, each and every one of us was rejected, not a one of those who are with the APG can work.”^[154]

113.          According to several sources, many Guaraní have been expelled by the estate owners as a result of the process of clearing title undertaken in their respective zones, and in reprisal for their participation in the activities of the APG. The Commission received other testimony that indicates that the situation of the expelled Guaraní is very precarious due to the fact that they have nowhere to live and nowhere to farm the minimum to ensure their subsistence.

114.          Expelled Guaraní families have reached free communities established in previous years and decades on lands purchased for that purpose by the Church and some NGOs. This has provoked a problem of overpopulation and food scarcity that has even led some communities to make the decision not to receive more Guaraní families.

115.          Another type of situation is that experienced by those Guaraní who have ended their relationship of servitude to the boss but who still remain in a delimited sector within the estates because they lack their own land on which to establish themselves. As a form of subsistence these communities maintain incipient crops, generally located at great distances from where they live, and have some animals, such as pigs and hens, despite not having an appropriate place to raise them. “What we plant is not enough. The pigs are enclosed because if they go out they poison them or they chase them away,” a Guaraní woman told the IACHR. Not having their own demarcated and titled territory means that their crops and animals are subject to appropriation by third parties. A Guaraní woman from Itacuatía told the IACHR:

We continue suffering as you see. We do not live with peace of mind, we do not have land … to produce to be able to eat, only a tiny garden for planting some little thing. But that cannot supply us for many days; now we don’t have anything.…^[155]

116.          According to information collected by the IACHR during the visit, such situations have been on the rise in recent years. This is likely due to the fact that when the program to clear title to the lands was first implemented some bosses had put an end to the relationship of servitude with some Guaraní, while in other cases it was the Guaraní who decided to do so. It has also been reported that some Guaraní families who proposed their desire to leave the estate or to end the relationship of bondage with their boss were told in response that in order to leave they first had to pay the “debt” they were said to have contracted with him for food, clothes, and services.^[156]

117.          The situation described resulted in many Guaraní families dividing, with some members living in free territories and others on estates. A Guaraní woman explained to the IACHR that she was expelled from the estate by the boss for having attended a meeting of the APG:

I worked from six in the morning until nightfall every day of the week, and I had one free week each year. When I got sick I still had to work just the same, because they don’t believe us when we get sick. They would pay me 10 and at times 12 bolivianos per day….  I left to go to the meeting [of the APG] and he [the boss] thinks that at that meeting I had gone to speak against him. He threw me out of the estate and now my husband works with the boss, and doesn’t want to be with me anymore. They now pay him 20 bolivianos per day, since one month ago. Before they paid him 15. I am living with my son in the community of Yaití, my son is 19 years old.^[157]

118.          The IACHR observes that the situation of systematic violation of human rights in the Bolivian Chaco is the result of the almost total absence of the national State in the region. The lack of institutional capacity is reflected in the lack of labor enforcement staff, such as labor inspectors, labor prosecutors, and judges, which generates an erroneous perception that the situation is “normal.” It is imperative that the State urgently adopt the measures needed to ensure that the Guaraní people have access to a dignified life free of servitude. In this respect, the IACHR takes note of the state initiatives designed to overcome this situation, such as the 2007-2009 Transitory Inter-Ministerial Plan for the Guaraní People.^[158]

C.        Situation of women and children in the captive communities

119.          The Commission considers that the rights of Guaraní women and children in the captive communities are especially vulnerable, as they have no protection whatsoever, and are entirely at the will of the boss or estate owner.

120.          The women perform “domestic” work on the estates and work in activities such as shelling peanuts and combing wool, and suffer discrimination because they receive less than half the wage received by a man, which in reality is a nominal payment in both cases because it is not made in cash, but rather is only registered in the notebook in which the boss keeps the accounts. Many women work more than 12 hours a day, some as of 4 a.m., every day of the week throughout the year, without any weekly rest or holidays.^[159] The IACHR received testimony from several persons indicating that many of them are subject to abuse, humiliation, and physical and psychological violence meted out by their bosses. One woman from the community of Itacuatía reported: “… they pay us an herb, five kilos of sugar, and one bar of soap every six days … [for workdays that went] from 3 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night, six days a week.”^[160] The following testimony, by another Guaraní woman, describes her prior experience as a captive person as well as her current situation off the estate:

When I was just becoming a young woman, I began to work as a cook and to I made chicha, food. In the fondo [a kind of large pot], in a frying pan they made me cook, when there are a lot….  [On the estates of] Ibilleca and also at Yabapoa, I cooked for all the laborers. I would start at 4 in the morning, I would bring this much corn to make the chicha and the food [she gestures showing a height above the knee], and then I would harvest peanuts.

[I received as payment]… one peso per lata of corn harvested. In a day some 5 latas, perhaps 8 latas per day I would make.  For cooking, they would give me five kilos of sugar per week, and a small package of yerba mate, less than a half kilo.

Now we only have corn and beans to eat. The animals that I had, I don’t have them anymore because the owners of the estate don’t like me to have animals. The fields are far away, an hour from here.^[161]

121.          During that visit, the Commission also obtained information and verified the existence of child labor and exploitation in the Alto Parapetí, which are prohibited by domestic statute and international treaties ratified by the Bolivian State. Guaraní children and adolescents, depending on their age, work in exchange for food, shelter, or schooling. If the children are of school age some can attend school, yet in the afternoon they work alongside their parents performing certain tasks.^[162] Guaraní adolescents have to contribute to the family work performing daily tasks entailed in caring for the smaller animals or crops. The boys and girls must help out in the preparation of food and carrying water to the “casa grande” (owner’s house) from the nearby river.

122.          A Guaraní man from the community of Itacuatía gave the following testimony on his experience as a young man:

They didn’t allow us to go to school, they told us why are you going to study, you have to work. Due to the bosses, we haven’t been able to learn, and education would have been very important…. I carried stones and water to build this school, when I was a little boy, nonetheless we haven’t studied here, they didn’t let us. That’s why we haven’t studied well, and that’s why, I say, one must tell the truth.^[163]

123.          The Commission found that in the Alto Parapetí education is imparted by the boss, who in some cases is paid by the State. The Public Ministry informed the IACHR as follows: “The estate owners themselves have built schools for them. The municipal government is almost absent in the area, there is no infrastructure. The children only go up to fifth grade.”^[164] The schools bear the name of the boss, are situated on his estate, and do not offer bilingual instruction. The boys and girls of the captive communities who are born and grow up on the estates are “educated” during their childhood and adolescence in a process of penetrating and rigorous conditioning that places emphasis on their subordinate status, carefully indicating to them their roles of servitude and their social position, with a series of beliefs, norms, and rules of conduct that shore up the operation of the estate. These processes are part of the learning and domestication of the young people to ensure perpetration of the estate as a structure of dependence and exploitation.^[165]

D.                 Access to land and conflictiveness in the Bolivian Chaco

124.          As described above, the situation of bondage and forced labor in the Bolivian Chaco has its roots in the history of territorial dispossession, violence, and discrimination against the Guaraní indigenous people and its members. In the Chaco region, and in Bolivia in general, there is great inequality in the land tenure, which is the main motive of social and political conflict. According to publicly known figures, nationally 70% of the land belongs to just 7% of the population,^[166] which means that the indigenous and campesino peoples in general do not have enough land for their own sustenance. In the Guaraní territory (or Community Land of Origin, Tierra Comunitaria de Origen or “TCO”) of the Alto Parapetí in Santa Cruz, non-indigenous third parties hold most of the lands. According to INRA estimates, of a total of 98,875 hectares in the Alto Parapetí, 14 properties categorized as enterprises account for 52% of the land; 28 medium properties account for 34.6% of the land, and 40 small properties add up to 7.8% of the land.^[167]

125.          The implementation of a state policy geared to greater recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and a better redistribution of lands to roll back a historical injustice, as well as the implementation of initiatives to resolve the situation of servitude and forced labor in the Chaco, has mobilized numerous sectors of the country and generated a conflictive social and political scenario. The Commission observes that in the eastern region of Bolivia, where the captive Guaraní communities are found, this sociopolitical scenario has become more complex in the context of demands for autonomy.

126.          The most recent conflictive situation in the Chaco has occurred as the result of the efforts of the Guaraní to reconstitute their territory through the procedure of clearing title provided for by the agrarian laws. In 1996, the Asociación del Pueblo Guaraní (APG) demanded a total area of 10,385,945 hectares, which represented 81.3% of the Bolivian Chaco.^[168] That demand claimed to address several problems related to the high concentration of third-party private owners, the need to oversee the procedure of redistributing lands to prevent fraud and to seek sufficient territory to benefit 80,000 Guaraní.^[169]

127.          The Commission observes that the conflict related to access to land, the political influence exercised by the estate owners in the zone, and the incidents of violence that have accompanied the process of clearing title have been serious obstacles to responding to the demands of the Guaraní people.

128.          In this respect, the Commission has observed with concern the violent events brought about by estate owners against the process of clearing title carried out on behalf of the Guaraní people. The estate owners and ranchers in the zone, armed and organized in “defense committees,” have carried out actions to impede the entry of agrarian authorities, thus paralyzing the work of clearing title.^[170] On February 28, 2008, estate owners who are members of a federation of ranchers organized a march of approximately 100 persons to the city of Camiri and violently expelled INRA staff who were present to begin the process of clearing title for the TCO of Alto Parapetí.^[171] The next day, a group of 25 armed men at the command of local estate owners kidnapped and threatened a commission made up of the Vice-Minister of Lands, INRA staff, and the president of the Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní (APG), who were present in the Alto Parapetí zone to supervise the beginning of the clearing of title for the TCO.^[172] The estate owners intimidated the authorities with their deployment of arms and shot at the tires of the vehicles being used by the special commission.^[173]

129.          According to the information received by the IACHR during its working visit, as well as information available in the media, on April 4, 2008, another violent incident occurred against state officials who entered the Alto Parapetí area at the request of the APG to perform certain tasks relating to the clearing of title. That day, in the locality of Ipati, approximately 80 kilometers from the city of Camiri, the Vice-Minister of Lands, 40 government employees, 36 police agents, and approximately 50 Guaraní indigenous persons were attacked with stones, petards, and bullets by ranchers and estate owners with ties to the political and business elite in Santa Cruz.^[174] According to the information received, the police recurred to the use of tear gas to control the aggressive acts and then had to go to Camiri to forestall larger-scale confrontations.^[175]

130.          In addition, information was received on what happened in Camiri on April 10, 2008, where the Minister of Rural and Agricultural Development and the Environment called a meeting for building consensus among the parties to the process of clearing title, yet the ranchers and estate owners did not turn out. That night, 300 persons under the command of the estate owners and ranchers along with members of the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista surrounded the hotel where the Minister and Vice-Minister of Lands were staying and threatened to “remove them by blows” if they did not leave the city immediately.^[176] The hotel was under siege for 10 hours, racist threats and insults were proffered, and local mayors also participated in the demonstration; they reiterated the ultimatum to the authorities and refused to engage in any dialogue.^[177]

131.          On April 13, 2008, an official commission headed up by the Vice-Minister of Lands together with a group of Guaraní were on their way to the community of Itacuatía to meet with Guaraní community members for the purpose of reporting on the status of the process of clearing title when they were ambushed near the locality of Cuevo by armed persons under the command of ranchers and estate owners in the zone.^[178] The armed persons made threats, fired their weapons into the air, and stoned and beat with sticks the Guaraní women, men, and children present, resulting in a total of 43 persons injured, 11 with serious injuries. On that occasion, as a result of the acts of violence, approximately 11 persons were reported to have sought refuge; initially their whereabouts were unknown.^[179]

132.          The Commission learned during its visit that the Guaraní lawyer who was part of the above-mentioned delegation was beaten unconscious with sticks and belts, his feet and hands were bound, and he was taken to the public plaza in Cuevo, where he was lashed, and then tied to a post where he remained for two hours and continued to be subjected to physical punishment.^[180] During that time, the attorney was subjected to racial insults, and told that due to his activities he would be educated by “cinturonazos” (lashings of the belt).^[181] The attorney identified one of the local estate owners as the person responsible for his lashings and for having headed up the organizations that committed those attacks.” ^[182] In the lawyer’s own words:

I was captive for two-and-a-half hours … the mayor herself was there.  I told the commander of that division to move me for my security, and the commander told me, “I'm waiting for orders from the mayor and from the authority from the Comité Cívico” for my release.^[183]

133.          During the events of that same day, a Guaraní journalist who was accompanying the delegation was removed from the vehicle in which she was travelling, bound by her feet and hands, beaten with stones all about her body, and tied to a post in the public plaza of Cuevo, where she remained in the rain while her assailants molested and threatened her with sexual violence.^[184] According to the journalist's complaints, she was then taken to a hotel and locked up, and was held incommunicado for 24 hours. The mayor of Cuevo said in statements to Bolivian television that she had locked up the journalist in the hotel for her own safety, and that “she must have been treated well, and she was in a hotel and not in a prison cell.”^[185]

134.          In testimony before the IACHR, the journalist said that since the events described above, she had received threats and feared for her safety and her daughter’s safety:

I have a three-year-old daughter and I don’t have any assurances for my safety or hers, just because of the support I have given. My whole life I lived in Guaraní communities and I have given support working as a journalist, and this has led me to be attacked. I accompanied the delegation because I know the people and I thought I could get footage for a documentary, because I am a journalist and they know me and they’re not going to be afraid to talk to me. And we need to show the rest of the country that there are captive communities. But they told me I was a MAS supporter, that I worked for the government, and they attacked me. They threaten me by telephone. I can’t walk down the street alone, because I don’t feel safe. I have lodged complaints, I have gone to La Paz to file all those complaints but there’s no response. My life changed completely, I don’t have work and I am afraid for my family. There are no assurances for me.^[186]

135.          The Commission learned that on November 25, 2008, the Vice-Minister of Lands headed up a commission with the presence of members of the police to return to the Alto Parapetí to begin the work of clearing title on the estates of Caraparacito, Buena Vista, and Huaraca.^[187] According to available information, officers of the law were used to enter the Caraparacito estate and in that process firearms belonging to the estate owners were seized.^[188] The Vice-Minister justified the use of the police due to the acts of violence that occurred in April 2008.^[189] The media also reported that the estate owners denounced the INRA for alleged abuses committed by state officials and police during the operation.^[190]

136.          With respect to these events, the IACHR observed with concern the acts of racism and violence that accompany these actions, whose objective is to impede the implementation of the policies aimed at clearing title and to benefit the indigenous peoples. The Commission reminds the State that it is its duty to investigate, prosecute, and punish the persons responsible for these acts of violence, in the framework of the law and respect for human rights.  In addition, despite the ensuing conflictiveness, it is a duty of the State to resolve the situation faced by the Guaraní people in terms of their claim for their ancestral territory and the need for the families and communities belonging to this people to have sufficient territory for their reproduction in social, cultural, economic, political, and legal terms.

            E.         Access to justice for members of the Guaraní people

137.          The Commission considers worrisome the information received during its working and observation visit with respect to the lack of access to justice for the members of the Guaraní indigenous people, and, in particular, the shortcomings of the legal system that stand in the way of justice being done in cases having to do with the captive communities in the Bolivian Chaco. It is observed that despite slavery or a condition similar to slavery being a crime defined as such in the Criminal Code,^[191] despite the situation of the captive communities being widely known, despite a decree having been issued by the Executive,^[192] and despite the Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) of Bolivia having issued resolutions^[193] urging various government institutions of the State to resolve the matter, sufficient and effective actions have yet to be taken to prosecute and punish the persons responsible for these criminal acts in the criminal courts.

138.          The resolution of the Human Rights Ombudsman of November 21, 2005, confirms the information received by the Commission relating to the almost total absence of state institutions to safeguard the human rights of the Guaraní people. The lack of state institutions, together with their lack of knowledge of their rights as a consequence of their captivity, results in the members of the Guaraní captive communities being in a situation of greater defenselessness and vulnerability than other sectors of the population in the Bolivian Chaco.^[194] The absence of labor and judicial authorities in the region means that the estate owners do not feel supervised or monitored, which enables them to continue their criminal activities in a framework of supposed “normalcy.”^[195] The above-mentioned resolution by the Human Rights Ombudsman urged the Vice-Ministry of Justice to offer legal assistance for the legal actions needed by the captive families and communities and to coordinate with other state institutions to facilitate their right of access to justice.^[196]

139.          As noted above, the conditions faced by the Guaraní captive communities in the Bolivian Chaco are not isolated events in the world context; rather, they also exist elsewhere in places where there are practices similar to slavery. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has found that internationally, and in Latin America in particular, the weak presence of the State and the situation of discrimination, poverty, and marginality affecting indigenous peoples in isolated areas generate conditions propitious for the continuation of practices of servitude and forced labor. The IACHR believes it is important to note that in addition to such conditions, there are also other barriers that the indigenous peoples face as they attempt to gain access to national justice systems, such as the lack of knowledge by indigenous persons of the official language used by the courts and the lack of interpreters of indigenous languages in the courts. As the ILO states:

A weak state presence, together with low investment in educational services and other facilities (not to mention culturally biased curricula) means that, with poor literacy and numeracy, they are usually ill equipped to deal with outsiders, who can easily deceive them into debt bondage. Another important source of indigenous vulnerability is the lack of official identity documents, rendering them “invisible” to national authorities, and making it virtually impossible for them to denounce forced labour abuse and seek remedial action.^[197]

140.          In the Chaco region, as well as other regions where there are conditions of bondage and forced labor, the state institutions in charge of enforcing labor laws lack sufficient technical and economic support, which contributes to the fragility of these institutions and the susceptibility to state employees not performing their functions with due diligence and impartiality. As regards the Santa Cruz zone, where sugar is harvested by the use of servitude, a study by the ILO on the specific situation of Bolivia has found: “Institutionally, the Bolivian State is relatively fragile and, in economic terms in the Andean region, is one of those with the most meager economic and human resources…. This is clearly observed in the Ministry of Labor’s inspectors’ offices in charge of supervising and seeing to enforcement of the labor laws … [where] there are no immediate resources for installing the state agencies that recruit labor during the previous periods of the zafra (sugar harvest)….”^[198]  

141.          With respect to the case of the Chaco, the weakness of state institutions is added to the political influence that has been exercised by the local and regional power groups. The ILO study notes for example that in Monteagudo, an area where bondage has been found to exist, “the powerful people of that place have succeeded in inserting themselves in various offices and institutions of the State, imposing their conditions and demands … the local landowners have public functions and many are simultaneously estate owners and the political authorities of the place (deputy-governor, presidents of civic committees, mayors, etc.); some have even become national authorities.…  [Consequently] the current institutional weakness of the national State has made possible the development of local caciquismo. In that sense, forced labor in the Chaco is not only an economic phenomenon, but is also markedly political and social, as the estate owners are an important part of a complex and hermetic local power network.”^[199]  

142.          The weak presence of the State, the fragility of its institutions, and the political influence brought to bear by the estate owners in the Chaco region were verified by the Commission during its visit to Bolivia and in its meetings with officials of the State and with persons who have been subject to conditions of servitude. The Commission observes with concern that those factors have limited the effectiveness of the action of institutions such as the Public Ministry – an entity that includes the Attorney General of the Republic and the relevant regional prosecutors – in charge of “bringing criminal actions, on their own initiative, whenever they learn of a punishable act and there are sufficient factual elements to verify that it was committed.”^[200]

143.          During the meeting with the Public Ministry of Bolivia, the IACHR was informed that there are only two prosecutors in the city of Camiri, which is the jurisdiction that corresponds to the Alto Parapetí. In addition, it was informed that on April 14, 2008, a prosecutor from Camiri began an investigation on his own initiative for the purpose of investigating whether there were captive families, considering what was being publicly reported by some sectors.

144.          Regarding the steps taken, the Commission was informed by the prosecutor in charge of the investigation that the staff of the Public Ministry went, together with “the brigade from Santa Cruz, who are mostly opposition legislators,” and that the estate owners voluntarily agreed to the visit: “It was all voluntary, we entered with their consent. We even stayed to sleep at some estates there.”^[201]

145.          The prosecutor reported that there was a tour of 10 estates that were identified by the Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní as places where there were captive families, and that: “All uniformly indicated that they are paid a wage, that they receive 12 monthly wages per year, and that they receive the year-end bonus, that they have vacation,” although later on he stated: “On the best estates they have indicated to us that the workers receive a wage.”^[202]

146.          In response to the question from the Commission as to the possibility of the persons interviewed having been fearful of making statements to a person who arrived in the company of the political leaders of the opposition and agrarian leaders, the Public Ministry answered:

We had our own vehicle and we have gone to the places we considered advisable, not where the legislators said; we were independent and we interviewed the people separately.^[203]

147.          In addition, the IACHR received the testimony from a Guaraní capitán with respect to the investigative steps taken by the Public Ministry, who stated that the legislators who were part of the investigative commission did not allow the Guaraní workers to speak with the public officials, and that the legislators were the ones who stated that there were no conditions of servitude.^[204]

148.          The Public Ministry also told the IACHR of the need to perform more investigations in the field in other parts of the Chaco, because up to that time it was not possible to affirm conclusively whether there is or is not a situation of servitude in the part of the Chaco corresponding to Santa Cruz.

149.          The IACHR was also informed of other difficulties that the Public Ministry faces when it comes to performing the functions assigned by the national legislation. It was indicated that the Public Ministry, on not considering that it is its function to seek out criminal activity, should first carry out field investigations once it comes to learn there is a situation such as the presence of captive communities.^[205] Carrying out such an investigation requires the participation of the national police, which serves as expert investigator. Nonetheless, the Public Ministry confirmed for the IACHR that the presence of the police in the provinces and districts of Santa Cruz is almost null.^[206] The scant police presence, therefore, makes it difficult to carry out the investigations the prosecutors need in the zone, which, as the Public Ministry explained, are necessary before taking a case to trial.^[207]

150.          The Public Ministry also reported that its capacity to act on its own initiative and pursue criminal proceedings in relation to the matter of the captive communities is limited by the lack of any formal complaint lodged with the Public Ministry by the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Vice-Minister of Lands, the Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní, or any other organization, indigenous people, group, or entity. Therefore, at the institutional level for the Public Ministry, the situation of bondage and forced labor is not a confirmed fact.

151.          The IACHR was also informed by the Public Ministry that there has been no progress in the investigation into the acts of violence perpetrated against members of the Guaraní people during the violent events caused by sectors of estate owners against the process of clearing title. For example, there has been no progress in the investigation into the events that occurred in Cuevo on April 13, 2008, in which a male attorney and a female Guaraní journalist were attacked. The IACHR considers that the Public Ministry should make progress in the investigation and punish those responsible for such acts of violence; otherwise, a climate of racism and impunity will be fostered that impedes access to justice for the members of the indigenous peoples for the violation of their human rights.

152.          The Commission considers it relevant to mention also the role of the National Agrarian Tribunal, which according to legislation has the function, through the various chambers that constitute it, of resolving cases related to the implementation of the agrarian laws, which includes ruling on regular motions to reconsider final judgments in the oral agrarian proceedings, and to take cognizance of the contentious-administrative proceedings related to agrarian, forestry, and water matters.^[208] Regarding the process of clearing title in the Chaco, representatives of this Tribunal explained to the IACHR that the Tribunal does not define agrarian policy, but rather reviews the acts of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) for legality.^[209]

153.          The representatives of this Tribunal indicated that they do not have jurisdiction to hear cases on bondage, and could only take up such a case if it is related to a case on agrarian property rights.^[210] Therefore, the Tribunal cannot hear cases that allege only the crime of practices similar to slavery, for it is a criminal matter under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Attorney General. Nonetheless, they indicate that the issue of bondage has arisen in the case of two resolutions on reversion handed down as part of the process of clearing title ordered by the agrarian legislation in the province of Hernando Siles on two estates where the existence of bondage was found, and whose owners have filed a challenge before the Agrarian Tribunal.

154.          According to what was reported to the IACHR during its visit and subsequently, to date the challenges of the two resolutions on reversion mentioned above have not been resolved. In addition, the Commission observes that the Agrarian Tribunal is an independent organ subject only to the Political Constitution and statute law of Bolivia.^[211] This means that the rulings of this Tribunal may be appealed before the Constitutional Court established by law. Nonetheless, the IACHR has observed that the Constitutional Court has yet to begin to operate. Therefore, the IACHR expresses its concern about additional delays in access to justice for the indigenous peoples as a result of the challenges to the reversion resolutions that may be filed by non-indigenous owners, or due to the delays that would result from appeals of the judgments of the National Agrarian Tribunal before a Constitutional Court that has yet to start up its operations.

155.          The IACHR values the functions that have been performed by the Agrarian Tribunal and points out to the State the need to provide the economic, technical, and human resources support needed to strengthen that Tribunal as well as the Public Ministry. Strengthening these and other state institutions is essential to ensure the Guaraní people in the Chaco and the other indigenous peoples in Bolivia the right to access justice through effective mechanisms of judicial protection and due process of law. Guaranteeing these human rights is fundamental for taking on the situation experienced by the captive communities in the Bolivian Chaco, since: “Combating impunity, through a sound legal framework and vigorous law enforcement, is always essential for effective action against forced labour.”^[212]

            F.         Other difficulties faced by the Guaraní people

156.          The Commission considers that in addition to the grave situation of servitude and forced labor, the situation of lack of access to ancestral lands, and the lack of access to justice in which the captive communities find themselves, it is important to make special mention of other grave problems faced by the Guaraní indigenous people. These problems are related to health, education, political rights, and the rights to movement and travel. These problems, together with the scant state presence, help perpetuate the practices of bondage and forced labor to which the captive communities have been subjected since they were dispossessed of their ancestral lands in the 19^th century.

157.          The current situation of the captive communities of the Guaraní people is characterized by the scant attention the State has given the areas of education and health. The high rate of illiteracy among the members of these communities is part of their inability to keep tabs of the accounts and books kept by the bosses.^[213] The education of Guaraní children and adolescents is limited, as they have to work on the estates in exchange for food, shelter, and education, which is often given by the boss himself. This situation highlights the need for the State to allocate the budget necessary to provide teaching materials to the schools in the region and ensure that education is intercultural and bilingual, as ordered by Bolivian legislation on education.^[214]

158.          The State also has to allocate the budget necessary for ensuring access to health for the Guaraní in the Chaco. The health posts and health centers in the region lack personnel and are often abandoned. In addition, they are far from the Guaraní communities, which means that the sick need to travel several kilometers on foot or horseback to receive care at these health centers.^[215] These conditions generate even more indebtedness for Guaraní families, for when one falls ill with disease or suffers an accident while working, in some cases the only way to gain access to health services is through loans or advances that the boss gives the person affected, which is entered in the ledger against him or her.^[216]

159.          Another considerable difficulty in the exercise of political rights faced by most Guaraní in captivity is their lack of identification papers and the difficulties they face obtaining such documents. This limitation affects the right of members of the captive communities to their identity, to access their own property title to the land, to access education and health services, or the allowance provided by the State to persons of retirement age.^[217] 

160.          Also indicative of the absence of the State in the Chaco is the inaccessibility of the estates due to the lack of public roads or highways. The estates are accessible only by the banks of the rivers or by the roads that the estate owners themselves have built, which they consider private.

161.          Information from both governmental sources and the Guaraní people indicate that there is no free transit in this part of the Chaco. The testimony taken from members of the Guaraní communities indicates that they are not permitted to move from one place to another, given that the only roads in the area for gaining access to the public way are kept under lock (“trancados con candados”) by the bosses. They also reported that they are prohibited from organizing and that if they participate in community meetings they are later denied entry to the estate whether to access their own parcels or to visit family members who are working for the estate owner.

162.          In addition, several estate owners stated that this problem does not exist. “There is no lock or chain to get in. There are five ways by which one can enter the zone. All are clear,” one estate owner from the Alto Parapetí told the IACHR.^[218]

163.          The IACHR delegation corroborated the lack of free access when it traveled from Camiri to Itacuatía. During the trip, it was necessary to open gates every few kilometers in order to continue along the road, and on one occasion there was a gate shut with lock and chain, and it was necessary to request access from the estate owner to be able to speak with the inhabitants of that estate. One of those inhabitants told the IACHR: “… we don’t have good roads, therefore we have no way to leave….  As you can see, the gate is shut with a lock, [accordingly] we can’t enter easily.”^[219]

164.          On this matter, the prosecutor assigned to the province of Cordillera in the town of Camiri told the IACHR of the difficulties he faces when it comes to going into that area:

We have gone to the place with the Commission of Legislators, which was the only way to get into the zone, because there is a conflictive situation [in connection with which] the estate owners have organized and don’t let just anyone enter….  It was the only way to enter, with the authorization of the estate owners, because they are on the defensive, they see a suspicious vehicle and immediately they get in touch with one another by telephone, and then the only road becomes inaccessible.^[220]

165.          In this context, the Commission learned that the State has also been kept from circulating along the roads of the estates by the blockade imposed by some estate owners and the lack of effective state actions to ensure free transit. This results in the State not performing its functions of carrying out the process of clearing title or verifying the working conditions of the members of the indigenous communities on the estates. The situation described results in serious violations of various rights of indigenous peoples. The IACHR urges the State to adopt the appropriate measures to ensure freedom of movement in the Chaco.

G.        Conclusions

166.          Based on the information received by the IACHR through the reports, studies, and testimonies gathered during its visit, the Commission finds the existence of debt bondage and forced labor, which are practices that constitute contemporary forms of slavery. Guaraní families and communities clearly are subjected to a labor regime in which they do not have the right to define the conditions of employment, such as the working hours and wages; they work excessive hours for meager pay, in violation of the domestic labor laws; and they live under the threat of violence, which also leads to a situation of fear and absolute dependency on the employer. The Commission highlights the importance of the fact that these are individuals, families, and communities who belong to an indigenous people, who find themselves in those deplorable conditions due to the involuntary loss of their ancestral lands, as a result of actions and policies taken by the State over more than a century, and who at present find it impossible to enjoy their fundamental rights, as an indigenous people, to collective communal property, access to justice, a dignified life, and the development of their own self-government and their own social, cultural, and political institutions.

167.          As these conditions continue to exist, the State of Bolivia is in breach of the American Convention on Human Rights, for they entail violations of the articles on the prohibition of slavery and servitude (Article 6); life and humane treatment (Articles 4 and 5); property (Article 21); judicial guarantees and judicial protection (Articles 8 and 25); and equal protection of the law (Article 24). In addition, this situation violates other international instruments ratified by Bolivia such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; and ILO Convention 29 on forced or compulsory labor. As Guaraní indigenous children are exploited, the State is also violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child^[221] and ILO Convention 182 on the prohibition of the worst forms of child labor.^[222] On affecting the enjoyment of the rights of indigenous peoples, this situation represents violations of ILO Convention 169 on indigenous peoples and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

168.          Therefore, pursuant to the obligations imposed by those international instruments, and the provisions of its own domestic law, the State of Bolivia has the obligation to eradicate the practices similar to slavery primarily by investigating, prosecuting, and punishing the persons responsible for committing those crimes. Moreover, the State should resolve the underlying problem of the lack of access to land that the members of the captive communities and of the Guaraní indigenous people in general face, in keeping with the standards established in ILO Convention 169 on indigenous peoples, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the case law of the inter-American human rights system, which interprets the obligations arising from the American Convention.