Child Protection in Bolivia

With this project, we are working so that adolescents in conflict with the law in Bolivia are able to access justice that is effective and restorative – focused on promoting alternative measures to incarceration as well as their participation in socio educational programs that help them reintegrate into society and repair family ties.

To date, we have worked with 95 adolescents currently imprisoned in “Centro Cometa” – the only juvenile detention center in the state of Cochabamba – helping them develop social and academic skills through workshops and trainings. These activities are helping the teenagers take more responsibility for their past actions, as well as reducing the probability of recidivism once they leave the center. We have also worked with over 40 parents of these adolescents, providing them with legal support to speed up their children’s legal processes and giving them information on how to create positive bonds with them.

At national level, we have reached over 150 juvenile justice system operators, including judges, public defenders, prosecutors, specialized center’s staff and civil society organizations through workshops to strengthen the local juvenile justice roundtables in the nine departments (states) of the country. At these roundtables, we have disseminated important information, such as the national and international regulations to implement the “Specialized Juvenile Justice System for Adolescents.” These are key spaces where we have been advocating for changes in the attitudes and punitive practices commonly carried out by Bolivia’s justice operators and authorities, and urging authorities to implement the new restorative and socio educational justice system for adolescents, which became the law of the land in 2014, but which has yet to be fully implemented by those in charge.