By Franz Chávez
LA PAZ, Dec 2 2004 (IPS)

Not even the barrel of a revolver held against her chest by a police officer accused of battering his wife kept Jeannette Alfaro, a women’s rights advocate in La Paz, from going to the aid of one of the many victims of domestic violence in Bolivia.

The memory still brings tears to the eyes of Alfaro, the director of Municipal Legal Services of La Paz, as she tells IPS how she was threatened by a senior police official who regularly beat his wife, but was always let off the hook because of the strings he pulled in the justice system.

In her office, Alfaro keeps the files on many domestic violence cases that have gone unpunished despite the fact that law 1674 Against Family/Domestic Violence provides for fines, "precautionary measures" to protect victims, and alternative punishments.

Bolivian law also stipulates that the most serious cases must be investigated and prosecuted as criminal offences punishable by prison. The maximum sentence, for murder, is 30 years.

But so far only one domestic violence case has led to a prison sentence: eight years in the San Pedro prison in La Paz for a man who inflicted numerous stab wounds on his common law wife of 12 years.

In the central Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, the Casa de la Mujer – a non-governmental women’s organisation – has documented 80 cases of women slain by their partners or other family members between January and September this year. Last year, the total number of women murdered in domestic violence cases in this country of 9.2 million reached 98.

Officials in charge of the National Survey on Demographics and Health (ENDSA) told IPS that 53 percent of the women interviewed said they have suffered psychological violence, while 59 percent have experienced physical violence at some point in their lives, and 14 percent said they have suffered serious injuries, like broken bones, as a result.

The survey, carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and the Health Ministry with funding from international bodies, also found that only 17 percent of women who have suffered abuse reported the problem, while 49 percent of the aggressors who were reported never received any punishment.

Alfaro said she herself suffered abuse, and after unsuccessfully seeking help, became an activist for the rights of women.

Today she wears a yellow uniform that identifies her as a municipal employee, and accompanied by a small team of psychologists and assistants takes on tasks that the police tend to evade – especially when a domestic violence case involves a complaint against a high-ranking police official.

She started out with just a desk, but now her office is one of the sections of the municipal government that receives the most visits by women, mainly from low-income areas, but including some middle-class and even wealthy women as well.

The lawyers and psychologists in the Municipal Legal Services office deal with an average of 100 cases a day, involving subpoenas, "reconciliation hearings", psychological assessments, therapy sessions, and health and employment problems.

Alfaro believes the battle should be intensified to shore up the dignity and self-esteem of women from poor neighbourhoods who have suffered abuse at the hands of their partners. "They were treated as second-class citizens by their husbands, who considered themselves much more productive," she said.

To that end, Alfaro began to organise community groups that work with, and provide training to, domestic abuse victims who are unemployed.

Shortly after this initiative got underway, a small army of women began to spread out in the city, making reparations on streets and offering to repair homes and gardens, while slowly overcoming the initial resistance from local residents, some of whom criticised their work.

Through the programme, around 2,500 women have received training in bricklaying and construction skills, a number that will rise to 3,000 by the end of the year.

The training programme has also given rise to the creation of nine micro-enterprises, five of which are registered as small businesses that are qualified to take part in public tenders for construction projects.

But while the results of this initiative have been encouraging, Alfaro cannot forget cases like that of a woman who, after being stabbed and wounded in one of her lungs, was merely granted 12 days of sick leave from her job by the court, which ruled that there was a lack of evidence to try her husband on charges of attempted murder and severe bodily injuries.

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