E-226-01

November 16,  2001

 

BOLIVIA RATIFIES OAS CONVENTIONS ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS

 

            Bolivia today deposited with the Organization of American States (OAS) instruments ratifying hemispheric treaties dealing with civil and political rights for women of the Americas. 

During a brief ceremony at OAS Headquarters, Ambassador Marcelo Ostria Trigo, Bolivia's Permanent Representative to the OAS, presented Secretary General César Gaviria with ratification instruments relating to the Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Political Rights to Women and the Inter-American Convention on the Granting of  Civil Rights to Women. 

He later explained in an interview that laws protecting Bolivian women's civil and political rights were enacted more than half a century ago.   He cited the 1938 and 1947 constitutions, saying they recognized women as equal under the law. 

            The hemispheric convention granting civil rights to women was adopted in 1948 at the Ninth American International Conference in Bogotá, Colombia, where the states of the Americas decided to grant women the same civil rights as those enjoyed by men. 

The Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Political Rights to Women was adopted in 1948 in the Colombian capital as well, and sets out the contracting parties' decision "that the right to vote and to be elected to national office shall not be denied or restricted on the basis of gender." 

Among officials witnessing today's presentation were OAS Assistant Secretary for Legal Affairs Enrique Lagos; Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) Executive Director Carmen Lomellin; and members of Bolivia's Permanent Mission to the OAS.

 

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