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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