Bolivia Issues - 2024

Disputes - international

contraband smuggling, human trafficking, wildlife trafficking, and illegal narcotic trafficking are problems in the porous areas of its border regions with all of its neighbors (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru)

Bolivia-Chile: despite tariff-free access to ports in southern Peru and northern Chile, Bolivia persists with its long-standing claims to regain sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean

Bolivia-Peru: despite tariff-free access to ports in southern Peru and northern Chile, Bolivia persists with its long-standing claims to regain sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean; smuggling of archaeological artifacts from Peru to Bolivia, illegal timber, narcotics, and wildlife smuggling, human trafficking, and falsified documents are current issues 

Bolivia-Brazil: the Roboré Accord of March 29, 1958 placed the long-disputed Isla Suárez/Ilha de Guajará-Mirim, a fluvial island on the Río Mamoré, between the two towns of Guajará-Mirim (Brazil) and Guayaramerin (Bolivia), under Bolivian administration but did not resolve the sovereignty dispute

Bolivia-Argentina: contraband smuggling, human trafficking, and illegal narcotic trafficking are problems in the porous areas of the border 

Bolivia-Paraguay: on April 27, 2009, the president of Argentina hosted the presidents of Bolivia and Paraguay together with representatives of the five other guarantor states -- Brazil, Chile, Peru, the US, and Uruguay -- to the signing for the Final Record of the Boundary Commission in execution of the 1938 Peace Treaty between Bolivia and Paraguay

Refugees and internally displaced persons

refugees (country of origin): 12,400 (Venezuela) (2022)

Trafficking in persons

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List — Bolivia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so; the government adopted a National Action Plan for the elimination of trafficking and reportedly sentenced three traffickers who had been detained since 2016; however, Bolivia did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; officials did not report investigating, prosecuting, or convicting traffickers and did not report identifying or referring victims to care; therefore, Bolivia was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List (2023)

trafficking profile: Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Bolivia, and victims from Bolivia abroad; Bolivian adults and children are exploited in sex trafficking and forced labor at home and abroad; officials report 63% of the victims identified were female; to a lesser extent, women from neighboring countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Paraguay, and Venezuela, are exploited in sex trafficking in Bolivia; some migrants from Chile, The Gambia, Venezuela, and the Caribbean travelling to or through Bolivia are subject to sex trafficking and forced labor; child sex tourists exploit children within Bolivia; rural, poor, mostly indigenous Bolivians, and LGBTQIA+ youth are particularly at risk for sex and labor trafficking; Bolivian women and girls are exploited in sex trafficking at home and abroad in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Panama, and Peru; within Bolivia, adults and children are exploited in domestic work, mining, ranching, and agriculture; forced criminality continues, including cases of children being forced to commit crimes, such as robbery and drug production, as well as forced begging; traffickers exploit Bolivians in forced labor in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in sweatshops, agriculture, brickmaking, domestic work, textile factories, and the informal sector; social media is used as the primary recruitment tool, luring vulnerable individuals with fraudulent employment opportunities  (2023)

Illicit drugs

the third-largest source country of cocaine and a major transit country for Peruvian cocaine; coca cultivation in 2021 totaled 39,700 hectares (ha); most  cocaine is exported to other Latin American countries, especially Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, for domestic consumption, or for onward transit from those countries to West Africa and Europe, not the United States.