Legal Safeguards for Indigenous Torture Victim Patricia Arce

Last updated March 2023

Patricia Arce was the mayor of Vinto, a town in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia. Members of the parastate Cochala Youth Resistance (“Resistencia Juvenil Cochala” or “RJC”) torched the city hall and kidnapped Ms. Arce as she escaped. The insurrectionists dragged her through the streets, doused her with paint, cut her scalp, and tortured and sexually assaulted her. She was paraded through town for several hours until she was eventually handed over to the police.

When the de facto Áñez government took power a week later, the persecution against Ms. Arce continued. The government brought legal processes against her, accusing her of “self-kidnapping,” and they arrested her and her children. After international pressure, Arce was released, but the Áñez regime and the parastate RJC, with whom the government collaborated, continued to persecute her.

When democracy returned to Bolivia a year after her kidnapping, Ms. Arce was elected senator and named president of the justice commission in Bolivia.

The University Network for Human Rights represents Ms. Arce before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (“the Commission”). UNHR has supervised Yale Law students to assist Ms. Arce in obtaining and maintaining precautionary measures, legal protections for those facing grave harms, from the Commission.