After five months of waiting since the Senate approved it, the Chamber of Deputies sanctioned yesterday the law amending law 603 of the Family Code and the family process, which marriage absolutely prohibits and free unions with people under 18. The norm passed to the Executive for its promulgation and is emerging as a milestone in the protection of girls, boys and adolescents in the country.
The new text clearly establishes that “the person may freely constitute marriage or free union, once the age of majority is fulfilled,” and that Any union between minors “is null full and cannot be validated under any circumstance. ”In Bolivia, according to the Civil Code, the age of majority is reached at age 18, so the law eliminates any previous exception that was in force in the legal system.
Legalized practice
Until now, Law 603 of 2014 allowed the marriage of adolescents of 16 and 17 years with authorization of the parents or by judicial emancipation. Those legal cracks resulted in dramatic cases: girls forced to marry their aggressors or adolescents pushed to early unions for family pressures.
The deputies also repealed article 106 and paragraphs II and III of article 139 of the current norm, which enabled those exceptions. “Having approved in its two stations, in large and in detail, and being a review chamber, this law is sanctioned,” said the president in the exercise of the Chamber of Deputies, Deisy Choque, at the end of the treatment of the law.
The Chamber of Deputies validated this normative adjustment to just under two months of the conclusion of the constitutional mandate.
Worrying figures
The magnitude of the situation linked to marriages outside the age of majority was reflected in the reports of the Ombudsman. Between 2023 and 2024 there were about 4,000 marriages among adolescents between 16 and 17 years. But the most shocking data corresponds to the cases of Girls between 10 and 15 years: 464 unions, even at 10, 11 and 12 years. These data generated attention calls, even in international human rights entities.
“It was worrying and that report shows it with data and findings,” said Bolivia Sánchez, head of the Gender Unit of the Ombudsman’s Office. These figures served as a support for the incidence work of the institution that published the report “Interrupted Dreams” with specific recommendations to eliminate legal exceptions.
According to the human rights community, Between 2010 and 2022 more than 11,000 marriages and children’s unions in Bolivia took place. Behind those figures, according to organizations that promoted the reform, thousands of life projects truncated by forced pregnancies, school abandonment and cycles of sexist violence were given.
The proposal was prepared in the Senate by the legislator Virginia Velasco (MAS) and received support from entities such as IPAS Bolivia, the human rights community and the Ombudsman’s Office itself. Although during the session in deputies, letters of institutions were read that they asked to postpone the treatment to open a space for socialization, the majority chose to validate the law.
The Ombudsman, Pedro Callisaya, highlighted the step. “Today the bill 092/2024-2025 was sanctioned, which eliminates the legal exceptions that allowed marriages and unions before the age of 18. From the Ombudsman we make visible this problem through the report interrupted dreams; we expect the promulgation and enforcement to effect the protection of girls, boys and adolescents.”
If the promulgation by President Luis Arce is confirmed, Bolivia will join the list of countries that have a reinforced legal structure in favor of childhood.
