90 that may secure for them the exercise of such right, pursuant to the principle of equality under the law. 190. In the instant case, the Court has considered proved that 18 out of the 19 members of the Sawhoyamaxa Community who died as a consequence of the failure by the State to comply with its preventive duty regarding their right to life (supra para. 178,) did not have any birth or death records, nor any other document provided by the State capable of evidencing their existence and identity. 191. Likewise, it stems from by the facts that the members of the Community lived in extremely risky and vulnerable conditions, and thus they have economic and geographical hindrances to get births and deaths duly registered, as well as to obtain any other identification documents. In that sense, Carlos Marecos, Community leader expressed that: As regards to personal documents, we indigenous peoples have always had many problems, there are still people that have never had any identification documents, and there are persons that have got identity cards only when they reached old age, because they had never gone to Asunción. They worked on estates, just like that, without any documents [....], not even my children have identity cards, we have to go to Asunción to get the birth certificate and then the identity card, but the fare to get there is expensive, it is not easy to travel [....]. Most children born in the Community are not registered. [...] Neither are the demises of the persons who die registered. 192. The above mentioned members of the Community have remained in a legal limbo in which, though they have been born and have died in Paraguay, their existence and identity were never legally recognized, that is to say, they did not have personality before the law. Indeed, the State, in the instant proceeding before the Court, has intended to use this situation for its own benefit. In fact, at the time of referring to the right to life, the State alleged: If neither the existence of these persons nor even their death has even been proved, it is not possible to claim liability from anyone, lest the State, where are their birth and death certificates? 193. This Court, apart from having rejected this allegation by the State and having determined the violation of Article 4(1) of the Convention, (supra 161,) considered that Paraguay failed to provide the Court with the evidence it requested to facilitate the adjudication of the case, which the State particularly has the burden to provide (supra paras. 22 and 48.) The Court considers that it was the duty of Paraguay to implement mechanisms enabling all persons to register their births and get any other identification documents, ensuring that these processes are, at all different levels, accessible both legally and geographically, to render the right to personality before the law operative. 194. On the basis of the above considerations, and notwithstanding the fact that other members of the Community may be in the same situation, the Court finds that the State violated the right to personality before the law enshrined in Article 3 of the American Convention, to the detriment of NN Galarza, Rosana López, Eduardo Cáceres, Eulalio Cáceres, Esteban González-Aponte, NN González-Aponte, NN Yegros, Jenny Toledo, Guido Ruiz-Díaz, NN González, Luis Torres-Chávez, Diego Andrés Ayala, Francisca Britez, Silvia Adela Chávez, Derlis Armando Torres, Juan Ramón González, Arnaldo Galarza and Fátima Galarza.

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