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47. There are also other peoples, few in number and vulnerable who are either itinerant or have
settled in small territorial communities. This is the case of the Ayoreo (in Santa Cruz), Uru,
Uru Murato, Tsimane and Leco peoples. These groups complain of their lack of title to land or to
urban plots, as the case may be, and the fact that their survival depends on the tolerance and
consideration they receive from the permanent residents of the places where they live.
48. In April 2007, the Ministry of Rural Development, Farming and the Environment, in
conjunction with the Confederation of Bolivian Indigenous Peoples (CIDOB), launched a policy
to protect vulnerable peoples and, to that end, established the Inter-ministerial Commission on
Highly Vulnerable Indigenous Peoples, which devised an emergency plan for the Yuqui people.
The Vice-Minister of Land has given priority to addressing the needs of the Yuqui, Araona,
Ayoreo and Uru Chipaya peoples.
49. As part of efforts to protect highly vulnerable indigenous peoples, in 2006, the
Government approved the declaration of “an exclusively reserved, inviolable and fully protected
area” inside Madidi National Park in the Amazonian highland of Bolivia that coincides with the
traditional territory of the Toromona, who are a people living in isolation (Administrative
Decision No. 48/2006 of the National Service for Protected Areas attached to the Ministry of
Rural Development, Farming and the Environment). Following the example of other countries in
the region, the declaration of an inviolable area guarantees respect for such peoples’ decisions
regarding their relations with the rest of society, and includes such measures of protection as the
prohibition of any settlement other than that of the peoples living inside the inviolable area, any
unwanted contact with the Toromona people and any activity related to prospecting for or
exploiting the area’s natural resources.
F. Captive communities
50. In some regions of Bolivia, indigenous communities continue to be subjected to various
forms of servitude or forced labour, which is understood as unpaid personal service and
compulsory labour obtained under coercion or fraud, including improper hiring practices
(enganche) and debt bondage. This is the situation of indigenous workers (mostly of Quechua
and Guaraní origin) involved in sugar-cane harvesting in the department of Santa Cruz, those
held in debt bondage in connection with Brazil nut production in the northern Amazonian region
and the “captive communities” of Guaraní living on haciendas in the Chaco region. These
situations, which were thought to have vanished following the agrarian reform of the 1950s, are
evidence of the disquieting persistence of semi-feudal production relationships that are held in
place by vertical power structures at the local level and by the lack of a State presence.
51. In the large haciendas of the Bolivian Chaco, the Guaraní indigenous population has been
subjected to a system of exploitation and slavery-like conditions since the late nineteenth
century. More than 10 million of the 13 million hectares of land comprising this region - the
traditional territory of the Guaraní - have been bought up, mostly by livestock breeders. The
agrarian reform did not affect the system of relations that prevailed in the east, in the Chaco and
in the north, thus perpetuating relations of servitude through a variety of formulas: pongueaje
(compulsory unpaid domestic service), enganche (improper hiring practices) and debt bondage.
Such relations continue to this day in certain medium and large-sized properties that are
characterized by low levels of technology and productivity, and entire communities remain