Bolivian abuse survivors and their supporters gathered outside a church in Cochabamba on Friday (September 5), celebrating a landmark court ruling while demanding stronger penalties for those who conceal sexual abuse.

     The demonstrators displayed photographs of people they allege had committed or covered up child sexual abuse.

    A Bolivian court sentenced two elderly Spanish Jesuit priests to a year each in prison on Tuesday (September 2) for concealing decades of child sex abuse committed by their colleague in the church. The convictions of the priests, Marcos Recolons, 81, and Ramon Alaix, 83, mark Bolivia's first successful criminal prosecution against high-ranking members of the Catholic Jesuit order implicated in concealing abuse cases.

    Wilder Flores, president of the Community of Survivors of Ecclesiastical Sexual Abuse, expressed frustration with what he sees as inadequate punishment.

    "Unfortunately, in our country's laws, the penalty for the crime of concealment is very short," Flores said.

    Prosecutors argued that Recolons and Alaix led the Jesuit order in Bolivia while the abuse occurred. They were aware of the allegations against a priest, Alfonso Pedrajas, but failed to report them to police, allowing him to continue contact with children, according to the prosecution.

    The case came to light in 2023 with the publication of a diary belonging to Pedrajas, who died in 2009. In it, he wrote about abusing at least 85 minors between 1972 and 2000, many of whom were indigenous students on scholarships at a prominent boarding school.