Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape of men and women, including spousal rape, is a crime. The penalties range from six months’ to 20 years’ imprisonment. There were anecdotal reports of police or judicial reluctance to act on rape cases; women’s rights advocates claimed that the attitudes of police, hospitals, and courts toward survivors of sexual violence sometimes victimized them again.

The law prohibits domestic violence, including spousal abuse. Survivors may secure protective measures. The law imposes stricter penalties on those who kill their spouses, partners, or children as a consequence of their gender. According to local NGOs, lack of police and judicial vigilance often led to a lack of protection for victims.

The National Register of Femicides, maintained by the Supreme Court’s Office of Women, recorded that 255 women died as a result of domestic or gender-based violence during 2018. As of July 31, the National Ombudsman’s Office reported 155 women died as a result of violence. Approximately 24 percent of these victims had previously filed formal complaints.

The Supreme Court’s Office of Domestic Violence provided around-the-clock protection and resources to victims of domestic violence. The office also carried out risk assessments necessary to obtain a restraining order. The National Institute of Women (INAM) operated a 24-hour hotline for victims of gender-based violence.

Public and private institutions offered prevention programs and provided support and treatment for abused women. Nine shelters were fully operational.

In December 2018 the legislature passed “Micaela’s Law,” which requires all federal employees to receive training on gender and gender-based violence. According to INAM–the entity responsible for implementing the law–more than 2,537 officials and service providers received training in preventing gender-based violence during the first quarter of the year.

The 2018 Brisa Law provides for the financial support of children who lost their mothers to gender-based violence. In February, ANSES began processing requests for assistance; however, many families complained about delays in receiving payment. Between October 2018, when the law entered into effect, and September, only 30 of the 74 children deemed eligible had received financial support.

Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment in the public sector and imposes disciplinary or corrective measures. In some jurisdictions, such as the city of Buenos Aires, sexual harassment could lead to the abuser’s dismissal, whereas in others, such as Santa Fe Province, the maximum penalty is five days in prison.

According to the city of Buenos Aires’ public prosecutor’s office, formal complaints of sexual harassment on the city’s streets rose by more than 50 percent year-on-year in 2018. On April 16, the Senate passed a law that penalizes harassment in public spaces as a form of gender-based violence.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: The constitution provides the same legal status and rights for women and men. The government generally enforced the law, although discrimination remained a persistent and pervasive problem in society.

The Supreme Court’s Office of Women trained judges, secretaries, and clerks to handle court cases related to gender issues and to ensure equal access for women to positions in the court system. The office also trained judges, prosecutors, judicial staff, and law enforcement agents to increase awareness of gender-related crimes and develop techniques to address gender-related cases and victims.

Birth Registration: The government provides universal birth registration, and citizenship is derived both by birth within the country’s territory and from one’s parents. Parents have 40 days to register births, and the state has an additional 20 days to do so. The Ministry of Interior and Transportation may issue birth certificates to children under the age of 12 whose births were not previously registered.

Child Abuse: Under the law, sexual abuse of a child is a punishable offense, with sentences of up to 20 years in prison. Physical harm to a child is punishable with up to 15 years in prison. Child abuse was common; the Supreme Court’s Office of Domestic Violence reported that 28 percent of the complaints it received in the first quarter of the year involved children. The government maintained a 24-hour hotline staffed by professional child psychologists for free consultations and advice.

Early and Forced Marriage: Children older than age 16 are legally allowed to marry with parental permission. Children younger than 16 are required to obtain judicial authorization in addition to parental consent.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits the commercial sexual exploitation of children and the sale, offering, or procuring of children for prostitution. Authorities generally enforced the law; however, sexual exploitation of children, including in prostitution, was a problem. The minimum age of consensual sex is 13, but there are heightened protections for persons ages 13 to 16. A statutory rape law provides for penalties ranging from six months to 20 years in prison, depending on the age of the victim and other factors.

In August a trial began for two priests and two nuns arrested in September 2018 for sexual abuse of minors. The accused worked at a group of schools for hearing-impaired children, the Antonio Provolo Institutes; a reported 67 students claimed abuses between 1983 and 2002. One of the accused, Nicola Corradi, had previously been found guilty of abuse while working at a school in Verona, Italy, his country of origin. On November 25, a court in Mendoza found Corradi and Horacio Corbacho guilty of child sexual abuse and sentenced them to 42 and 45 years in prison, respectively. Armando Gomez, a former school gardener, received an 18-year sentence.

The law prohibits the production and distribution of child pornography, with penalties ranging from six months to four years in prison. Following a multiyear effort, Congress amended the criminal code in 2018 to make the possession of child pornography a criminal offense.

During the year prosecutors from the nationwide Point of Contact Network against Child Pornography on the Internet pursued cases of internet child pornography. The network reported improvements on the national level in the ability to punish offenders. The City of Buenos Aires Public Ministry’s Judicial Investigative Bureau served as the primary point of contact for receiving and distributing child pornography leads from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to prosecutors and police forces across the country.

On September 12, local authorities arrested a 71-year-old former policeman for involvement in a network of child pornography that victimized an estimated 1,200 children between four months and 14 years old since 2003. The man posed as a producer of youth television to lure his victims.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

Estimates of the size of the Jewish community varied, but the most recent data available, published by the Berman Jewish Databank, estimated the population at 180,300 in 2018. Sporadic acts of anti-Semitic discrimination and vandalism continued. The Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations recorded 834 complaints of anti-Semitism in 2018, compared with 404 in 2017, a 107 percent increase. The most commonly reported anti-Semitic incidents tracked by the report were slurs posted on various websites, often in relation to news articles. Other incidents included graffiti, verbal slurs, and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries.

In July, President Macri announced the creation of a national terrorism registry and designated Hizballah a terrorist organization. Hizballah operatives were alleged to have conducted the 1994 bombing of the Argentina Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 persons, and the country continued to seek the extradition of seven suspects, including five Iranian citizens.

In 2018 a federal court indicted former president Fernandez de Kirchner and members of her administration for allegedly impeding investigations into the AMIA bombing. As of October no court date was announced.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The constitution and laws prohibit discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government generally enforced the law, but there were scattered reports of discrimination. Various government agencies offered a variety of services and programs to individuals with disabilities, including community-based rehabilitation programs, sports and recreation facilities, braille translation services, legal services, and a variety of pensions and subsidies. The law also mandates access to buildings by persons with disabilities. According to media reports, the ombudsman of the city of Buenos Aires reported that only 33 percent of the metropolitan subway stations had elevators or escalators. In February a judge in Buenos Aires ordered that passengers be allowed to ride for free if the escalators or elevators at the entry or exit station were out of order, based on the principle of accessibility.

While the federal government has protective laws, many provinces had not adopted such laws and had no mechanisms to ensure enforcement. An employment quota law reserves 4 percent of federal government jobs for persons with disabilities. Data from the National Institute of Statistics, however, showed that in 2018 only an estimated 32 percent of working-age individuals with a disability were employed.

Congress proposed and passed a 56 percent budget increase for the National Disability Agency, which provides a range of services and subsidies for disabled persons.

The constitution recognizes the ethnic and cultural identities of indigenous peoples and states that Congress shall protect their right to bilingual education, recognize their communities and the communal ownership of their ancestral lands, and allow for their participation in the management of their natural resources.

The lack of trained teachers hampered government efforts to offer bilingual education opportunities to indigenous peoples.

Indigenous people were not fully consulted in the management of their lands or natural resources, particularly lithium, in part because responsibility for implementing the law is delegated to the 23 provinces, the constitutions of only 11 of which recognize indigenous rights.

Projects carried out by the agricultural and extractive industries displaced individuals, limited their access to traditional means of livelihood, reduced the area of lands on which they depended, and caused pollution that in some cases endangered the health and welfare of indigenous communities. Conflict occurred when authorities evicted indigenous peoples from ancestral lands then in private ownership.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons generally enjoyed the same legal rights and protections as heterosexual persons. No laws criminalize consensual same-sex conduct between adults. LGBTI persons could serve openly in the military.

The law gives transgender persons the right legally to update their name and gender marker on identity documents to reflect their gender identity without prior approval from a doctor or judge.

National antidiscrimination laws do not specifically include the terms “sexual orientation or gender identity” as protected grounds, only “sex.” There was no reported official discrimination, however, based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing, or access to education or health care. Media and NGOs reported cases of discrimination, violence, and police brutality toward LGBTI individuals, especially transgender persons.

The National Observatory of Hate Crimes registered 68 official complaints of discriminatory or violent acts against LGBTI individuals in the first half of the year, including six killings of transgender persons; this was approximately a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2018.

In Tucuman Province Lucas Gargiulo reported that three men raped him during a May 1 robbery, upon realizing he was transgender. Gargiulo told local media that the incident took place within the likely earshot of several police officers, who did not act. Gargiulo did not file a formal complaint. In response to the incident, the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism trained police in the city of San Miguel de Tucuman on discrimination and gender identity.