A/HRC/43/45/Add.1 Plurinational State of Bolivia, many women are fulfilling unpaid responsibilities at home in addition to their paid work. While official statistics on gender distribution of domestic work were not made available, research conducted by regional organizations and academic institutions point out that most unpaid domestic work falls on women.85 The disproportionate burden of unpaid work on women and girls constitutes a significant barrier to their full realization of the rights to work, social security, health and education. Furthermore, Coello Cremades and Fernandez Cervantes point out that unpaid work on women exacerbates the regressive nature of the tax system and creates a clear gender bias in taxation, as more women perform unpaid work than men but they are subject to VAT regardless of their income or ability to pay.86 E. Lack of an adequate legal framework to prevent the negative impacts of infrastructure projects on human rights 37. Over the past 10 years or so, a number of infrastructure projects have flourished throughout the State. Under the national Economic and Social Development Plan, the Government has vigorously pursued mega-infrastructure projects, such as the construction of highways, cableways, roads, dams and hydroelectric power plants. In particular, as part of the strategy to diversify the economy, the Government has pledged to turn the State into an energy hub in the region and has increasingly invested in hydroelectric power plants. Many of these projects have been financially supported by multilateral and bilateral lenders and donors, as well as by the central Government. 38. Infrastructure projects can have a positive impact on the economy and generate real benefits to the entire population. However, a critical precondition to ensure that such projects do not result in violations of human rights is that robust human rights impact assessments are properly undertaken, with meaningful consultations with affected communities and individuals. This helps prevent or minimize their negative human rights effects, which, in turn, reinforces the environmental and social sustainability of the projects. 39. Some infrastructure projects have met opposition by affected indigenous and local groups, which demonstrates that this precondition may not have been met in some cases or that there is at least room for improvement in more effectively carrying out prior consultations with the communities and a proper environmental, social and human rights impact assessment. 40. The Constitution explicitly acknowledges the rights of indigenous peoples to prior obligatory consultation by the State with respect to the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources (art. 30), and the rights of people affected by the exploitation of natural resources in a particular territory to free, prior and informed consultation (art. 352). However, the legal framework prescribing processes of prior consultation with affected communities is ad hoc, and its application is limited to the gas and oil sectors. Furthermore, the legal framework that applies to those sectors does not appear to adequately meet the international human rights standards, as spelt out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The law does not explicitly require that the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples be obtained as a precondition in certain cases – such as in the case of relocation of indigenous peoples from their lands or territories (as provided for under art. 10 of the Declaration) or the storage or disposal of hazardous materials in their lands or territories (art. 29 of the Declaration) – or that the obtaining of free, prior and informed consent be the objective of the consultations in any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources (art. 32 (2) of the Declaration). The distinction between the exploitation of “non-renewable” and “renewable” resources is also artificial and nebulous, and should not be used as a criterion for whether consultations with 85 86 Pan American Health Organization, The Invisible Economy and Gender Inequalities: The Importance of Measuring and Valuing Unpaid Work (Washington, D.C., 2010), p. 141. Raquel Coello Cremades and Silvia Fernandez Cervantes, “Análisis de género de la política fiscal boliviana: propuestas para la agenda pendiente del proceso de cambio”, Revista de Economía Crítica, no. 18 (2014), p. 145. 13