LA PAZ, Bolivia — María Isabel Pillco’s body lay on a table in the city morgue. A doctor was conducting an autopsy on it, peeling back layers of skin and tissue. It was early November, and the sun blazed overhead as dozens of people milled around in a dusty parking lot outside. The Pillco family was among them, waiting for her body to be released for the funeral the following day. The dead woman’s partner, the father of their 2-year-old child, was not in the crowd; he was sitting in a police cell halfway across the city — held as a suspect in her death.

“I want justice for my daughter,” Pillco’s mother, Elvira Gavincha, cried as she leaned against a concrete wall that cast a small strip of shadow on the dry ground.

Inside the building, dozens of bodies were piled on the floor, some wrapped in trash bags or blankets, others only in the clothes they were wearing when they died. There is no refrigeration or storage space in the morgue; it’s simply a warehouse full of anonymous dead. María Isabel Pillco, however, was an exception. She was separated from the rest and surrounded by hospital staff. Her naked body was covered with black bruises, except for a delicate, open hand that dangled off the table. The doctor later concluded that she had died of internal bleeding.

Even in the midst of their grief, the Pillco family had another concern. They were afraid that her partner, David Viscarra, who they believe beat her and caused the injuries that led to her death, would go free. As Pillco’s mother wailed outside the morgue, the rest of the family gathered hospital reports and the domestic-violence complaint that Pillco had filed just a few days earlier. These are the documents they hoped would help send Viscarra to prison.

Domestic abuse is pervasive in Bolivia. In a report that surveyed 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries between 2003 and 2009, Bolivia was found to have the highest rate of intimate-partner violence against women. Fifty-three percent of Bolivian women reported experiencing physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner, as compared with 26 percent in El Salvador and 40 percent in Colombia.

Experts attribute Bolivia’s high rate of domestic violence to a constellation of causes, including a culture of machismo, in which men have a proprietary sense of control over their families, and a long-standing acceptance of aggressive behavior. They also cite financial dependence as a major reason why women stay in abusive relationships.

“Many times we see women [who] are afraid to report their partners because of the economic factor,” says Pamela Limache Galindo, who works as legal coordinator for a shelter for abused women in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba. “It’s a big issue, and because they’re afraid of not being able to support their family they endure a lot in their homes.”