Rhina Aguirre

While in exile, Aguirre met Carlos Samaniego, a sociologist from Loja, whom she married—in 2010, he would go on to be appointed ombudsman of Tarija. On account of her toxoplasmosis, Aguirre suffered several miscarriages in her attempts to have children, a situation that led her to choose adoption. Her son, Carlos Saúl Samaniego, was born in Vilcabamba and studied industrial engineering in Ecuador. Aged 82, Aguirre died on 30 October 2021. Her passing was commemorated by the Chamber of Senators, which passed an official posthumous recognition of her work two days after her death.

In 2009, public recognition for her work led the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP) to invite Aguirre to join the party's electoral list in the Tarija Department. Though initially hesitant, Aguirre accepted the nomination and was elected alongside singer Juan Enrique Jurado as one of the MAS's two senators for that department, becoming the first blind person ever to occupy a parliamentary seat in Bolivian history. Throughout her senatorial term, Aguirre continued to promote legislation in favor of disabled persons, actions that bore fruit with the 2012 passage of the General Law on Persons with Disabilities, which promoted the sector's access to employment, equal opportunity, and social inclusion. Upon the conclusion of her term, Aguirre was not nominated for reelection but remained active in politics, exercising the vice presidency of the MAS in Tarija for some time.

In tandem with her other activities, Aguirre studied sociology and practiced social work. A staunch opponent of the military governments of the day, she became an early activist in the country's nascent human rights movement, joining the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights. Forced into exile for her political activism against the García Meza regime, Aguirre took refuge in Ecuador, where she collaborated with Bishop Leonidas Proaño's Indigenous Ministry in Riobamba. Later, she moved to Quito, where she worked alongside local peasant and social organizations. Finally settling in Puyo, Aguirre was brought on as a public official in the municipality's Department of Culture. Around this time, Aguirre contracted toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease transmitted by cats. By 1983, the condition had left her entirely blind in both eyes.

With the reestablishment of democracy in Bolivia, Aguirre returned to Tarija, where she once again dedicated herself to activism in the field of human rights. In the absence of the hard-right military dictatorships of the 1970s and '80s, many of Bolivia's human rights activists re-oriented themselves in opposition to the neoliberal economics of the new democratic governments, which dismantled many of the country's state-run social services. For her part, Aguirre focused her efforts on disability rights, joining the Departmental Council for Disabled Persons in 2000, where she served as the organization's head of health and education.

Rhina Aguirre Amézaga (20 May 1939 – 30 October 2021) was a Bolivian disability activist, politician, and sociologist who served as senator for Tarija from 2010 to 2015. Aguirre studied education while undergoing the novitiate at the Santa Ana School. Though she retired before making her perpetual vows, she remained influenced by the concepts of liberation theology, which united Christian doctrine with left-wing political positions. An opponent of the military dictatorships of the 1970s and '80s, Aguirre was an early activist in the country's human rights movement. Exiled to Ecuador by the García Meza regime, she collaborated with Leonidas Proaño's Indigenous Ministry and worked closely with the country's peasant and social organizations. Blinded in both eyes by toxoplasmosis, Aguirre took up the cause of disability rights, joining the Departmental Council for Disabled Persons upon her return to Bolivia. In 2009, she joined the Movement for Socialism and was elected to represent Tarija in the Senate, becoming the first blind person in Bolivian history ever to assume a parliamentary seat.

Rhina Aguirre was born on 20 May 1939 in Tarija to Humberto Aguirre, an artisan jeweler from Sucre, and Lucía Amézaga, a woman from Camargo. The eldest of three siblings, Aguirre spent her childhood in relative poverty, raised primarily by her father and stepmother, her birth mother having died when Aguirre was 5 years old. Aguirre's father made a living operating a small watch shop in the city. A communist, well-read on the theories of Marxism–Leninism, Humberto Aguirre instilled in his daughter a sense of class consciousness and educated her on the need to combat social inequality. "I didn't understand much of what he was saying [at the time] ... I didn't like that word (fighting). I imagined those wrestling shows ... My dad explained to me that it wasn't about that kind of fight, but about constant movement and work; he exhorted me to read, to inform myself", she recalled.