Overview
- The provincial Senate delayed consideration of a bill that would have created contraventional offenses to fully ban cuidacoches after lawmakers in Unidos failed to reach agreement.
- Senator Ciro Seisas' original draft would have added escalating penalties for the practice, ranging from community service to detention for repeat offenders and harsher terms for threats or violence.
- The Chamber of Deputies rewrote the text by adding article 66 bis to limit sanctions to unauthorized activity only where local ordinances ban it while keeping penalties for intimidation and extortion.
- Security Minister Pablo Cococcioni urged faster, low-cost tools that let police remove offenders on the spot and use a contravensional decree to bar return, arguing full criminal trials would overload courts and police resources.
- Municipal differences and pressure from church and human-rights groups shape the dispute because some cities already regulate cuidacoches locally and officials favor social or inclusion programs for vulnerable people involved in the practice.