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LATINAMERICAN AND THE CARIBBEAN COMMITTEE FOR THE DEFENSE OF WOMEN RIGHTS

CLADEM EL SALVADOR

SHADOW REPORT

ON THE CONVENTION OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

REDACTION TEAM:

  Alma Benítez Molina  and  Aída Ruth Macall

Presentation

 In 1989, an ascent never experienced before in the issue on protection of the rights of the childhood took place in the world. This ascent was concreted with the approval of the text of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was approved by the General Assembly of United Nations on 20 November 1989 and entry into force on 2 September 1990, in a brief lapse than no other convention on human rights. El Salvador signed the Convention on 26 January and it was ratified on 27 April 1990.

During September 29 and 30 1990, the United Nations called  to a World-wide Summit in favour of the Childhood, that was directed by 71 Government and State Chiefs and a Declaration on the Survival, the Protection and the Development of the Child was adopted, and in addition, a Plan of Action to apply the Declaration in the Decade of 1990.

Despite of the existence of this international norm that includes the civil and political rights as the economic, social and cultural ones, the situation of the children is worrying. Girls and boys live in a hostile world and societies that have not understood the fact of being a boy or a girl and the situations that surround that segment of the society.

The lack of national policies or a national system of protection of the children prevents their better development: thousands of children are left behind, are victims of violence, discrimination, are under nourished, leave the school, and become vulnerable to all transgression. The governmental cover becomes deficient to protect the needs of security of boys, girls and young people who demand integral attention urgently.

The children and adolescents are victims of the abuse of some authorities that are legally forced to keep their physical, mental and psychological integrity. The rural children suffer the under protection that is pronounced in the economic marginalize of their families and that is transferred to them. They are socially discriminated, when do not receive scholar and educational benefits that the State and government are forced to provide them.

The delay of the agriculture increases their risk of death: because of the lack of education, medicines, hospitals or clinics. Finishing the elaboration of this report, the authorities of the Salvadoran Institute of the Protection of Minors (ISPM), indicated that in the first trimester of 2004, the cases of children sexually abused, abandoned and attacked had increased in relation to year 2003.

Although the landscape of the childhood anywhere in the world is serious, there is always optimism for the international community, democratic governments, specialized organisms of United Nations, and non Governmental Organizations to support in a decisive way with human and material resources so that the children, as innocent victims enjoy a better present and a better future.

I.                   Executive summary of the main points of concern

+ Situation of  children and adolescents

The present work shows the particular situation of the Salvadoran children and adolescents situation  in the general political context.

The Salvadoran society was positively impacted by the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1990, and the Peace Accords in 1992, that allowed the arise of guarantee norms and governmental and private institutions (NGO´s) to protect the rights of the minors.

In spite of all the international and national normative on  human rights that El Salvador is committed with, like the Constitution of the Republic, the Underage Offenders Law , the Salvadoran Institute for the Protection of Minors, the active participation of NGOs that have as specific objective the protection of the childhood, the situation of the children is still dramatic.

The children can’t be deprived of the family surroundings, and this is caused, in a very high proportion, by the internal labour emigration of farmer parents who go to the cities looking for a remunerated job and also the emigration from the cities to the outside looking for the same objective.

It is indicated in addition in this work that the Anti - Gang Law approved in October 2003 by the Legislative Assembly as an initiative of the President of the Republic to persecute the crime of organized bands, is indiscriminately applied to children and young people. This Law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Justice, reason why the judges had refused to apply it. The Anti – Gang Law had faced the President Francisco Flores with the Judicial Power and two opposition parties represented in the Legislative Assembly.

The denial of the Salvadoran government to create the National Commission to search Boys and Girls disappeared during the armed conflict has been criticized by different social sectors as the organizations of human rights.

The Domestic Violence is part of the Salvadoran society, and directly affects the children and adolescents avoiding their development prevailing the physical punishment among the families of lower incomes and less education: slaps, hits, burns, sexual aggression and others.

It has been analysed the general principles through concrete facts: the right to life, the right to equality, the right to participation, the right to freedom of expression and information, guaranteed in the CRC.

The approval of The Code of the Childhood and the Adolescence, widely discussed by many sectors interested in the subject, is consider indispensable which had already be presented to the Legislative Assembly.

+ Second Inform Presented by the Salvadoran Government

The Second Report presented by the Government of El Salvador in the 36th Session of the Monitor Committee of the Committee on the Rights of the Child is examined to the light of four fundamental principles: The Principle of non Discrimination, the Principle of Superior Interest of Children, the Right  of Life and the Principle of Participation.

The Principle of the Right of Life is analysed from the conditions of minors. The children under nourished and anaemic have a slow death and are susceptible of diseases. The situation of the boy/girl is very serious. In this work it is indicated that the right of life of the children is not due to take only like the direct action of the State agents who make executions, but like the lack of real interest from the national government to improve their quality of life and its mental and psychic development.

The Principle of non Discrimination, supposes that all the boys and girls must have the same opportunity to enjoy their human rights as it’s established in the Article 2 of the CRC. In the reality, the poor children are discriminated, their families suffer the lack of all necessary things and they have to help with the support of the home and leave the school. This situation gets deeper with boys and girls who live in countryside.

Principle of Superior Interest of Children (Art. 3). In the Salvadoran normative as much as in the constitutional dispositions and in the obligations that come from the CRC, many and varied legislative and from another nature measures had been adopted in order to incorporate the Principle of Superior Interest of the boy and girl in the Salvadoran legal system like a governing principle of protection of the children. Nevertheless, this principle is only applied when it is to decide before a minors court to who is going to be the legal guardian of the minor, or when there is a conflict with the law for the resolution of judicial measures.

The Principle of Participation has vast obstacles, among them, the emergent of many groups of youthful gang members and adults who force the adolescents to stay locked up in their houses. But to the margin of this situation, the recreation of the boy, girl and adolescents is not a governmental priority. Over the Principle of Participation, it is rarely begin to value its importance in the formation and education of the minors.

+ Protection of the Boys, Girls and Young people rights on the International and National Instruments

To the light of the CRC the normative corresponding to the paternal and filial relation was included in the Family Code, their rights and duties, the personal care, the right to know who are their parents, their legal representation, the administration of their goods, and the extinction, loss, suspension and prorogue of the parental authority.

As a result of the ratification of the CRC legislative measures were created beginning by the revision of the internal legislation related to the childhood: General Judge Advocate for the Defence of the Human Rights Law (1991), Law of the Salvadoran Institute for the Protection of Minors (1993), Family Code (1994), Procedural Family Law (1994), Underage Offenders Law (1995), General Law of Education (1996), Law against the Domestic Violence (1996).

+ Situation of the girl and adolescents in risk situation.

The Chapter 2 has the mission to explain the causes and conditions in which the Salvadoran domestic worker girls and adolescents live, and also the conditions of girls and adolescents victims of violence and sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation.

The domestic work isn’t monitored nor supervised by the Ministry of Work or another governmental institution. For that reason, sexual exploitation and the mistreatment that receive girls and adolescents in the domestic work is invisible. This allows employers to abuse of these girls - mistreat, extra working hours, low payment, even sexual abuse caused by the men of the house.

 The collection of official data about the amount of girls and adolescents in prostitution centers is not easy, because when somebody tries to find the minors, the owners of the businesses hide them. The Body of Metropolitans Agents of San Salvador (CAM) who has the control of prostitution houses, bars, businesses in general, in 1998 reported that in the Salvadoran capital there were  3,959 centers of prostitution, and that approximately 2,069 are camouflaged as a cafeteria. Also they detected 59 centers of prostitution in where an average of 6 women each one is considered, resulting a number of 354 women which a 35% are adolescent, aged 13 - 18 years.

 Among the causes that encourage the commercial sexual exploitation of boys, girls and adolescents in El Salvador can be mentioned the following elements: deteriorated family relations, marginalize and poverty in which the children and the adolescents live, authoritarian relations, generic inequality, rural area – city migration, citizens insensibility about this problem, etc.

+ General Measures of Implementation

 In chapter 3 it is emphasizes the General Measures of Application: Article 1 of the CRC, the Constitution of the Republic, Arts. 1, 34, 35 and 71. Family Code.

 In Chapter 4 related to the Rights and Civil Liberties, in the literal a: articles 7, 8, 14, 16, 30 and 40 of the CRC referred to the boy and the girl and their Right to a name and nationality, identity and family relations.

 This chapter also emphasizes the basic health and well-being of the boys and girls and whose rights are settle down in article 24 of the CRC, the Additional Protocol of the American Convention of Human rights.

In order to conclude, in chapter 8, there are presented: The Education, Recreation and Cultural Activities of Children

The Alternative Report presented by CLADEM tries to indicate that in the matter of protection of minors there are enough national and international normative but there aren’t integral, coordinated, systematic and long term national plans.