Asking El Salvador to recognize forced displacement and favor the victims

The regional director of programs of the Central American organization Cristosal, Celia Medrano, asked the Salvadoran government and Congress on Wednesday to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that forces them to recognize the phenomenon of forced displacement and legislate in favor of the victims.

In statements to Efe, Medrano pointed out that both state bodies have not complied with a sentence of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court in which she gave them until last January to take such actions.

“As time progresses, this becomes a breach of the sentence and no longer just an issue of a delay in meeting the given deadline,” said the human rights defender.

She pointed out that the constitutional judges ordered the Government in said ruling, issued in July 2018, to recognize officially the forced displacement phenomenon generated due to violence, mainly by gangs.

The Constitutional Chamber also ordered the country’s president, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, to recover the territories controlled by these criminal structures.

The activist pointed out that the Government of Sánchez Cerén has the possibility, in the time remaining before handing over power on June 1, to “not go down in history as an Executive that permanently turned its back” on the displaced population.

On the other hand, she pointed out that Congress failed to comply with the order to create a specific law to assist “victims of violence in situations of internal displacement.”

She explained that the congresspeople have three bills that address the phenomenon, including one presented by Cristosal in August 2018.

Medrano urged the congresspeople to “speed up” the approval process for this proposal because it is the only one that specifically addresses the problem of forced displacement and “meets minimum standards of protection.”

The criminal violence that El Salvador is experiencing forced more than 235,700 people to face forced internal forced displacement during 2018, according to a national survey by the Jesuit Central American University (UCA) that Cristosal supported.

The study indicates that 5.2 percent of the country’s adult population had to “change their place of residence” to protect themselves “from a threat or act of violence.”

The percentage is similar to that registered during 2017 by a similar study undertaken by UCA and higher than the 4.9 percent computed in 2016.

The original article in Spanish can be accessed through the link below:

https://www.efe.com/efe/america/sociedad/piden-a-el-salvador-reconocer-desplazamiento-forzado-y-favorecer-las-victimas/20000013-3935775