Presentation of a Bill that seeks to assist and protect victims of forced displacement in El Salvador.
April 8, 2019
A bill that aims to protect victims of forced displacement was presented this Monday in the Legislative Assembly by the authorities of the Ministry of Justice and Security and the National Council for Children and Adolescents (CONNA), who are part of the management group that has promoted this initiative.
The document aims to establish a protocol to assist and protect victims who suffer a forced displacement process at any given time.
The authorities explained that the document contains stages such as prevention, protection, humanitarian assistance, return, resettlement, and reintegration of the victims.
“There is an imminent need for a special law that assists victims who are at risk or facing a situation of internal forced displacement and which, in addition, is harmonized with international human rights standards,” explained Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde, Minister of Justice and Security.
“The authorities of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the State to recognize victims of forced displacement as subject to rights, to review and issue special legislation aimed at protecting victims, and to provide protective measures to those who already have the status of displaced persons,” he added.
According to Zaira Navas, director of CONNA, the bill is an opportunity to give a guarantee to people who have suffered this type of situation in El Salvador.
“We have delivered a document that brings together these parameters, those essential elements that the legislation must have, including human rights, childhood, inclusion, and gender approaches and all the approaches that allow the legislation to be comprehensive,” Navas said.
According to data from Médicos de Mundo provided in the first eight months of 2018, more than 200 victims of forced displacement due to violence were assisted, of which more than 115 were women and more than 100 were men, while in 2017, the organization served 125 people.
Cristosal, a non-governmental organization that has been documenting the problem for several years, estimates that in El Salvador, from 2014 to October 31, 2018, 1,672 people were in need to displace internally in a forced manner due to social violence. In 2018, this entity also presented a special law proposal on forced displacement, but Congress’s justice and human rights commission is still not studying this proposal.
The original article in Spanish can be accessed through the link below:
Portal de monitoreo a vulneraciones de derechos humanos
El equipo de investigación de Cristosal brinda monitoreo constante a las violaciones en materia de derechos humanos, para brindar información oportuna y certera sobre las causas y efectos de estas sobre las poblaciones vulneradas. Alimentado por datos provenientes de instituciones Estatales, de sociedad civil y de cooperación internacional, sus publicaciones fortalecen la labor de defensa y promoción de los derechos humanos en el Norte de Centroamérica.
