El Salvador criminal law reforms said to violate children’s rights News
Casa Presidencial , El Salvador, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
El Salvador criminal law reforms said to violate children’s rights

Recent criminal law reforms in El Salvador that expand punitive measures against minors violate children’s rights, Amnesty International said Thursday. The amendment, approved February 12, permits adolescents convicted of organized criminal offenses to be transferred to adult prisons, and further access to parole is eliminated, in contravention of juvenile justice standards.

The reforms revised the Juvenile Criminal Law, Prisons Law, and Laws against Organized Crime, and enable the authorities to detain children as young as 12 years old under the emergency power in place since March 2022. According to Amnesty, more than 84,000 detentions, the majority of which were arbitrary, have occurred during the state of emergency, alongside hundreds of torture allegations and almost 300 reported custodial deaths.

Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty, condemned the reforms, stating:

Since the declaration of the state of emergency in March 2022, the government of El Salvador has dismantled due process guarantees and normalized mass detentions with insufficient evidence. The reforms that came into effect on 22 February institutionalize deprivation of liberty as the state’s only response, including for children, in clear violation of international human rights standards. Using the legislative branch to consolidate a model of unchecked repression shows that emergency rule is no longer a temporary measure, but a permanent government strategy.

According to the rights group, these amendments are a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Beijing Rules, which mandate a rehabilitation-based approach for minors rather than a punitive one. The reforms also permit housing individuals under 21 in adult prison sections without safeguarding against violence or access to education.

Since 2022, almost 3,000 children have been convicted, often based on insufficient evidence or coerced confessional statements, according to Human Rights Watch. Amnesty said that these latest reforms formalized mass deportation strategies, judicial oversight and a lack of regard for the rule of law. “The reforms that came into effect on February 22 institutionalize deprivation of liberty as the state’s only response, including for children, in clear violation of international human rights standards,” warned Piquer.

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