El Salvador 's Legislative Assembly has approved measures that will transfer children to the country's adult prison system, exposing them to a heightened risk of abuse and violating international juvenile justice standards, Human Rights Watch said today.
On February 13, 2025, President Nayib Bukele signed into law a bill advanced by his supporters in the Legislative Assembly which orders the transfer of children detained for "organized crime offenses" to separate pavilions in adult prisons run by the General Directorate of Penal Centers (Dirección General de Centros Penales).
"The legislative changes place children under the authority of El Salvador's adult prison administration, which has been responsible for torture and other grave abuses," said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Transferring children into detention facilities designed and operated for adults, even if they are placed in nominally separate areas, is a massive regression for children's rights in El Salvador."
In the July 2024 report, "'Your Child Does Not Exist Here': Human Rights Abuses Against Children Under El Salvador's 'State of Emergency,'" Human Rights Watch documented grave human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, and serious due process violations against boys and girls as young as 12.
Over 3,000 children have been detained since March 2022, many with no apparent connection to criminal organizations. Many arrests appear to be based solely on anonymous complaints or assumptions based on a child's appearance. Some police officers told Human Rights Watch that they were pressured to detain a certain number of people daily to meet arrest quotas. Several detained children and their families had previously faced gang violence, including forced recruitment attempts and death threats.
As of February 2024, 1,065 children had been convicted of crimes, in many cases for the overbroad crime of "unlawful association." Human Rights Watch found that in many cases prosecutors used unreliable or uncorroborated evidence and coerced children to plead guilty of crimes they say they did not commit.
"While children in juvenile detention sites have faced horrible abuses, conditions and abuses in adult prisons are even worse and children should never be transferred there," Goebertus said.
Human Rights Watch has found that detainees in adult prisons are cut off from the outside world and denied any meaningful legal recourse. Many face extreme overcrowding, torture, and violence, and have severely limited access to basic services like food, water, and medical care.
Local human rights groups report that 368 people have died in El Salvador's prisons since President Bukele declared a state of emergency in March 2022. Photos and testimony Human Rights Watch identified and analysis by forensic experts point to a government role in several deaths.
These latest juvenile justice amendments follow March 2022 changes to the Juvenile Criminal Law that established prison sentences of up to 10 years for children ages 12 to 15 for "gang association" and up to 20 years for those ages 16 to 18. Those changes are incompatible with guidance by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which recommends that countries should not reduce the minimum age of criminal responsibility "under any circumstances" and urges raising it to at least 14.
The Juvenile Criminal Law had previously guaranteed important due process protections and alternatives to traditional prosecution, including conciliation and diversion programs. It prioritized noncustodial educational and restorative measures, with detention only as a measure of last resort. The law required holding any children detained only in specialized juvenile "confinement centers," different from adult facilities, with further separation by age, sex, and legal status. It even established special "intermediate centers" for young people ages 18 to 21, recognizing the unique needs of this age group.
International standards on juvenile justice call for children in conflict with the law to be detained only as a last resort. When children are detained, they should never be held in adult prisons because of the "abundant evidence" that doing so "compromises their health and basic safety and their future ability to remain free of crime and to reintegrate." The CRC, to which El Salvador is a party, and other human rights treaties obligate states to promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders.
On February 13, the CRC, UN Children's Fund, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and UN Population Fund said that the changes in El Salvador's law "represent a significant setback to El Salvador's commitments to maintain a juvenile justice system with a differentiated, individualized, and specialized approach applicable to all adolescents accused of crimes."
"Placing children in adult prisons will only worsen their exposure to abuse and undermine their chances of rehabilitation," Goebertus said.
