UNICEF worried about reforms in El Salvador to recruit minors with adults

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), among other entities, they expressed their concern for the reforms approved on Wednesday night by the Legislative Assembly of El Salvadordominated by the ruling party, for minors to be imprisoned in adult prisons.

UNICEF contextualized that “These reforms enable minors deprived of liberty, for crimes committed in organized crime mode, comply”

“While the decree is clear in mentioning that adolescents would be in separate pavilions, the administration of the centers would go to an entity that does not have specialization in childhood and adolescence, and the measures would be fulfilled in centers originally designed for adults”He said in a statement released in Panama.

Congress approved reforms to the youth criminal law so that “Minors belonging to gang”, As reported by the legislative body.

He pointed out that with the reforms “They will prevent these minors from receiving the same criminal treatment of those who have committed crimes of less serious or commitment in isolation or eventual”

In addition, they approved reforms to the penitentiary law so that “When they are transferred to the common criminal centers, these young people are separated into pavilions until they turn 18 and who are once the age majority must be submitted to the general adult regime”

For UNICEF, “Reforms against international instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CDN), as well as other international instruments, regarding the treatment and conditions to be observed for the deprivation of liberty of minors, including preventive detention and prison after the sentence”

He pointed out that “The reforms presented represent an important setback regarding the commitments assumed by El Salvador in terms of having a youth justice system with a differentiated, individualized and specialized approach, applicable to all adolescents accused of crimes”

“There are abundant evidence that adolescents in a center or prison designed for adults endangers their basic safety, their health, especially with regard to their psychological and emotional development, as well as their ability to stay in the future apart from the margin of crime and reinsert positively in society“He added.

In addition to UNICEF, the Children’s Rights Committee (CRC), the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner (Oacnudh-CA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) expressed concern.