Why Salvadorans Flee Their Country — and Why They Disappear
by Jesus Zelaya BUSL’20
In January 2019, the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) traveled to El Salvador to continue work on its migrant disappearances project, now in its fourth year. The project is focused on the migrant disappearances phenomenon that is affecting thousands of Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran migrants and their families by documenting the experiences of families of disappeared migrants. Among the aims of the research is to emphasize the role of states in preventing and investigating migrant disappearances and craft recommendations for steps that need to be taken at national, regional, and international levels to stop migrant disappearances and provide solutions to the families of the disappeared. IHRC’s project is the only one conducted so far that compiles information on the causes and effects of migrant disappearances in each of the relevant states and maps each state’s laws and policies affecting disappeared migrants’ families. The project is also researching the initiatives of civil society organizations in each particular country, to learn how this phenomenon is affecting Mexican and Central American migrants’ families to understand the challenges facing them, and their demands for solutions from their governments. Now that fieldwork has concluded in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the IHRC team is preparing a comprehensive report to bring broader attention to the problem of disappearances of migrants.
In previous years, the IHRC conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to interview families of disappeared migrants, civil society organizations, and government agencies handling migrant disappearances. Among the groups each country team has met are the collectives of families of disappeared migrants that have formed in each country of the Northern Triangle. For example, in 2017, students in Honduras met with the family collective COFAMICENH, which documents the stories of family members struggling to search for migrants who have gone missing in Mexico. IHRC teams also worked closely with non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) engaged in advocacy on behalf of the migrants’ families. In each country, the teams’ main NGO partner has been Fundacion para la Justicia y el Estado Democratico de Derecho (FJEDD), which works on behalf of migrant families to litigate claims with governments to investigate, obtain information and demand the remains of missing and located family members.
Because a significant portion of the estimated 72,000 to 120,000 disappeared migrants in Mexico come from El Salvador, this year IHRC conducted fieldwork in San Salvador in collaboration with FJEDD. In El Salvador, as in the other countries of the Northern Triangle, the IHRC student team met with families of the disappeared, civil society organizations, government ministries and other experts involved in aspects of migrant disappearances. The families whose relatives have disappeared have formed collectives to support each other and have mobilized to search for their disappeared relative, to demand government action to help them, and to advocate for solutions that systematically address migrant disappearances. Our project has placed a high priority on documenting the experiences of these families, and incorporating policy recommendations based on the families’ demands. We also interviewed civil society organizations and government agencies to understand the Salvadoran legal framework, and how the government meets (or fails to meet) its obligations to protect Salvadoran migrants.
The main collective of families of the disappeared in El Salvador is COFAMIDE. We spent an afternoon meeting with members of COFAMIDE, including Luis Becaton, one of the founders of COFAMIDE. Among the issues we discussed were the reasons so many Salvadorans migrate. Luis indicated that COFAMIDE has identified three main reasons for Salvadoran migration. The first is the extreme poverty caused by both structural and local reasons, and labor exploitation, which is a problem throughout El Salvador. Even the minimum wage, for those fortunate enough to be earning it, does not cover basic necessities for survival. The second factor is systemic violence in the country that stems from historical reasons — particularly the brutal civil war of the 1980’s and ‘90’s — and more recent causes such as Salvadorans steeped in the gang culture of US cities such as Los Angeles who have been deported home. Luis spoke of counter-gangs, or “extermination groups” that were going to capture gang members out in the street in order to fight the gang problem. The third factor that COFAMIDE identified was family reunification, which also relates back to the civil war period when thousands of Salvadorans fled to the United States and other countries for safety. Many who immigrated out of El Salvador at that time left children or other family members in El Salvador. Those left behind more recently have sought to reunite with family members who immigrated earlier once other ‘push’ factors have caused the decision to out-migrate. For example, Luis mentioned that violence and familial reunification intersect, which motivate youth to immigrate. Luis has heard many stories in which young Salvadorans have said that they would rather die attempting to immigrate to the U.S. than be killed in El Salvador.
Our team also met with the organization Grupo de Monitoreo Independiente de El Salvador (GMIES), which echoed some of the themes of COFAMIDE about the pressures that are causing massive out-migration. The attorney at GMIES talked about the rampant violence in the country, and the ongoing confrontations between the military and police on the one hand, and the gangs on the other. He informed us that the weekend we arrived in El Salvador, certain gangs had declared “war” against the police of El Salvador in retaliation for a police shoot-out on their members. Gang violence prevents the youth of El Salvador from any semblance of normal life: pursuing education, securing stable employment, and raising families in safety. Young people in particular are a targeted population by gangs that want to use them to traffic drugs or people, to engage in extortion, or to swell their ranks for other reasons. Older Salvadorans also decide to migrate because they are “threatened, extorted,” and/or kidnapped by gangs.
One of the groups we also spent an afternoon with in San Salvador explained why their constituents comprise some of the most vulnerable members of society and are also the most vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and disappearance when they migrate. COMCAVIS TRANS, a civil society organization focused on advocating for trans Salvadorans from the political and migratory lens, underscored the multitude of reasons that have historically driven Salvadorans to migrate that we heard from the other organizations we interviewed. During the Salvadoran Civil War (1980–1992) over 1 million Salvadorans were displaced throughout Central America, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Australia, which began a chain migration of family members, as COFAMIDE has explained to us. Gang violence is another leading factor in migration in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala). Gang violence is so pervasive in El Salvador that it has caused 296,000 people to be internally displaced in 2017. Finally, migrants are looking for a way to a safe and secure future in the U.S. for themselves and their families, free from the economic hardship coupled with extreme daily violence or risk of violence experienced by so many in El Salvador.
COMCAVIS TRANS identified four particularly vulnerable groups especially prone to suffer from violence. These groups are women, people with disabilities, male youth likely to be recruited into a gang, and LGBTQI people. The organization gave examples of the deplorable violence that LGBTQI youth face due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. One striking instance was the murder of three trans women in a time span of 72 hours in San Luis Talpa in 2017. Systemic violence is the primary cause for LGBTQI individuals to migrate.
Through their fieldwork in El Salvador, the IHRC students had the opportunity to learn from civil society organizations with deep experience on the issues relating to migrant disappearance, and gain valuable information about migratory patterns in El Salvador. Knowing the root causes of out-migration from El Salvador is an important aspect of researching the migrant disappearances phenomenon because it demonstrates what is pushing Salvadorans to undertake the dangerous migrant journey to the U.S. Understanding and identifying these factors gives context to the migrant disappearances occurring in Mexico and elsewhere.
Brief bio: Jesus Zelaya was born and raised Washington, D.C. and has studied Anthropology at Amherst College, where he completed a thesis on the intersectionality of nationality, migration, and sexuality as embodied by the lived experience of transnational queer migrants.
