LEPINA law article harms rather than helps families in El Salvador

In El Salvador, thousands of children are being taken out of orphanages to instead live with their families in often-dismal situations.

By: Lindsay Boyle
Produced and edited by: Leisha Lininger

For 31-year-old Juana Espinoza, life has been a rollercoaster.

About 11 years ago, she, her 2- and 3-year-old sons, her newborn daughter and her husband — an alcoholic — lived with her aunt and uncle, who were also alcoholics.

After one particularly bad, physical fight, Espinoza’s uncle cast her whole family out of the house for good.

With nowhere else to go, Espinoza took to the streets with her children, crying and uncertain of her future. Although her husband reassured her they would be able to start new, it was his reputation that prevented them from doing just that.

Living in a cardboard house under a mango tree, Espinoza used a gas station’s faucet to bathe her children and wash her clothes, and often depended on others’ donations for clothing, food, diapers and more.

Although she had begun gardening and selling vegetables for about $6 a week, it was not enough to provide food for her children. She decided to take her then 3- and 4-year-old sons to a protection center — somewhat similar to an orphanage — where, after a bit of adjustment, they ended up having help getting the things they needed. She visited them every Sunday.

Eight years later, the Salvadoran government asked Espinoza if she wanted her boys back, and asked her not to worry about her ability to provide resources because the only requirement was to have a house. She did not have much of a choice — instead, she had three months to figure out how to use the same salary she had been living on for years to provide for three children instead of just one.

Because of one article in El Salvador’s LEPINA law, there are countless other stories just like Espinoza’s.

The LEPINA law, or the Law on Protection of Children and Adolescents, was signed in March 2009 and consists of 260 articles based on the human rights standards set by the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Although most articles of the LEPINA law are considered helpful and outlaw things such as sex trafficking and child labor, Article 13 states that it is a family’s responsibility to care for its children, which justifies the government to remove children from protection centers.

While on the surface the article may not sound bad, the issue is that the law is designed for developed countries, where families receiving children from places such as protection centers can turn to social programs such as welfare or food stamps for help. No such programs exist in El Salvador.

In El Salvador, the term “protection center” is more common than “orphanage” because only about 10 percent of children in centers are actually orphans. The rest ended up in centers because they were placed there by the government because of familial violence and or neglect, or because their families took them there voluntarily after being unable or unwilling to take care of them.

Often, those children have family members who are gang members, abusive, drug addicts, mentally handicapped or living in extreme poverty.

According to Kara Wilson, a San Antonio native who founded Project RED, although the term “orphanage” can carry a negative connotation in the United States, that is not usually the case in El Salvador.

“Orphanages here are wonderful places compared to (children’s actual homes), because they have three meals a day, they have beds to sleep in and they have an education — a private education, usually,” she said.

Gloria Daysi Abrego, a psychologist and social worker who has been with Project RED since it started as a pilot program in July 2011, called the LEPINA law contradictory.

She said that, although the law states that children have the right to live in a healthy home, they are often ending up in situations with little or no access to nutrition, health care, education and more — things she considers basic rights.

“For the majority of the children who are being reintegrated, all of these rights are being violated,” Abrego said.

El Salvador has experienced drastic changes since Article 13 of the LEPINA law began to be implemented in January 2011. In 2009, there were more than 3,000 children in protection centers. Now, there are about 700.

In El Salvador, there are about 60 private centers, which are usually funded by Christian, catholic or other organizations often outside El Salvador, and nine public centers, funded primarily by the government.

Children are being taken from both private and public centers and given back to their families, often with only three months’ notice.

There has been almost no national or international media coverage about the issue, which a source familiar with the LEPINA law said is mostly because Salvadoran media place little or no importance on children and their rights.

“Almost no one here in El Salvador has any idea that this is going on,” Wilson said. “Every time I tell people about what (Project RED) is doing and the problem behind it, people are shocked because they have never heard of the law.”

Project RED works holistically with families that have been reintegrated with their children to help them transition based on their individual situations. The project imparts counseling sessions, parenting school sessions and youth programs; provides beds for children; builds houses and bathrooms; registers children for school and provides them with school supplies and bus fare, and hands out monthly food and hygiene bags.

Project RED volunteers build a new
house while family members look on.
Provided by Kara Wilson

With just Wilson, an administrative worker, a social worker and two psychologists, one of which doubles as a social worker, the project is working with about 43 families, and wants to be working with 50 by the end of the year.

“Currently, the population that we work with doesn’t even represent 10 percent of the children in El Salvador that are being reintegrated into their families,” Abrego said. “But, we can see individually what the impact is through our work with each and every one of these families.”

Abrego emphasized that Project RED does not merely hand things out to families.

“Not only do we provide things for the families, we educate the families in order to take advantage of all the potential they have and empower them,” she said.

It was nine months before Juana Espinoza heard the Project RED field team knock on her door — nine months of living on her mother-in-law’s property in a shack with no walls and an open bathroom area, struggling to feed three adolescent children — now 11, 13 and 14 — with $3- $4 a day and no support from her mother-in-law.

“When I got the news that I was going to receive my children again, I was really worried,” Espinoza said. “I told them that I didn’t have any resources, I didn’t have a way to support them both.”

Since Project RED started working with Espinoza, it has been able to provide a new, enclosed, wooden house for the Espinoza family, which includes a stove, a latrine, a place for beds and a place to wash clothes. Espinoza endearingly calls the house the “little cabin.”

Without Project RED, Espinoza said things would be “a lot more complicated.”

“Through all of my difficulties, all of the things I’ve been through, I haven’t had really anybody to support me,” she said. “I see Project RED as a support.”

Like Espinoza, 34-year-old Ana Silvia Cardoza also voluntarily took two of her children to a private protection center when she realized she could not take care of them. With a total of five children, parents who were sick, and no support from any of the children’s fathers, things had become dire.

At the center, Cardoza said her two children received everything they needed. However, in October 2011, she was notified that she would be getting her children back, and that she would then have to attend six sessions of parenting school led by government social workers and psychologists in San Salvador to learn about her responsibilities as a mother.

Abrego explained that, often, the six parenting sessions do not do enough to equip parents to properly care for their children. She added that each session covers the exact same material, and that the parents almost always attend the sessions after they already have their children back.

According to Abrego, in many cases, parents explicitly say they are not ready to receive their children, yet the government still gives them back.

“The government is claiming that these families who have objections to receiving their children are just trying to avoid having any responsibility for their children, so they don’t take that into account,” she said.

Although Cardoza said the government was nice during the court hearing and did visit her house to complete a checklist before giving her children to her, she said they never offered any further suggestions or advice, even though the LEPINA law says the government will provide follow-up visits.

“I was really happy to be with my children again because I love my children, but I didn’t have any support,” she said. “The same problems that were there before were still there.”

She said her biggest issue was trying to provide food for five children with the $20 she received each week from her eldest son, who works in a brick-making factory.

Cardoza was only alone with her children for a week or two before Project RED started working with her. First, the project gave the family bags of food, but since then, they have given more.

”(Project RED) has given us many things,” Cardoza said. “Our whole life, our whole bathing aspect is totally different. We have a sink, running water, a shower.”

Project RED also gives weekly psychological counseling sessions to Cardoza and her 11-year-old son, who has had some behavioral problems as a result of the transition from the center to his home.

“Without this help, I’d be so much more worried,” Cardoza said. “Through this help, my life has gotten so much better.”

Project RED volunteers pose with the Cardoza family.
Photo provided by Kara Wilson.

Not all of the families Project RED has worked with have shared the same kind of success.

In one case Project RED worked with, government workers returned four of six children to a house they were taken away from because of negligence, extreme poverty, some sexual abuse and mentally handicapped parents.

“Extreme poverty doesn’t even come close to describing what kind of conditions they’re living in,” Wilson said.

She described the home as a one-room, mud house in the jungle, with three string beds piled up with trash, and feces and molding food scattered throughout the house.

Although Project RED has reported the case to government authorities in the past, Wilson said the children continue to “live like savages.” She explained that authorities said they cannot take the children back to a protection center without actual proof that they are being sexually abused, regardless of the other conditions the children are living in.

Countless other families have not been reached by Project RED at all.

Wilson, who has been visiting El Salvador occasionally since she was 14, started a pilot program in July 2011 in order to assess what families’ needs were and what could be done to meet them. It worked directly with ISNA, the branch of government that oversaw child protection at the time.

Wilson said that when she discovered what the law was doing and decided to try to help the families affected by reintegration, she was kicked out of ISNA by the branch’s sub director, who told her not to try to do what the government is already doing well. She was forced to stop working with ISNA.

“I was really discouraged at the time, but that discouragement turned into motivation,” she said. “I realized it meant that really, no one wants anybody to expose what’s actually happening.”

The source familiar with the LEPINA law explained that the law is not yet complete. It is written in the law that the government is supposed to partner with NGOs and other organizations that would act as flag raisers when aspects of the law are not being implemented properly. However, that is not yet happening.

Project RED is part of a tax-exempt Salvadoran nonprofit organization that became legal early in 2012. Right now, Wilson raises all of its funds by taking fundraising trips and working with individual donors, and through donations made via Project RED’s website, www.projectredelsalvador.org.

For Abrego, the hardest part of working with Project RED is recognizing the true implications of Article 13 of the LEPINA law.

She added that even more families are struggling to make ends meet without the help of Project RED.

“The number of families we’re working with is a small sample of the reality that’s happening on a larger scale in this country,” she said.

Forgetting the Salvadoran Civil War

By: Lindsay Boyle

Produced & Edited by: Kaylyn Hlavaty
Maria Cristina Alvarenga was just one year old when El Salvador’s civil war — a 12-year ordeal — came to a close in 1992. Today, Alvarenga, who grew up in the Comunidad Oscar Arnulfo Romero orphanage, said she would know very little about the war — even though it is essentially the reason she was in an orphanage in the first place — if not for a single novel that was assigned in her high school social studies class, which primarily covered one massacre that occurred in El Mozote.

Although some organizations — such as Amnesty International — have suggested that the El Salvadoran government is not doing enough to take responsibility for or inform citizens about what happened during the war, others believe that, right now, it is more important for the government to focus on moving forward and dealing with current issues.

In 1980, the Salvadoran Civil War began primarily as a result of land disputes and widespread poverty. Early in the war, the United States opted to intervene on the side of what was, at the time, a military dictatorship, rather than on the side of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front — a coalition of left-wing guerilla groups.

Armed with funding and training from the United States, the governmental military proceeded to commit massacres throughout the country. By the time the war ended, an estimated 70,000- 80,000 people had lost their lives.

Additionally, more than 800 children went missing throughout the course of the war. Often, Salvadoran soldiers essentially kidnapped those children, regardless of whether the children’s family members were still alive.

Some children were used as soldiers. Some ended up in Salvadoran orphanages under fake names. Others were sold into an illegitimate international adoption market for large sums of money. More than half of the children, many of whom would now be approaching 30 years of age, are still missing.

U.S.-born Victoria Cavanaugh, who started a nonprofit called Nuestro Ahora in El Salvador in 2006, explained that, although she thinks the United States should help find the children because “humanity has an obligation to help other people,” the missing children situation is not the primary issue in El Salvador for multiple reasons.

For one, she explained that many of the children lost during the war spent their entire childhoods in orphanages hoping to find their parents, but found little or no information. Because of that, she said some of them have stopped searching altogether.

She pointed out that those children, now adults, have started their own lives — different lives — and, if they live in the United States, have to consider whether they would leave the United States and potentially risk losing immigration status to find their real families.

“A lot of people have put it behind them,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m sure there’s always a hope to find your parents, but it’s a lot of history to dig up.”

Additionally, Cavanaugh cited two occurrences as more pressing issues in El Salvador: problems with gang violence, and problems with attempted emigration to the United States. According to the CIA World Factbook, El Salvador has a net migration loss of 8.78 per 1,000 people so far in 2012, which ranks as the 206th worst rate of the 221 included countries.

Although Cavanaugh said those problems exist mostly as a result of the civil war, she also said they often cause people to be more focused on the present rather than the past.

“I think, due to all the current other crises that are happening here, (the missing children issue is) just not at the top of the list,” she said.

Each year, Cavanaugh’s organization, Nuestro Ahora, provides scholarships, stipends and housing to about 10 18-- 25-year-old students coming from multiple orphanages. Unlike in the United States, most children in Salvadoran orphanages do have at least one parent. However, those parents were deemed unable to take care of them because, for example, they could not afford to feed their children, or lived too far away to send their children to school.

Orphans at Hogar de las Hermanas Inmaculado Corazon, Izalco, Sonsonate -- 

one of the orphanages Nuestro Ahora works with. (Courtesy of Nuestro Ahora.)

                                                                         Cavanaugh explained that some of the oldest students have personal memories from the war, but most of the rest of them have only heard others’ stories. Some, she said, are mostly oblivious to the entire situation.

One of the older students, 25-year-old Maria Magdalena Lopez, said that, despite having few personal memories of the war, she has worked extra hard to learn about the war from classmates, companions and their parents.

She agreed that other issues have come to the forefront in El Salvador.
“The people in the city have tried to put the war behind them,” she said. “They’re not trying to forget — it’s more like they’ve put it to one side, because they now have to focus on their current problems in the country.”

Lopez acknowledged that those problems are largely related to the war, but said that, now, “people don’t necessarily see it as consequences of the war.”

When she first started working with students through Nuestro Ahora, Cavanaugh said she found it “striking” how little they knew about the war and the missing children, despite typically having grown up around several people affected by both.

Cavanaugh pointed to the government as a big reason people have stopped discussing the events of the war. She said that education in El Salvador is “totally, a thousand percent” biased, and that media are “very controlled” and typically portray everything in a positive way.

“There’s very little emphasis on thinking critically, so it’s no wonder that there’s not more insistence by Salvadorans themselves as to what’s going on,” she said. “They don’t have the sense that’s it their right to demand the answers from their government.”

One of the Nuestro Ahora students, 19-year-old Maria Cristina Alvarenga, spent her childhood in an orphanage because, after the war, her parents were not able to send her to school.

She said she thinks that more should be said about the war because she knows that many people have been affected by it — not only the children who went missing and their families, but also veterans who, today, do not receive any benefits from the government. Alvarenga even has a friend who lost both of her parents in the war, and whose brother was whisked away. His whereabouts are still unknown.

“I think, obviously, the war has traumatized lots and lots of people,” Alvarenga said. “The government, the population in general, they are forgetting about it, and that’s a problem.”

Scholars in Nuestro Ahora's University Program. (Courtesy by Nuestro Ahora.)

One nonprofit organization that has not forgotten about the effects of the civil war is the Pro Búsqueda Association for the Search of Disappeared Children, which was founded in 1994 and continues to actively search for persons who went missing during the Salvadoran Civil War.

A source familiar with Pro Búsqueda said the United States has the ability to improve the current situation in El Salvador in multiple ways, including by monitoring the Salvadoran government.

In addition to allegedly providing biased education and regulating media, the Salvadoran government has also largely ignored orders from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that were meant to address human rights violations committed during the war, according to the source.

One such order, for example, was for the government to identify and prosecute anyone who was responsible to for forced disappearances of persons during the war, which, to date, has not occurred.

However, in January 2012, current Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes publicly apologized for the massacre at El Mozote, fulfilling another one of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ orders. He said that true peace will not come until justice is served and made several promises, including declaring El Mozote a cultural center, providing computers to the area’s local school, and asking the Attorney General to ensure that Salvadoran laws allow for the prosecution of those who committed human rights violations during the war.

Only time will tell if the Salvadoran government makes good on those promises, but without a knowledgeable, pressing public, one cannot be sure how long that may take.

International Mass Media: July 10

By Lindsay Boyle

On Tuesday, July 10, the second International Mass Media summer course was held in Copeland Hall at the Ohio University campus. During each class, two SUSI scholars give a lecture about their own country’s media systems, journalism practices and political cultures. All of the lectures are streamed live through Ohio University distance learning and are available online to 35 students who are taking a summer class instructed by Dr. Brook Beshah.

The SUSI summer institute — in which scholars from all over the world come to the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at OU to study journalism and media — is funded by an annual renewable grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Study of the U.S. Branch in the Office of Academic Exchange Programs.

Prof. Divine Bisong
Cameroon

At the beginning of scholar Divine Bisong’s presentation, he first pointed out the location of Cameroon in Africa. He then explained that although Cameroon is technically a republic, its government actually aligns more closely with one that is libertarian or authoritarian.

Bisong said that governmental interference, among other things, has caused the basic values of journalism to be flouted with impunity in Cameroon. Stories there are treated unprofessionally, according to him.

For many media, Bisong said that costs of publication can be up to 50 percent of income, leaving the rest to not only pay staff salaries, but also to make a profit. As a result, he explained that many journalists in Cameroon quickly become “academic prostitutes,” hopping from publication to publication in search of the best salary. Such practices cause journalists to have little loyalty to the company they are writing for, and to pay little attention to detail in the stories they produce.

In addition, Bisong said that some journalists get so caught up with politicians that it is hard to tell the difference between the two. Some journalists engage in writing stories with clear conflicts of interests. Others are completely used by politicians as a stepping stone for ulterior motives.


SUSI scholars and staff listen as Prof. Divine Bisong presents a lecture that is streamed live through OU distance learning, and is available online.

To make matters worse, Bisong said that Cameroon has no overarching union or association delegated to regulating the news. The lack of rules often leads to “news” that is twisted in the way the writer wants it to be rather than how it actually is, he explained.

One plus, according to Bisong, is that new media is growing at a remarkable rate. Forty percent of Cameroonians have mobile phones, and Internet penetration is increasing.

Regardless, the environment is still hard for journalists, and especially women. According to Bisong, women struggle to obtain significant positions. If they happen to work hard enough to do so, they face trouble with their husbands and families, because Cameroon is still a largely paternalistic nation.

Ultimately, Cameroon’s media atmosphere is quite repressive. Bisong explained that most media are pro-government, and most journalists employ self-censorship to avoid governmental threats or even imprisonment. Bisong himself said he has been detained in the past.

A monopoly in the printing sector of things means that stories seen as unfit are simply not printed. Additionally, Bisong said that critical, in-depth investigative journalism is difficult in Cameroon, because sources are not always credible, and many people are denied the right to information from governmental and other organizations.

“Media is a weapon to be guarded against rather than a vital pillar of a democratic state,” Bisong said.

Prof. Silvia Callejas
El Salvador

Scholar Silvia Calleja first offered a personal introduction, explaining what she has done in her past and current editing and teaching jobs. As a teacher, she said she strives to make media theory and public relations more interesting and fun for her students.

Callejas then gave a brief overview of El Salvador, followed by a history of El Salvadoran media throughout the years. She first focused on its first national print publication, which began in the 1800s and has changed names several times.

That publication had the goal of criticizing authoritarians, Callejas explained, and though it was censored at one point, it continued publishing. During the Salvadoran Civil War, however, its writers were threatened and its building was burned.

When word of that turmoil spread, the publication received national and international help, according to Callejas. It is still running today as a private paper called the Co-Latino.

Though it is the oldest, Co-Latino is not the biggest publication in El Salvador. Callejas explained that there are two major papers in El Salvador, and that only four publications hold 92.2 percent of the Salvadoran readership.

A problem with one of those prominent publications — Mas! — is that it targets the lowest social class in El Salvador, and therefore is more sensationalistic than realistic.


The view seen by those following Prof. Silvia Callejas’ lecture online or through OU distance learning.

To help combat the existing media oligopoly, the Association of Radio and Participatory Programs of El Salvador has been helping community radio stations to get a start in an environment that sometimes makes doing so difficult.

In addition to print publications, Callejas said there are magazines targeted at many different audiences, four radio corporations that are more likely to cover entertainment than news, and television stations that are mostly syndicated. Some publications, such as La Prensa Grafica, are also exploring the online world with the hope of reaching an international audience.

Throughout the years, censorship in El Salvador has been based on the government in power, Callejas said. The constitution says that people are free to make their own opinions, and the ability for people to do so in 2012 is much better than it was in the 1980s. The evolution of media in the digital world — including citizen journalism and social media — has only expanded that ability.

According to Callejas, some journalists in El Salvador are big critics of the government. Though journalists sometimes receive orders not to publish, Callejas said that that practice is becoming less frequent. Regardless, she explained that, if important people are involved, there are still some situations in which scandals go unreported.

Callejas said that she used a combination of Internet searches, past research and class materials to compose her picture-filled presentation.

“At the beginning of the presentation, I was really nervous because it is really difficult to think in Spanish and try to translate, but I tried to write a script before so I could remember most parts of the presentation,” Callejas explained.

However, she quickly settled in, and said that by the end she “felt really good.”

“I think that time ran out faster than I thought it would,” she said.

Kidney disease research in El Salvador finding a place in rural Ohio

By Joseph Barbaree

Copy edited and produced Laura Straub

A sickeningly sweet industry might be one cause of Central America’s widespread kidney disease epidemic. And researchers at one unlikely institution could soon prove it.

News broke in the past year of kidney disease affecting communities in El Salvador and Nicaragua among others in Central America. A total of some 24,000 deaths were recorded beginning in the year 2000.

Researchers are now trying to spur government action to prevent further deaths after a plea for help from El Salvador’s Minister of Health.

Included in the efforts to solve the mystery are researchers from a small community in rural Ohio.

Dr. Dina Lopez, professor of geology at Ohio University in Athens, is a native Salvadoran living in the United States. Her research focuses on multiple environmental problems, including acid mine drainage in El Salvador.

Dr. Diana Lopez, courtesy of the Ohio University
Department of Geology.

Investigating the soil composition

Lopez is now leading an international investigation of soil conditions in El Salvador to determine the present levels of chemical pesticides in communities most widely affected by kidney disease and failure. There’s speculation that the sugar cane industry is a primary factor.

Collaborating with Lopez is Dr. Carlos Orantes, a clinical health physician in El Salvador. Orantes studied the rural agricultural region of Baja Lempa and found that one in four men had kidney disease. Most of these men were not diabetic, a common symptom of the disease.

After interviewing 775 members of the community, Orantes found that more than 40% reported exposure to a number of chemical herbicides and pesticides.

Paraquat, glyphosate and hedonal were most widely reported and led Orantes to his belief that prolonged exposure to these causes the health problems among workers. Each chemical is reported to have some detrimental effect.

“These chemicals are banned in the United States, Europe and Canada, and they’re used here, without any protection, and in large amounts that are very concerning,” said Orantes.

Spurred by the work of Orantes, Lopez began collecting soil samples from the regions affected by kidney failure in mid-2011.

Sugar cane and kidney failure

Helping Lopez at Ohio University is student researcher Darcy VanDervort. They traveled to El Salvador in August and collected soil samples, which they are analyzing for chemical presence.

VanDervort runs statistical analyses and maps data in order to compare regions of sugar cane production with areas of concentrated kidney failure.

Traditionally, sugar cane fields are burned after the
harvest to kill off any insects or eggs
in the field.  Photo courtesy of Erika Blumenfeld

“My maps are showing that the areas are overlapping – a lot,” said VanDervort.

She is finding that the most concentrated areas of kidney disease are in the coastal regions of the country and at the border between La Libertad and La Paz. Northwest of San Salvador is also highly concentrated.

As many as 65 per 1,000 inhabitants are affected by kidney disease in these regions.

Once Lopez and VanDervort conclude the statistical mapping and soil analysis, they will send a report to the Ministry of Health in El Salvador.

But they can’t yet conclude decisively that the use of pesticides in the sugar cane industry is solely to blame. “We think it’s multi-factorial,” said VanDervort. Presence of heavy metals and difficult working conditions may be part of the cause.

The results of preliminary research, such as that conducted by Orantes in his study of Baja Lempa, have led only a handful of environmental groups to speak out against the practices of the agricultural industry. Among those in El Salvador is the Mangrove Association, organized by EcoViva, which coordinates several community-led grassroots initiatives for environmental change.

Even when more substantial evidence is produced, regulatory change may still be years away for El Salvador.

How this affects America

This means the continued export of sugar products to the United States from countries that use possibly harmful herbicides and pesticides. The United States in 2011 imported some 330,000 metric tons of sugar from Central America, constituting roughly 23% of total sugar imports.

For now, the fate of laborers in El Salvador is a waiting game until action is taken either by the Salvadoran government to regulate the use of chemicals or sugar producers begin regulating their products through third party certification.

Until then, Lopez and VanDervort will continue to explore the causes of Central America’s deadly epidemic, one whose roots remain elusive.