Child Welfare

Today we visited the Institute for the Protection of Minors and got to take an inside look at the working of the child welfare system of El Salvador. During the day we learned that the majority of the children who come to this facility are either juveniles who are involved with the criminal justice system, children who have experienced great trauma in the form of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, or those who are estranged from their families. Children with severe developmental disabilities are also included in the population served by these agencies. Further, the agencies who are a part of this continuum accept children who are as young as only 3 days of age all the way through adolescent aged children. Over the past year, the centers have assisted over 2,000 children. Currently, within El Salvador, 40% of the population is under the age of 18. Take this factor and couple it with the extreme poverty and social isolation and you begin to understand why the rate of violence in the country is so high.

The director of the centers noted that of the 4,000 children who either sought refuge or were dropped off to the agency, 15% had attempted to come to The United States and were turned away. As a result, the agencies within El Salvador have been trying to serve as many as possible on VERY limited resources. To shed some perspective on this, the director noted that only 14.5 million dollars has been allocated from the government of El Salvador to the issue of child welfare (including administrative dollars)....FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY!!!! These are the only funds that the agencies receive. They are interested in looking to international aid for to supplement these funds, but acquiring new dollars requires quantifiable data sets that the agencies do not yet have (but are trying to acquire). They are increasing advocacy efforts within their governmental structure, but meanwhile, the staff are doing the best they can with the resources that they have. The majority of the staff at this agency make well under $500/month....all the while providing some of the most difficult direct client/service work imaginable. Further, the institutes employ over 1,300 workers, even more than the government of El Salvador. Yet none of this impacts the amount of funding available.

It makes me wonder why injustice such as this goes unnoticed and without mention. We drive our mini-vans and SUV's home to a cookie-cutter subdivision and go about our daily routine without any thought or concept to conditions in our areas of the world. Children are suffering and agencies who are trying to manage this problem can not be supported even to address the current situation, let alone make any real progress in education and support to prevent further incidence simply due to resource allocation. This all makes me think back to that $12.5 million/day shelled out by the US government during the civil war in El Salvador. What would that kind of funding mean again to this country?? Perhaps instead of promoting violence, these dollars could finally begin to fund the restorative work of peace and of social justice.