Committee on the Rights of the Child

List of issues in relation to the seventh periodic report of El Salvador *

1.The State Party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, of 10,700 words maximum, by 15 October 2026. The Committee may take up all aspects of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State Party.

Part I

2.Please provide information on the measures taken or envisaged to:

(a)Amend the Growing Together Act for the Protection of Early Childhood, Children and Adolescents in order to bring it into line with the Convention and the Committee’s recommendations;

(b)Implement the National Policy on Early Childhood, Children and Adolescents 2025–2035, including through the development of operational plans with clear objectives, measurable indicators, progressive and transparent budget allocations and mechanisms to ensure the active, meaningful and inclusive participation of children and adolescents at the national, local and community levels, including in schools and care settings;

(c)Strengthen mechanisms for inter-institutional coordination at the highest level of government within the framework of the National Council for Early Childhood, Children and Adolescents.

3.Please provide updated information on the measures taken to guarantee:

(a)The compliance of public budgets with standards on children’s rights, including through specific budget lines for vulnerable children and adolescents and safeguards to ensure the effectiveness of budget controls, in addition to information on public investment in the areas of education, health, including mental health, and social protection;

(b)The publication and accessibility of data on public spending on children and adolescents, disaggregated by sector, region and population group, with a view to identifying disparities and inequalities affecting vulnerable children and adolescents, in addition to information on the measures taken to address the gaps in the existing data;

(c)The revival and improvement of the National Information System on Children and Adolescents in El Salvador;

(d)The allocation of technical, human and financial resources to the National Council for Early Childhood, Children and Adolescents.

4.Please inform the Committee of the measures taken to:

(a)Expand child-sensitive justice mechanisms, the training provided to staff and efforts to prevent the revictimization of children and adolescents who are victims or witnesses of crime and ensure that the views of children and adolescents are routinely taken into account in all judicial and administrative proceedings that affect them;

(b)Adopt specific protocols to guarantee access to justice for children and adolescents who belong to Indigenous communities, have disabilities, are migrants or form part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community;

(c)Create the conditions required to prevent the persecution, criminalization and censorship of civil society organizations, journalists and human rights defenders, including children and adolescents, who work to promote children’s rights.

5.Please specify the measures taken to guarantee:

(a)The prevention and elimination of discrimination against vulnerable children and adolescents, including children and adolescents who belong to Indigenous communities, form part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community, have incarcerated parents or are members of other vulnerable groups that are exposed to multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination;

(b)The identification and protection of and provision of support for children and adolescents who are in street situations, including those who depend on the streets for their survival or maintain strong ties to public spaces. Please also indicate whether specific programmes, data-collection mechanisms and affirmative action measures have been developed to address their situation;

(c)That children’s best interests are routinely assessed and documented in all judicial and administrative proceedings, with clear procedures to ensure that the views of children and adolescents are sought, taken into account and given weight in decision-making processes;

(d)That the principle of the best interests of the child is applied in all administrative, legislative and judicial decisions, including in the design and implementation of public policies, social programmes and protection measures;

(e)That existing legal provisions and practices are reviewed and modified to eliminate any elements that might harm children’s best interests, in particular in the areas of family life, privacy and image.

6.Please inform the Committee of the measures taken to:

(a)End malnutrition and address food insecurity and water access, sanitation and energy issues, in addition to the structural causes of those issues, which include poverty, unemployment and the increase in the cost of living;

(b)Guarantee the right to life, survival and development of children and adolescents who have been deprived of their liberty and children and adolescents with incarcerated parents;

(c)Increase birth registration in rural, Indigenous and migrant communities. Please also provide information on existing data gaps, barriers to registration and the steps taken to ensure universal and timely birth registration;

(d)Review the legal provisions and practices that criminalize the dissemination by adolescents, in particular online, of words or images that the authorities consider to be alluding to gangs;

(e)Re-establish and strengthen safeguards for the right to privacy of children and adolescents, including during the state of emergency.

7.Please describe:

(a)The measures that are currently in place to prevent children and adolescents from joining gangs, criminalize any attempt by gangs to recruit children and ensure that children and adolescents who are victims of these crimes have access to justice, accurate information and appropriate redress in practice;

(b)The steps taken to investigate and prosecute crimes committed against children and adolescents during the internal armed conflict in the 1980s and cases of disappearance involving children and adolescents;

(c)The measures adopted to explicitly and legally prohibit corporal punishment in all settings;

(d)The policies in place to address disparities within the child protection infrastructure, the measures introduced to combat the sexual abuse of children and adolescents, including by teachers, and the efforts undertaken to strengthen support for victims in overcoming trauma;

(e)The steps taken to publish official data on violence and sexual abuse against children and adolescents;

(f)The measures taken to prevent early de facto unions and address their structural causes.

8.With reference to the Committee’s previous concluding observations and to the reports concerning mass arrests made without warrants during the state of emergency and the systematic inhuman and degrading treatment of children and adolescents by the security forces, please explain what measures have been taken by the State Party to prevent, investigate and punish torture, collective punishment, inhuman conditions of detention and the cruel treatment of children and adolescents and to ensure that national and international human rights bodies have regular access to detention centres.

9.Please provide information on the measures adopted to implement the Committee’s previous recommendations concerning the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, including those on the prevention and explicit criminalization of the sale of children.

10.Please inform the Committee of the progress made in and the programmes aimed at:

(a)Deinstitutionalizing children and adolescents and prioritizing forms of family-based care, such as family reunification, foster care and adoption, and supporting foster families and extended families, including through training, financial assistance and monitoring mechanisms;

(b)Preventing family separation, including through family strengthening programmes, social protection measures and support for at-risk families;

(c)Ensuring that all decisions regarding alternative care are based on the best interests of the child, take the child’s views into account and are subject to regular review and follow-up;

(d)Reforming mental healthcare and preventing overmedicalization in residential facilities;

(e)Improving conditions in institutional care facilities, including in the areas of infrastructure, nutrition, hygiene, medical care, staff training and the prevention of violence and abuse, and ensuring the independent oversight of such facilities;

(f)Preparing adolescents leaving the protection system to live independently, including by providing them with access to education, housing, employment opportunities and ongoing support;

(g)Ensuring that children and adolescents have regular and meaningful contact with their parents, even when the parents are in prison, except for when such contact would be contrary to the best interests of the child;

(h)Strengthening monitoring and oversight mechanisms for all forms of alternative care to ensure compliance with quality standards and accountability.

11.Please inform the Committee of the measures taken to:

(a)Address the main causes of school dropout at the secondary level;

(b)Incorporate sexual and reproductive health and human rights education into the core curriculum and prioritize teacher training;

(c)Ensure safe and violence-free school environments, avoiding punitive and criminalizing surveillance in schools;

(d)Design and implement a national inclusive education strategy for children and adolescents with disabilities;

(e)Establish a comprehensive public policy that guarantees access to and the opportunity to remain and learn in inclusive educational settings, with adequate resources, specialized teacher training and an adapted curriculum.

12.Please inform the Committee of the measures taken to:

(a)Eliminate obesity;

(b)Develop and implement a national mental health strategy that is focused on children and adolescents, a national suicide prevention strategy and a helpline for children and adolescents;

(c)Increase the number of child psychologists and psychiatrists;

(d)Prevent the overuse of psychiatric medication in institutional care facilities and other settings;

(e)Decriminalize abortion, in particular in cases of rape involving girls and adolescents;

(f)Ensure universal, confidential and non-discriminatory access to sexual and reproductive health services and information for adolescents;

(g)End multidimensional child poverty, including by improving housing, expanding access to basic services and guaranteeing a decent standard of living and development;

(h)Mitigate the impact of economic and social factors, including inflation, job insecurity and gender inequality, on the rights of children and adolescents, in particular their rights to an adequate standard of living and to development.

13.Please describe:

(a)The measures taken to prevent and eliminate the sexual and labour exploitation of children and adolescents and ensure that travel and tourism companies, including their operators and the actors that form part of their supply chains, are held accountable for any criminal offences relating to the advertising or promotion of sexual activities with children and adolescents and child sexual exploitation. Please also describe what will be done to more thoroughly assess the compliance of these measures with international standards and to strengthen the child protection system;

(b)The specific procedures in place to identify and protect children and adolescents who may be victims of economic exploitation, including child labour, children and adolescents who may be victims of trafficking and have been detained under the state of emergency, migrant children and adolescents and children and adolescents in street situations;

(c)Whether the Special Act against Trafficking in Persons is being amended to incorporate a child-centred approach;

(d)The measures taken to implement the Committee’s previous recommendations concerning the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, including those on the voluntary recruitment of children and adolescents and the criminalization of the recruitment (or attempted recruitment) of children and adolescents into armed groups and armed groups that are distinct from the State Party’s armed forces.

14.Please provide the Committee with information on the specific measures introduced to ensure the application in practice of the principle of the best interests of the child, including in the context of the state of emergency, in particular:

(a)The measures adopted to reverse the regressive reforms affecting the administration of the juvenile justice system (including those made to the Juvenile Offenders Act, the Organized Crime Act, the Penitentiary Act and the Organic Act on the Judiciary) and bring them into line with standards on children’s rights;

(b)The amendments to the Juvenile Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, which were adopted in March 2026 and introduce changes to the juvenile justice system in the State Party by authorizing the life imprisonment of persons under the age of 18, including those as young as 12 years old, for certain crimes;

(c)The measures adopted to prohibit 15-day administrative detention, prolonged pretrial detention, arbitrary detention and the transfer of adolescents to adult prisons and to guarantee adolescents’ enjoyment of the right to be informed, at the time of their arrest, of the reasons for their arrest and the charges against them, the right to be granted access to legal assistance from the outset of their arrest and the right to privacy of communications;

(d)The measures adopted to ensure a fair trial, including by preventing individuals from being coerced into entering a guilty plea, preventing the use of inadequate or false evidence, eliminating virtual collective hearings that group adolescents with adults and protecting the privacy and image of children and adolescents who are involved in legal proceedings;

(e)The emergency measures adopted to end the serious neglect of infants and young children in detention centres, in particular the Izalco and Apanteos prisons;

(f)The initiatives that prioritize social, educational and reintegration-related goals, with a view to ensuring that adolescents who leave the justice or protection system receive support to help them safely reintegrate into their families and communities.

Part II

15.The Committee invites the State Party to provide a brief update, of no more than three pages, on the information set out in its report with regard to the following:

(a)New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions and their mandates or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing, especially those relating to oversight of activities conducted under the National Family Welfare System;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments and the reasons for the decision to temporarily refrain from acceding to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information, if available

16.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and the social sectors, indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and the gross national product. Please also provide information on the geographical allocation of those resources.

17.If available, please provide statistical data for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, disability status, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on the following:

(a)Children and adolescents who have been directly or indirectly affected by the state of emergency, in particular migrant children and adolescents and children and adolescents in street situations;

(b)Out-of-school children and adolescents, especially those in vulnerable situations, including children who form part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community, come from religious minorities, live in rural areas, belong to Indigenous communities or have disabilities and pregnant or breastfeeding adolescents;

(c)Unaccompanied children and adolescents who have returned to the State Party and who are victims of trafficking in the context of migration, in particular children and adolescents who were identified in Mexico or at the south-western border of the United States of America;

(d)The number of adolescents in de facto unions;

(e)The number of adolescent pregnancies.

18.Please provide data for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, socioeconomic background, ethnic origin and geographical location, on the situation of children and adolescents who have been deprived of a family environment, including information on any data gaps and challenges affecting data-collection systems, on the number of children and adolescents who:

(a)Have incarcerated parents;

(b)Have parents accused of belonging to a gang;

(c)Live with their mothers in prison;

(d)Were born in social reintegration centres or other facilities where detained adolescents have given birth;

(e)Have been detained during the state of emergency;

(f)Are awaiting trial in criminal proceedings, in addition to information on the facilities in which they are being held;

(g)Are involved in criminal proceedings, as recorded in accordance with Legislative Decree No. 803 of July 2023, including information on the number of children and adolescents who have been convicted and released and the facilities in which they served their sentences;

(h)Are currently on trial or have been tried in line with the procedures established under Legislative Decrees No. 804 of July 2023 and/or No. 383 of August 2025;

(i)Were victims of criminal gangs and have testified or are expected to testify during the trials of the members of those gangs;

(j)Have been orphaned as a result of deaths in State custody;

(k)Live in shelters, including pregnant or breastfeeding adolescents and children under the age of 3.

19.Please provide data for the last three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin and geographical location, on the number of children and adolescents with disabilities who are or who have been:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)Living in institutions;

(c)Attending regular primary schools or have completed primary education;

(d)Attending regular secondary schools;

(e)Attending special schools;

(f)Out of school;

(g)Abandoned by their families;

(h)Vaccinated.

20.If available, please provide updated data for the last three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of offence, ethnic or national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on the number of children and adolescents who have been suspected, accused or found guilty of committing a crime and who have been:

(a)Detained;

(b)Referred to diversion programmes;

(c)Held in pretrial detention, and for how long;

(d)Serving a prison sentence, and the length of that sentence;

(e)Tried alongside adults in collective judicial proceedings conducted pursuant to the amended provisions of the Organized Crime Act;

(f)Transferred to adult prisons.

21.Please provide information on how a child rights-based approach is integrated into the planning, implementation and monitoring of measures for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including with regard to the participation of children and adolescents and data collection, and how those measures promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto.

22.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have become outdated by more recent data collected or other new developments.

23.In addition, the State Party may list areas affecting children and adolescents that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Convention.