El Salvador alleges abuse of its children

US government policies, which have separated children from parents, have resulted in victimization of some children, including sexual abuse of three minors, according to Salvadoran officials this week:

The government of El Salvador said the three, ages 12 to 17, were victimized at shelters in Arizona, and it asked the U.S. to make their return a priority. 

“May they leave the shelters as soon as possible, because it is there that they are the most vulnerable,” Deputy Foreign Relations Minister Liduvina Magarin said in San Salvador on Thursday..... 

Magarin gave few details on the three cases other than to say they involved “sexual violations, sexual abuses.” She said her government is ready with lawyers and psychologists to help the families, adding: “The psychological and emotional impact is forever.” 

“It’s unbelievable that children who were fleeing violence here were met in the United States with the worst violence a child could encounter,” said Cesar Rios, director of the Salvadoran Migrant Institute.

These allegations are part of a much larger picture of abusive conditions at facilities holding migrant children in the US.   A CNN report in June detailed the broad range of abuses which have been reported at shelters and detention facilities housing immigrant minors from El Salvador and the rest of the world:

His account is one of dozens describing overloaded and secretive shelters, treatment centers and secure detention facilities for undocumented minors, which at their worst have allegedly been home to neglect, assault and other horrific abuse. 

The allegations in these documents, as well as recent facility inspection reports and other lawsuits, range from unsanitary conditions and invasive monitoring of mail and phone calls to unair-conditioned rooms in hot Texas summers and dosing children with cocktails of psychotropic drugs disguised as vitamins. At one facility, children recounted being held down for forcible injections, which medical records show are powerful antipsychotics and sedatives. 

This is the system the children who have been separated from their parents are entering. And, even after the executive order Donald Trump signed on Wednesday, presented as a way to end the separation of migrant families, it is the system in which the children already separated and thousands of other undocumented children currently remain. 

"There seems to be a level of cruel intent I've never seen before and a real indifference to the well-being of a child," said Holly Cooper, one of the many attorneys challenging the government's detainment of minors. 

Read the rest of the CNN report here.

The appropriate response is outrage.