Lives Apart – Family Separation and Alternative Care Arrangements during El Salvador’s Civil War By Ralph Sprenkels With Lucio Carillo Hernández and Carmen Elena Villacorta Supervision and technical assistance from David Tolfree For the Save the Children Alliance Save the Children fights for children’s rights.We deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children’s lives worldwide. Save the Children works for: •a world which respects and values each child •a world which listens to children and learns •a world where all children have hope and opportunity Code number 2002-2021 ISBN 91-7321-058-7 Author: Ralph Sprenkels with Lucio Carillo Hernández and Carmen Elena Villacorta Supervision and technical assistance: David Tolfree Editor: Ulla Armyr Production management: Carole Henderson Graphic design: Petra Handin/Kapsyl Reklam This publication is partly financed by SIDA (Swedish International Development Coop- eration Agency). SIDA has not taken part in its production and does not assume any responsibility for its content. Table of Contents Executive Summary . 5 Prelude: Magdalena and Francisca . 7 List of Abbreviations . 9 Acknowledgements . 10 1. Introduction, Context and Background . 11 2. The Stories behind the Disappearance of Children . 20 3. PRO-BUSQUEDA’s Search for the Disappeared Children . 29 4. The Study’s Focus and Methodology . 38 5. Children Brought up in Residential Institutions . 44 6. International Adoption within the Salvadoran Legal System . 60 7. De facto Adoption, Fostering or Appropriation . 71 8. Growing up on a Military Base . 93 9. Comparative Analysis of Different Care Arrangements . 99 Appendix: Life Stories of Disappeared Children . 113 Executive Summary This study was commissioned by the Save the Children Alliance initiative “Care and Protection of Separated Children in Emergencies” (CPSC) the very inter- esting phenomenon of El Salvador’s disappeared children. The fieldwork for the study was undertaken by the author heading a small research team, consisting of two research assistants, one of them a former “disappeared” child. Considerable emphasis was placed on the active participation of children (now mostly young adults), their families of origin and foster or adoptive families. A small group of young people (who had also experienced forced disappearance) assisted in analysing the material stemming from interviews, surveys and focus group discussion. The study is based on the experience of PRO-BUSQUEDA1, a Salvadoran organisation founded in 1994, two years after the end of El Salvador’s twelve year civil war. PRO-BUSQUEDA has brought together hundreds of families search- ing for their children who disappeared during the civil war, in most cases abducted by government forces. Since its foundation, PRO-BUSQUEDA’s investigative unit has documented 653 cases of disappeared children and has solved 204 of them. PRO-BUSQUEDA’s experience is unique in many ways. It combines aspects of family tracing with a search process more similar to that of Argentina’s Grandmothers of the “Plaza de Mayo”. Because the disappearances occurred in a framework of massive human rights abuses which often constituted several human rights violations in themselves, PRO-BUSQUEDA’s work has many legal and political implications. Additionally, the investigative unit has gathered substantial evidence on the issues such as child trafficking and improper conduct by private institutions such as the Salvadoran Red Cross. As the Salvadoran government has set out to cover the past with a blanket of forgetfulness and impunity, PRO-BUSQUEDA’s work is not looked upon very favourably in offi- cial circles. The study provides some detailed background information and illustrates the wide range of circumstances in which children disappeared. The main objective is to describe the range of care arrangements which the disappeared children experienced. Four categories are identified and discussed: children brought up in residential institutions, international adoption within the Salvadoran legal system, de facto adoption (which can also be described as fostering or appropri- ation) and growing up on a military base. In order to obtain the material for these chapters from first hand sources, interviews and surveys were conducted, primarily with the young adults who experienced alternative care arrangements as children, and additionally with the families of origin and adoptive families in El Salvador and overseas. One work- shop was conducted in a larger group to discuss some of the issues that had come up in the interviews and four young people agreed to collaborate by recounting their life stories in some detail. All of the young people taking part in the study had disappeared as children and spent the rest of their childhoods away from 1 PRO-BUSQUEDA means “In search of” Lives Apart 5 their own families: all had been reconnected with their families through the work of PRO-BUSQUEDA. In each of the alternative care arrangement categories, many interesting issues arise. The lack of affection and emotional care is commonplace in the residen- tial institutions, though peer-relationships emerge as an important source of support. The lack of documentation in residential homes, coupled with the fal- sification of registration documents, has created difficulties in relation to the children’s right to a name and identity. Issues relating to personal and cultural identity come to the surface insistently in the cases of international adoption, although, on the whole, the quality of care was valued very positively by the young people. The most complex and diverse results are to be found in the category of de facto adoption within El Salvador. Legally this is strictly a form of fostering; however the young people themselves usually refer to their relationship with these families as “adopted”, but this has not been formally or legally established as is the case with international adoption. The experiences the young people shared about this care arrangement tend to be either very positive or very nega- tive, with very little in between. Often, they maintain a very close relationship with this family today and experience a conflict of loyalty between the adoptive and biological family. This informal adoption arrangement served most children well during their childhoods, but as this study documents, the informal or ille- gal aspects of it may end up constituting a threat to its success in a latter stage, and especially when the family of origin reappears, creating, for some, a profound identity confusion. After the initial family separation, most of the children went through a short period of time at a military base and some stayed for longer periods of time. This study documents two brothers who grew up in a military base, spending eleven years there in what constitutes a highly unsatisfactory care arrangement. In the course of the case study several cases of abuse and exploitation are described and discussed. However, it is the study’s objective to create an overall view of what the disappeared children went through after the family separation and as much emphasis is laid on positive aspects of care and protection as on neg- ative aspects. Forced disappearance is a violation of various human rights which continue until the child is found. The forced disappearance of boys and girls is still one of the unresolved matters from the peace process that urgently needs to be addressed. Many conclusions can be drawn from El Salvador’s experience with disappeared children; many things could have been done in order either to avoid the separation or to bring the separated families together much earlier. 6 Lives Apart Prelude: Magdalena and Francisca – two brave women who initiated El Salvador’s search for disappeared children My name is Magdalena and I am from a small village in the Chalatenango province of El Salvador. When I was just thirteen, the war started and when I was fifteen I gave birth to my first son, Nelson. His father had been killed by the army a few months before he was born. We had to flee to the mountains, me and my parents and many other people and the army was chasing us all the time. One day the soldiers finally caught up with us. We tried to escape but it was no good. They captured me with my baby and my mother as well and many more people, mostly women and children. Only my father managed to escape. They took us to a place called Loma Pacha (meaning “flat hill”). There the soldiers called for helicopters and after a while the first one arrived. They started to ask the women for their children. They would take them from their arms and put the children in the helicopter. The machine was filled up quickly and flew away. Then another helicopter came. This was when the soldiers asked me for my child, Nelson. The poor thing; he was only six months old. I held him in my arms and refused to let him go. My mother threw herself between the soldiers and me. But it was impossible. They threw my mother on the floor. I begged them to kill me there with my child, but no… The soldiers grabbed my baby and pulled until they tore him away from me. That afternoon the helicopters took away more than fifty children from Loma Pacha and all the women were left crying. We spent the night in the open air with the soldiers watching us. In the morning they started to take the adults, one by one, away from the group. We could hear how they were interrogated and killed. That’s when my mother and I decided to run. Taking advantage of the soldiers being distracted for a short moment, we were able to escape. Days later we found my dad. Fortunately, he was still alive, but my son had been lost and I was paralysed with grief. We managed to escape our country and went to a refugee camp in Honduras.