El Salvador’s social services agency says more than 40,000 children have had one parent or both detained in President Nayib Bukele’s nearly two-year war on gangs.

Tears welled in Alex’s eyes and he pressed his head into his hands as he thought about more than a year of birthdays and holidays without his mother, who was swept up by El Salvador’s police as she walked to work in a clothing factory.

“I feel very alone,” the 10-year-old said last month as he sat next to his 8-year-old brother and their grandmother. “I’m scared, feeling like they could come and they could take away someone else in my family.”

Forty thousand children have seen one parent or both detained in President Nayib Bukele’s nearly two-year war on El Salvador’s gangs, according to the national social services agency.

The records were shared with The Associated Press by an official with the National Council on Children and Adolescents, who insisted on anonymity due to fear of government reprisal against those violating its tight control of information. The official said many more children have jailed parents but are not in the records.

  • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
    67·
    9 months ago

    I don’t think being someones parent should make a difference if you see jail or not.

    Having said that it will be interesting to see if, because their are less parental interaction, there might be more criminals in these children without parents.

    Having said that it does seem like a lot of them were guilty and crime has massively decreased. So from a purely good of the state and reducing crime seems like a good thing.

    • Quokka@quokk.auEnglish
      10·
      9 months ago

      How can we know if they’re guilty when they’re being put in group trials of hundreds at a time and denied due process or the chance to defend themselves?

      • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
        13·
        9 months ago

        We can’t.

        I meant as a group. Individually there has to be innocents. But for crime to have gone down they must have caught a lot or at least scared the remainers.

        Like I said from a state point of view it’s great. Individually, well there is some random chance involved wether things have got better or worse.