The Human Rights Center helps to reunite families torn apart by the armed conflict in El Salvador (1980-1992) and seeks to hold the Salvadoran government accountable for its military policy of abducting children from families who resided in villages where the fighting occurred.

As part of an international partnership, the Center works closely with Asociación Pro-Búsqueda de Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos (The Organization for Disappeared Children), an NGO in San Salvador to locate young adults who, as children, were either forcibly separated from their families by the military or were relinquished by their families under duress. Once located, Pro Búsqueda reunites these young adults with their biological families in El Salvador. While some of these children were raised in orphanages and by military families in El Salvador, it is suspected that hundreds of other children were adopted in North America and Europe.

In many cases, DNA analysis is relied upon to determine kinship. Another partner organization, the California-based Alliance of Forensic Scientists for Human Rights and Humanitarian Investigations (The Alliance), a volunteer organization comprised of professional forensic DNA analysts and criminalists, geneticists as well as forensic statisticians, has created a DNA database which includes over 800 DNA samples from family members in El Salvador who are searching for their missing children. Some of the scientists are employees of the California State Department of Justice Jan Bashinski DNA Laboratory that graciously permits the group, on weekends and evenings, to use its state-of-the-art equipment for DNA analysis.

The DNA database is a powerful tool to facilitate family reunification and in certain complex cases, is the only method by which familial relationships can be determined. The DNA database enables Pro Búsqueda to determine and confirm kinship in a more timely, reliable, and scientific manner, hence shortening the investigation stage and facilitating more family reunions. In July 2006, possession of the DNA database was transferred to Pro Búsqueda. The Alliance continues to collaborate in the expansion of the DNA database and to assist Pro Búsqueda to develop the technological capacity to administer it and to draw biological kinship affiliations from it. Learn more about DNA analysis.

The United Nations brokered a peace accord in El Salvador in 1992. Two years later, Father Jon Cortina, a Jesuit priest, along with families whose children had been abducted during the war, formed Pro Búsqueda. Father Cortina had heard that DNA testing had been used to reunite Argentine children who had been abducted by the military during la Guerra Sucia (the Dirty War) with their biological families. He contacted Eric Stover, then executive director of Physicians for Human Rights to request assistance.

Stover and a team of forensic scientists traveled to El Salvador and met with Cortina and families of the disappeared. As a result, several children were successfully reunited with their biological families. In 1997, when Stover joined the Human Rights Center, he brought with him his interest in using DNA analysis to help reunite families torn apart by the armed conflict in El Salvador.

Today, the Human Rights Center, the Alliance of Forensic Scientists, and Physicians for Human Rights continue to work in partnership with Pro Búsqueda. The Human Rights Center is helping Pro Búsqueda develop its technological capacity to utilize the DNA database and to develop effective ways to communicate with transnational adoptees in North America and Europe and to support them in establishing relationships with their biological families in El Salvador.

If you would like to find out more about the project or if you or someone you know is adopted from El Salvador and would like to participate in this project, please contact Rachel Shigekane at the Human Rights Center or Pro Búsqueda and an English-speaking staff person will respond to your inquiry. Already over 60 young persons from Europe and North America have met their biological families in El Salvador.

You can also learn about past family reunions with Americans adopted from El Salvador and more about resources available to adoptees who may be thinking about searching for their biological families.