More than 100 workers received identification cards in El Salvador

On May 22 and 23, El Salvador’s General Directorate for Migration (DGME) held the first day of the identification project for seasonal and cross-border workers and border inhabitants in the department of San Miguel, with the support of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

This initiative consists of providing cross-border or seasonal workers with identification cards to facilitate their regular, safe and orderly transit across the border between El Salvador and Honduras. The card will facilitate the performance of remunerated activities in El Salvador, with all the social benefits established by the Labour Code. 

Other beneficiaries will be minors living in the border area who are studying in El Salvador, or persons receiving medical checks in health centers on the other side of the border. On their part, DGME authorities will be favored by a simplified and orderly procedure. 

"The ID favors me because I will move legally here in El Salvador and I will be able to see my family in Honduras without inconveniences", said Sury Pineda, a Honduran citizen. "To visit family in Honduras we previously had to wait for the 90-day permit to expire, because we could not be crossing the border constantly," explained Marco Antonio Ortez, who also benefited from the project. 

On this first day, 46 officers from DGME and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security participated, registering 110 workers in total: 109 cross-border workers (80 men and 29 women) and 1 seasonal worker. The most recurrent identity card profile were cross-border workers working as "brokers" at the El Amatillo border, located in the department of La Unión, but women who work in paid domestic work and customs were also registered.  

Information activities prior to this first day of the project took place in eastern El Salvador thanks to the support of municipalities of La Unión, Pasaquina and Santa Rosa de Lima, and local health promoters of the Ministry of Health. The dissemination plan, also using mobile advertising and social networks, sought to give workers access to reliable information about this DGME initiative. 

"In all these places we have people who come daily to work in our country irregularly, and the project is aimed at that, at improving the situation through the identification of each one of them." explained Luis Manuel González Ramírez, Promoters Supervisor of the Family Health Community Unit in Pasaquina. 

Additionally, through the project, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (MINTRAB) provides support in labour advice and the verification of cases of migrant adolescents, and the Trafficking Unit of the DGME conducted an awareness-raising day in which it publicized the Think Twice campaign, created by IOM with young people from San Salvador. 

This initiative will continue with six more days of registration, recurring monthly until August. The second will be in San Miguel again and the next two on the border El Amatillo. 

This activity was supported by IOM’s Western Hemisphere Program, funded by the United States Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.