El Salvador Government Ministry Implements Pro-LGBTI Policies

El Salvador’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security on Nov. 12 launched a campaign that will implement an internal communications protocol on how to improve the way it responds to the LGBTI community’s needs. This effort — #HagoLoJusto or “I’m Doing What’s Right” — is part of the implementation of the policy and seeks to raise awareness of discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity and to make the aforementioned LGBTI policy known to ministry personnel and their subordinates.

“I’m Doing What’s Right” is an effort the ministry is undertaking with the support of the Salvadoran LGBT Federation and its Rights and Dignity Project, a campaign that hopes to eliminate anti-LGBTI stereotypes. Most of the campaign’s activities prioritize the creation of spaces to exchange ideas and to learn with different people, emphasizing LGBTI rights are an issue of access to human rights that should be guaranteed by the ministry and their personnel.

“The launch of the LGBTI Community Care Policy reaffirms the ministry’s commitment to ensure comprehensive care for this important sector of society,” said Eva Rodríguez, subdirector of the Rights and Dignity Project.

“This campaign demonstrates this policy is moving forward and represents a great opportunity for ministry personnel to be able to serve the LGBTI community without discrimination,” she added during a conference.

“Over the last three months we have trained more than 1,000 ministry employees,” said Tatiana Herrera of the Salvadoran LGBTI Federation. “We will continue fighting for love, peace and justice.”

The campaign plans to organize protests, breakfast meetings, film screenings, training workshops, theatre presentations, a photography contest, use social media networks and audiovisual pieces, among other things. Four members of the Salvadoran LGBTI Federation will play a key role in some of these activities.

“These policies are important because, for example, I don’t want to go to a place where they are treating me bad, but now there is a policy that backs me up and personnel will be trained,” Aldo Peña, a member of the Salvadoran LGBTI Federation, told the Washington Blade. “From the moment they see me and I present my document and my name does not correspond with my identity, they will say that it is a transgender person if they are trained.”

The “I’m Doing What’s Right” campaign’s goal is to make personnel more sensitive, and ensure employees of the ministry’s different institutions can learn about all of the aspects of the ministry’s LGBTI Community Care Policy.

“With the launch of this campaign that is going to allow us to reach every one of the ministry’s employees, I am ordering the application of all components of the ministry’s LGBTI Community Care Policy,” said Justice and Public Security Minister Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde.

Story courtesy of the Washington Blade.