El Salvador

Article 2 

Every person has the right to life, physical and moral integrity, liberty, security, work, property and possession, and to be protected in the conservation and defense of the same. The right to honor, personal and family intimacy, and one’s own image is guaranteed. Indemnification, in conformity with the law, is established for damages of a moral character.  

Article 4  

Every person in the Republic is free. No one who enters its territory shall be a slave nor the individual who traffics in slaves be a citizen. No one shall be subjected to servitude or to any other condition that injures their dignity. 

Article 5 

Every person has the liberty to enter, remain in, and leave the territory of the Republic, save the limitations that the law establishes. 

 No one shall be obligated to change their domicile or residence, except by order of a judicial authority in special cases and by means of the requirements indicated by the law. 

No Salvadoran shall be expatriated, nor his entry into the Republic prohibited, nor a passport or other documents of identification for his return be denied. Neither shall the right to leave the territory of the Republic be prohibited, except by resolution or sentence of a competent authority, dictated in accordance with the laws. 

Article 9 

No one shall be obligated to perform work or render personal services without fair remuneration and without their full consent, except in cases of public disaster and others specified by the law.  

Article 38 

Labor shall be regulated by a Code which shall have the principal objective of harmonizing the relations between employers and workers, establishing their rights and obligations. It shall be based on general principles that tend toward the improvement of the living conditions of workers, and shall include especially the following rights: 

1st—In the same business or establishment and under identical circumstances, to equal work shall correspond equal remuneration for the worker, without regard for his sex, race, creed, or nationality;  

2nd—Every worker has the right to earn a minimum wage, which shall be fixed periodically. To fix this wage, attention shall be paid above all to the cost of living, the type of work, the different systems of remuneration, the distinct zones of production, and other similar criteria. This wage shall be sufficient to satisfy the normal needs of the worker’s home in their material, moral and cultural aspects. For piecework, contract work (por ajuste) or work for a lump sum (precio alzado), it is obligatory to assure the minimum wage per day (jornada) of work;  

3rd—Salary and social benefits, in the quantity determined by law, are unattachable and cannot be compensated or retained, except for obligations to supply essential support (obligaciones alimenticias). Amounts also may be retained for social security, union quota, or tax obligations. Worker’s instruments of labor are unattachable;  

4th—The salary shall be paid in legal tender (moneda de curso legal). The salary and social benefits constitute privileged credits in relation to other credits that may exist against an employer;  

5th—Employers shall give their workers a bonus for each year of work. The law shall establish the form in which one shall determine the quantity in relation to salaries;  

6th—The ordinary workday (jornada) of effective daytime work shall not exceed eight hours, and the work-week shall not exceed forty-four hours; The maximum hours of overtime (horas extraordinarias) for each type of work shall be determined by the law. The night shift (jornada) and the shift that requires dangerous or unhealthy tasks shall be shorter than the daytime shift and shall be regulated by law. The limitation on working hours shall not apply in cases of force majeure. The law shall determine the length of pauses that shall interrupt the workday when, attending to biological reasons, the rhythm of tasks so demand, and of those that shall intercede between two workdays. Overtime and night work shall receive additional remuneration (recargo);  

7th—Every worker has the right to one day of remunerated rest for each work week, in the form required by law. The workers who do not enjoy rest on the days previously indicated, shall have the right to additional remuneration for the services rendered on these days and a compensatory leave;  

8th—Workers shall have the right to paid rest on the holidays (días de asueto) designated by law; [the law] shall determine the kind of work for which this disposition shall not apply, but in those cases, workers shall have the right to extraordinary remuneration;  

9th—Every worker that accredits a minimum of services performed during a given period, shall have the right to an annual paid vacation in the form determined by law. Vacations shall not be compensated by money and, to the obligation of the employer to grant them corresponds the obligation of the worker to take them;  

10th—Those less than fourteen years old, and those having reached this age but who remain subject to obligatory education in virtue of the law, may not be employed in any type of work. Their employment shall be authorized when it is considered indispensable for their subsistence or that of their family, provided that this does not prevent compliance with the minimum of obligatory education. The workday for those under sixteen years old cannot be more than six hours a day and thirtyfour hours a week, in any kind of work. Unhealthy or dangerous work is prohibited for persons under eighteen years of age and women. Night work is also prohibited for persons under eighteen years old. The law shall define (determinar) dangerous and unhealthful work;  

11th—The employer who discharges a worker without just cause is obligated to indemnify him according to the law;  

12th—The law shall determine under which conditions employers are obligated to pay their permanent workers who resign from their work an economic compensation (prestación), which amount shall be fixed in relation to their salaries and time of service. Resignation produces its effects without the need for acceptance by the employer, but the latter’s refusal to pay corresponding compensation constitutes a legal presumption of unfair discharge. In the case of total and permanent incapacitation or death of the worker, the worker or his beneficiaries shall have the right to the compensations they would receive in the case of voluntary resignation. 

Article 41 

The domestic worker (trabajador a domicilio) has the right to an officially designated minimum wage, and to the payment of indemnification for time lost by motive of an employer’s delay in ordering or receiving work or for the arbitrary or unjustified suspension of work. Domestic workers shall be recognized as having an analogous legal situation as other workers, taking into consideration the special characteristics of their work. 

Article 45 

Agricultural and domestic workers have the right to protection with respect to wages, working hours, rests, vacations, social security, indemnification for dismissal, and, in general, to social benefits. The extent and nature of the aforementioned rights shall be determined by law according to the conditions and peculiarities of the work. Persons who perform services that are domestic in character in industrial, commercial businesses, social entities and other similar enterprises shall be considered manual workers and shall have the rights granted to these. 

Article 46 

The State shall propitiate the creation of a bank owned by the workers. 

Article 49 

A special jurisdiction is established for labor. The procedures in labor matters shall be regulated in a form that will permit a rapid solution to conflicts. The State has the obligation to promote conciliation and arbitration, so they constitute effective means for the peaceful solution of labor conflicts. Special administrative boards of conciliation and arbitration shall be established to solve collective conflicts of interests or of an economic character.  

Article 52 

The rights consecrated in favor of the workers cannot be renounced. The enumeration of the rights and benefits to which this chapter refers, does not exclude others that are derived from principles of social justice

Constitution of the Republic of El Salvador 1983 (revised 2014) (PDF)

Article 147B trafficking and illegal tense of human organs and tissues 

Anyone who extracts or transplants human organs or tissues, without being duly authorized for it, as established in the Health Code, shall be punished with imprisonment of four to eight years. 

The same sanction will be imposed on anyone who trades with human organs or tissues. 

Those who have in their possession, organs or tissues of human persons, without being authorized to do so, as established by the Health Code, will be punished by three to five years in prison. 

Article 148. Deprivation of freedom 

Whoever deprives another of his individual liberty shall be punished with imprisonment for three to six years. 

Article 149. Kidnapping 

Anyone who deprives another of his individual liberty for the purpose of obtaining a ransom, compliance with a certain condition, or for the public authority to perform or fail to perform a particular act, shall be punished with a penalty of thirty Forty-five years in prison, under no circumstances may the convicted person be granted the benefit of parole or early probation. 

Article 149A. Proposition and conspiracy in the crimes of deprivation of freedom and kidnapping 

The proposition and conspiracy to commit any of the behaviors described in the two previous articles, will be sanctioned, in the case of deprivation of liberty with imprisonment of one to three years, and in the case of kidnapping, with Prison from ten to twenty years. 

Article 150. Aggravated attacks against individual freedom  

The penalty corresponding to the crimes described in the previous articles, shall be increased up to one-third of the maximum, in any of the following cases: 

1) If the crime is executed with simulation of public authority or false order of the same; 

2) If the deprivation of liberty lasts longer than eight days; 

3) If executed in person less than eighteen years of age, over sixty, invalid, or pregnant woman; 

4) If it will be executed in order to change the filiation; 

5) If it involves subjection or servitude that impairs his dignity as a person; 

6) If the victim is of the officials referred to in Article 236 of the Constitution of the Republic; Y, 

7) If executed in person, to whom, according to the rules of international law, El Salvador owes special protection. 

Article 151. Attacks against individual freedom attenuated 

If the victim is voluntarily released before seventy-two hours, without having obtained the specific purposes of the deprivation of liberty, the penalty of imprisonment referred to in the previous articles shall be reduced to In one third of the maximum. 

If the voluntary release proceeds before the twenty-four hours of the deprivation of liberty, without having obtained the specific aims of this one, the prison sentence will be reduced to half of the maximum. 

Art. 152. Detention by particular 

An individual who detains a person caught in flagrante delicto and does not have the competent authority immediately after the capture, shall be punished with imprisonment of six months to one year. 

Article 153 Coercion 

He who by violence obliges another to do, tolerate or ignore any action, shall be punished with imprisonment of one to three years. When coercion was entered to prevent the exercise of a fundamental right, the penalty is imprisonment for two to four years.  

Article 154 Threats 

Whoever threatens another with produce to him or his family harm constituting a crime, in their persons, freedom, sexual freedom, honor or in equity, shall be punished with imprisonment of one to three years.  

Article 155 

In the case of the two preceding articles shall be considered special aggravating, if committed with any of the following circumstances:  

1) That the act is committed with a weapon,  

2) the action was committed by two or more persons;  

3) If the threats were anonymous or condition, and  

4) If the stock falls on a person having the quality of victims or witnesses in any of the individuals who enjoy the regime of the Special Law for the Protection of Victims and Witnesses. 

In these cases the penalty is three to six years in prison. 

Article 244. Infringement of labor or social security conditions 

Any person who, through deceit or abuse of a situation of necessity, subjects workers to their service to working or social security conditions that harm, suppress or restrict the rights recognized by legal provisions or individual or collective contracts of employment, Will be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years. 

Article 367. Commerce in persons 

Any person who, per se or as a member of an international organization, engages in trade in persons for any purpose, shall be punished with imprisonment of four to eight years. 

If trade is carried out with Salvadoran women or children, the sanction may be increased up to one-third of the maximum indicated. 

Article 367A. Illegal trafficking in persons 

A person who, by himself or by means of another or other, in contravention of the law, intends to introduce or introduce foreigners into the national territory, shelter them or guide them, in order to evade the migratory controls of the Country or other countries, will be punished with imprisonment of four to eight years.  

With the same penalty, a person who shelters, transports or guides nationals with the purpose of evading the immigration controls of the country or of other countries will be sanctioned.  

In the same sanction will incur the people who with false or fraudulent documentation try to make or make leave the country to Salvadorans or citizens of any other nationality; Or those who use authentic documentation, whose holder is another person.  

If, as a consequence of the commission of this crime, taxpayers suffer deprivation of liberty abroad, are victims of crimes of any order or die for violent causes, or are guilty in nature, the penalty shall be increased by two thirds. 

Article 367B. Trafficking in persons 

Who, by himself or as a member of a national or international organization for the purpose of obtaining an economic benefit, recruits, transports, welcomes or receives persons, inside or outside the national territory, to carry out any activity Sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, practices similar to slavery, or for the removal of organs, fraudulent adoptions or forced marriages, shall be punishable by four to eight years’ imprisonment. 

REPEALED.  

Anyone who facilitates, promotes or favors any of the above activities will be punished with a penalty of three to six years in prison. 

When the described actions are carried out in commercial premises or of any nature that require permission of competent authority, it must revoke it by proceeding to the immediate closure of the same. 

Article 367C. Aggravating the crime of trafficking in persons 

The offense referred to in Article 367-B of this Code shall be punished with the maximum corresponding penalty increased by up to one-third of the maximum and disqualification from the exercise of his profession for the duration the conviction, in the following cases:  

1.- If it is carried out by civil servants, public and municipal employees, public authority, agent of authority and the agents of the National Civil Police.  

2. When the victim is under eighteen years of age or incapacitated.
3. If it is carried out by persons prevailing from the superiority originated by relationships of trust, domestic, educational, work or any other relationship.

4.- If, as a consequence of the commission of the previous offense, taxable persons suffer 

Deprivation of liberty abroad, are victims of crimes of any order or die for causes of willful or guilty nature. 

Article 370 

Those directing or forming part of international organizations engaged in trafficking in slaves, trade in persons or carrying out acts of piracy, or violating provisions of the treaties approved by El Salvador to protect human rights shall be punished with imprisonment of five to fifteen years. 

Penal Code (PDF)

Article 13. Right to work 

No one can prevent the work to the others but by means of resolution of competent authority aimed at protecting the rights of the workers, of the employers or of the society, in the cases foreseen by the Law. 

No form of forced or compulsory labor, ie any work or service required under the threat of any penalty and for which the worker has not volunteered. 

The prohibition referred to in the previous paragraph does not include: 

(A) Any work or service required under the Laws on compulsory military service and having a purely military character; 

1. B) Any work or service that forms part of normal civic obligations;
2. C) Any work or service that is required by a sentence pronounced by a judicial decision, provided that this work or service is carried out under the supervision and control of the public authorities and that the person who provides it is not assigned or placed at the disposal of private individuals or companies;
3. D) Any work or service required in cases of force majeure, ie war, casualties or threat of casualties, such as: fires, floods, hunger, earthquakes, violent epidemics and epizootics, invasions of animals, insects or harmful plant parasites, and in general all circumstances that endanger or threaten to endanger normal life or conditions

Of the existence of all or part of the population; 

1. E) The small communal works, carried out by the members of a community for the direct benefit of the same, provided that the members of the community have the right to pronounce on the need for them.

Article 29. Obligations of the employer 

The obligations of the employers are: 

1) Pay the worker his salary in the amount, date and place established in Chapter I, Title Three of this Book; 

2) To pay the worker a pecuniary benefit equivalent to the ordinary salary that would have accrued during the time that he stops working because of imputable to the employer; 

3) Provide the worker with the necessary materials for the job; As well as the tools and tools suitable for the performance of the work, when 

It is not agreed that the worker provides the latter; 

4) To provide a safe place for the guarding of the tools and tools of the worker, when these must necessarily be kept in the place where 

Services are provided. In this case, the inventory of tools and tools must be made whenever requested by either party; 

5) To keep due consideration to the workers, refraining from mistreating them of work or speech; 

6) Grant the worker a license: 

1. A) To fulfill obligations of public character established by law or ordered by competent authority.

In these cases, the employer must pay the worker a benefit equivalent to the ordinary salary that would have accrued in the time required for the fulfillment of said obligations; 

1. B) To fulfill family obligations that rationally claim their presence as in cases of death or serious illness of their spouse, ancestors and descendants; As well as in the case of persons who are economically dependent on him and who appear named in the respective employment contract or, failing that, in any registration of the company. This license will last for the necessary time; But the employer will only be obliged to recognize for this reason a benefit equivalent to the ordinary wage of two days in each calendar month and in no case more than fifteen days in the same calendar year; Y
2. C) In order that during the necessary time he can carry out the necessary commissions in the exercise of his office, if he is a director of a professional association, and whenever the respective organization so requests. The employer, for this reason, will not be obliged to recognize any benefit;

7) Keep enough seats or chairs available to workers in commercial houses, offices, hotels, restaurants and other similar work centers. The same provision shall be observed in industrial establishments where the nature of the work so permits; 

8) To pay the worker the expenses of round trip when, due to the service, it has to move to a place different from the one of his residence; 

9) Comply with the corresponding internal regulations of work; and 

10) All those imposed by this Code, the Law on Prevention and Control of Infection caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, and other sources of labor obligations. 

Article 30. Prohibitions for employers 

It is forbidden to the employers: 

1) Require their workers to buy items of any kind in establishments or to specific persons, whether credit or cash; 

2) Require or accept from the workers gratuities to be admitted to work or to obtain some privilege or concession that relates to working conditions; 

3) Try to influence their workers in the exercise of their political rights or religious beliefs; 

4) Try to influence their workers regarding the exercise of the right of professional association; 

5) By direct or indirect means, discriminate between workers because of their union status or retaliate against them for the same reason; 

6) To retain the tools or objects that belong to their workers, to guarantee the fulfillment of their obligations; Or to be paid as compensation for the damages and losses caused to him or for any other cause; 

7) Make or authorize compulsory collections or subscriptions among its workers; 

8) Directing work in a state of drunkenness, under the influence of narcotics or drugs, or in any other abnormal abnormality analogous; 

9) Pay the salary with chips, vouchers, promissory notes, coupons or any other symbols that are not legal tender; 

10) Reduce, directly or indirectly, the wages they pay, as well as eliminate or reduce the social benefits they provide to their workers, unless there is legal cause; and 

11) Execute any act that directly or indirectly tends to restrict the rights that this Code and other sources of labor obligations confer on the workers. 

12) Establish any distinction, exclusion or preference based on race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, national origin or social origin, except for the exceptions provided by law for the purpose of protecting the worker’s person. 

13) Require women applying for employment, to undergo previous examinations to check if they are pregnant, and to require them to present medical certificates for such examinations, as requirements for their employment. 

14) Require persons applying for HIV testing as a prerequisite for employment, and for the duration of the employment contract. 

15) By direct or indirect means, make any distinction, exclusion and / or restriction among workers, due to their HIV / AIDS status, as well as to disclose their diagnosis. 

Labour Code (PDF)

Article 5. Forms of human exploitation 

For the purposes of this Act, the following are forms of human exploitation:  

1. a) Easement: state of dependence or submission of the will, in which the treating induce or coerce the victim of trafficking in persons to perform acts, jobs or to pay services; 
2. b) Sexual exploitation: all actions to induce or compel a person to acts of sexual or erotic kind, for the purpose of financial gain or otherwise for himself or a third party. This includes acts of prostitution and pornography; 
3. c) Sexual Exploitation in Tourism Sector: the use of people in activities for sexual purposes, utilizandopara that finlos services and tourist facilities; 
4. d) Forced Labor: work or service exacted from any person under threat or coercion; 
5. e) Slavery: state or condition of a person, which will be exercised or absolute control of another person, to the point that it is treated as an object; 
6. f) Forced Begging: the exploitation of one or more people, forcing them or using them to ask for money or other benefit for the dealer; 
7. g) Forced pregnancy: induction a child, teenager or woman through force or deception to get pregnant, regardless of the purpose; 
8. h) Forced Marriage or Union: action by which a person is promised to his will or forced into marriage, or sustain a relationship in fact, in exchange for a benefit for the treating person or a third person; 
9. i) Adoption Fraudulent: occurs when it has been preceded by a sale, subtraction, detention, abduction of children and adolescents, delivered by the end of adoption with or without the consent of their parents, guardians or relatives, in violation the Law on the matter; 
10. j) Illegal Traffic of organs, tissues, fluids, cells or embryos: it is get, remove, deploy, transport, trade, possess or have unlawfully organs, tissues, fluids, germ cells or embryos; 
11. k) Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology: conducting anyone without your consent to medical tests or experiments with it drugs or medicines for the benefit of treating or third party;and
12. l) Trade Pornographic Material: includes the distribution, reproduction, possession and use of pornographic material victims of the Crime of Trafficking in Persons for any medium of any kind, particularly computer. 

Penal provisions  

Article 54. Trafficking 

Whoever gives, recruits, transports, transfers, receiving or accepting people, inside or outside the country or facilitate, promote or encourage, to run or allow others to do any activity of human exploitation, as defined in Article 3 of this Act shall be punished ten to fourteen years in prison.  

Article 55. Aggravating the Crime of Trafficking in Persons 

The crime of trafficking in persons shall be punished with sixteen to twenty years ‘imprisonment and suspension from the practice of the profession, job or public or private employment during the duration of the sentence, in the following cases:  

1. a) When the victim is a child, child, adolescent, adult or person who is disability; 
2. b) When the perpetrator is a public official or employee, public authority or agents authority; subject to applicable contest offense when cargo prevail; 
3. c) When a relationship of parent, child, adoptive parent, adopted brother, spouse or person with whom such a marital relationship or have conviviere affective; or in the case of guardian, conservator, guardian or in fact responsible for the education or care of the victim and when there is a relationship of authority or trust with the victim, their dependents or persons responsible, not bound or relationship relationship; 
4. d) When the offense is committed by a person directly or indirectly responsible care of the child or adolescent who is under a measure ofrefuge in care institutions for children and adolescents, whether public or private; 
5. e) cuandose occasioned and irreversible damage or serious bodily injury and disease; 
6. f) When the act is preceded by the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion or deceit; 
7. g) When used in the planning or execution of the crime, services or facilities for tourism, business, sports recreation ode, ode similar nature; and, 
8. h) The offense is made using as support information technology and communication, including the Internet. 

When the authors of the Crime of Trafficking in Persons are the organizers, chiefs, leaders or financiers of illegal groups or organized structures, national or transnational crime will be He punished by twenty to twenty five years in prison.  

Article 56. Remuneration in the Crime of Trafficking in Persons  

Anyone who applies, promise, pay or rewarded with any kind of benefit to third people to perform acts involving victims of Trafficking in Persons, either of the procedures laid down in this Act shall be punished with imprisonment from four to ten years. When the victim is a child, child, teenager or adult who is disabled person, imprisonment will increase by one third of the maximum.  

Article 57. Consent of the Victim 

The consent of the victim, regardless of age, can not be valued in any case or instance, be it administrative or judicial, as exclusionary cause or mitigating criminal liability. 

Special Law against Human Trafficking 2014 (PDF)