Democracia Azul: Access to Water as a Human Right in El Salvador

Access to clean water has been a contentious issue for several decades in El Salvador, but despite studies and recommendations by the United Nations and loans from international financial institutions, the government has refused to make access to water a national priority. Today, around 68% of the rural population in El Salvador does not have access to a reliable water supply, while 95% of all industrial and household waste-water enters the rivers without any kind of treatment.

The government has consistently adopted development strategies which benefit the wealthy elite, at the expense of the low and middle-income Salvadorans. While shopping malls and gated communities continue to spring up, there is little to no investment to improve the treatment or distribution of water, particularly in rural communities. When access to water has been addressed, it is often used as an instrument of political and partisanship power: to buy a few votes or to provide a photo-op of a politician connecting a system which will supply only a handful of people with water. For over two years the government has stated that it will soon introduce a Water Law to Congress, but despite numerous drafts of said law, it has yet to be submitted to the legislature.

Lack of access to water has lead to widespread civil unrest and confrontations between the police and Salvadoran citizens, who are demanding their right to water and are resisting government attempts to privatize the water system. The government has cracked down on public dissent in recent months, expelling several European citizens who participated in an environmental march, and arresting 13 demonstrators at an anti-privatization rally, among them the leaders of a non-profit development organization, who are being charged under the new 'anti-terrorism' law. Civil society has pressured the government to establish a national water strategy that would recognize water as a public good and address issues of equal access, distribution, treatment, and conservation. However, public participation has been limited -- mostly concentrated in San Salvador -- and a national movement around the right to water has yet to be established.

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