A/HRC/45/45/Add.2 Human Rights in the Serrano Cruz Sisters case. 1 The Commission is responsible for investigating and determining the whereabouts and situation of disappeared children and facilitating reunions with their families of origin. The Commission has achieved significant successes in finding children alive and reuniting them with their families. 16. In September 2017, a further presidential decree established the National Commission on the Search for Disappeared Adults, with a mandate to investigate, locate, exhume, identify and return the skeletal remains of persons who disappeared at the hands of the State during the conflict. The Commission is made up of a team that includes researchers and psychosocial support staff; the team works efficiently but is not large enough. A request to hire additional personnel is pending approval at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The commission has begun to carry out exhumations but, despite its mandate, it does not have the capacity to carry out technical genetic or forensic work. The Institute of Legal Medicine, which reports to the Supreme Court, does not have certified officials or sufficient staff to provide effective assistance in this task. 17. In 2018, the two search commissions were unified under a single mechanism, with the aim of determining the whereabouts of disappeared persons and facilitating family reunions or the return of remains.2 The commissions are attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Government reports that the commissions are administratively and operationally independent. 3 Each commission is made up of three commissioners, who exercise their functions ad honorem and are elected by the President of the Republic, victims’ committees and human rights organizations. Staff from the investigation units of both commissions took part in forensic training sessions in March 2019. 4 18. As at July 2019, the National Commission on the Search for Disappeared Adults had registered a total of 329 cases; it had investigated 259 and resolved 93. According to the register of cases, 73 per cent of children who disappeared during the conflict were children aged up to 8 years, thus confirming that very young children were the main victims. 19. Victims’ organizations have requested that both commissions be given formal statutory status, so as to ensure their legal sustainability and the allocation of the financial, human and technical resources needed for their operation. Both commissions have submitted a bill to this end to the executive branch.5 The Special Rapporteur joins in this request and stresses the key role that these organizations should play in searching effectively for disappeared persons and responding to the long wait of their families. The Special Rapporteur also recalls that in cases where disappeared persons are found to be deceased, their remains should be duly identified and handed over in a dignified manner to their families for the mourning process. 20. The Government has not yet established legal mechanisms to regulate exhumations carried out as part of investigations into enforced disappearances. This situation should be remedied quickly in order to ensure that proper support is provided for the work that the National Commission on the Search for Disappeared Adults is doing in this area. 21. Over the course of his visit, the Special Rapporteur received disturbing testimony about the role allegedly played by the “Ladies of the Red Cross”, members of the Salvadoran Red Cross Society, in the transfer and placement in families other than their own of children taken during the armed conflict. Particulars about children given up for adoption and their destination are reportedly held by that association and such information could help in establishing their whereabouts and reuniting them with their biological families. However, despite the efforts made by civil society organizations, victims’ families have not been able to gain access to this important information. 1 2 3 4 5 GE.20-09158 Serrano Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador, Judgment of 1 March 2005 (Merits, Reparations and Costs), Series C, No. 120. Revista Re-Cordis, No. 14, July 2019, p. 8. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., p. 13. http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2019/335.asp, p. 5. 5