Fighting for Justice, Even When It Feels Impossible

Last week, I was in El Salvador, working with Cristosal, an organization I’ve been volunteering with since 2007. This year, Cristosal is marking its 25th anniversary—25 years of defending human rights in Central America. It should be a moment of celebration, a recognition of the relentless work to protect the most vulnerable. But against the backdrop of El Salvador’s state of exception, this milestone feels more like a reckoning—an acknowledgment of how much work remains and how steep the cost of justice can be.

One morning, I sat across from a woman who had come to Cristosal seeking help. Her sister, Dina Hernández, a 28-year-old human rights activist, was arrested last March while she was 35 weeks pregnant. She was accused of illicit association and detained without evidence. A judge ruled for her release within 24 hours, but the prison ignored the order. Another court issued a second arrest order, keeping her locked away. Three weeks later, Dina’s family received a call. Not to release her. To collect the body of her newborn baby, Keren.

Keren’s death wasn’t an accident. It was preventable. Dina was denied timely medical care while in prison, just as thousands of women have been under the state of exception. Women detained by the government not only suffer from a lack of menstrual products, but those who are pregnant face life-threatening conditions, miscarriages, and post-natal deaths due to medical neglect. Dina’s baby was one of at least four children who have died in El Salvador’s prisons since Bukele’s government began its mass incarceration campaign.

When I looked into Dina’s sister’s eyes, I saw a grief so deep that it left no room for anger—only devastation. She has no idea if Dina will ever see justice. Though Dina has been free for a couple of months, she has not been fully acquitted—her legal battle is still ongoing. But after months of uncertainty, she has finally been able to reunite with her family.

And still, they are fighting.

A War on Human Rights

Since 2022, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s state of exception has turned the country into a police state, where mass arrests are justified as a necessary crackdown on gang violence. But in practice, it has become a war on the poor, a war on human rights defenders, a war on basic dignity.

Under the state of exception, over 87,000 people have been arrested without warrants or due process (2% of the country’s population). Families often don’t know where their loved ones are, or if they’re still alive. Cristosal has documented cases of torture that has led to the death of at least 363. Testimonies reveal that female prisoners face sexual coercion by prison staff in exchange for food, clothes, and medicine. The Salvadoran government has extended pre-trial detention to four years, meaning that people like Dina can be held indefinitely, without ever having the chance to prove their innocence.

When the World Looks Away

Cristosal’s work has never been easy, but now it faces an even greater challenge: the loss of U.S. support.

The recent USAID funding cuts punish the very people fighting to hold the government accountable. As a direct result, Cristosal was forced to lay off 70% of its staff, drastically reducing its ability to document human rights abuses, provide legal aid, and support victims. Those most affected by these cuts are not those in power, but people like Dina, her family, and the thousands of Salvadorans whose only hope for justice depends on organizations like Cristosal.

Why We Fight Anyway

I have been involved in human rights work for nearly two decades, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: we don’t fight for truth and justice because we think we will achieve them in our lifetimes. We fight because the fight itself matters. We fight because it is the right thing to do.

Dina’s sister, in her grief, is still fighting. Cristosal is still documenting these abuses, still taking cases to court, still insisting that human rights do not disappear just because a government decides they are inconvenient.

But what is happening in El Salvador is not just El Salvador’s problem. The erosion of democracy doesn’t happen overnight. It happens when leaders trade civil liberties for promises of security. It happens when governments silence dissenters and criminalize human rights work. It happens when the world looks away.

And those of us watching from outside El Salvador—we have a choice. We can turn away, or we can recognize this as a warning. We can see El Salvador as a test case for what happens when authoritarianism is allowed to flourish unchecked. We can understand that this fight is not just for Salvadorans, but for all of us in the global democracy movement.

A Call to Action

The U.S. may have withdrawn its funding, but that doesn’t mean Americans can’t support this work. In fact, it makes individual action more urgent than ever.

If we believe in human rights, if we believe that no government should be allowed to operate without oversight, then we need to support the organizations that are holding the line. Cristosal needs resources. It needs allies. It needs people to pay attention, to amplify the voices of those who refuse to be silenced.

Because what is happening in El Salvador is not an isolated crisis—it is part of a larger global struggle.

The fight for justice is long. It does not promise victory.

But we fight anyway. Because it is the right thing to do.