Last June, the Legislative Assembly approved the Crecer Juntos (Growing Together) Law for the Integral Protection of Early Childhood, Childhood and Adolescents, which will enter into force on January 1, 2023; repealing the Law for the Integral Protection of Children and Adolescents (LEPINA) and the Special Law for the Regulation and Installation of Nurseries for the Children of Workers.

This law brings with it the dissolution of the Salvadoran Institute for the Integral Development of Children and Adolescents (ISNA) and the National Council for Children and Adolescents (CONNA). These functions will be in charge of the National Council for Early Childhood, Childhood and Adolescence (CONANIPA).

The new legal framework opens the way to issues such as the rights and obligations of the State towards children in matters of prevention of sexual violence and the administration of justice.

In the labor field, the Crecer Juntos Law replaces the regulation of the Cradle Rooms Law for workers’; children with the Early Childhood Care Centers (CAPI), which establishes their gradual installation and operation. The aforementioned Law, in its Article 134, defines the CAPI as follows:

“An Early Childhood Care Center, hereinafter CAPI, is an establishment intended to implement the institutional path of the comprehensive early childhood care model and to promote loving and sensitive care, timely stimulation and quality education, with the purpose of favoring the physical, cognitive, affective and social development of girls and boys.”

In this way, the new legislation will oblige employers to guarantee access to a CAPI to the children of workers, exclusively to those employers with 100 or more workers in all sectors; offering the employer to choose between different modalities, such as:

1. install and maintain a CAPI in an independent location within the same municipality where the Work Center is located.

2. Installing and maintaining common centers held by several employers whose work centers are located in the same municipality.

3. The contracting of independent services offered by a duly authorized CAPI, which is located in the municipality of the Work Center or domicile of the worker, with prior agreement between both parties.

On the other hand, regarding the time and space occupied by the CAPI, the CAPI will attend the children of the workers from the end of the maternity leave until one day before the child reaches four years of age, and there will be no limit to the number of beneficiary children.

It is important to clarify that the CAPI will not provide food, personal items, prescription drugs, personal hygiene supplies, school supplies and didactic materials, since the workers will be responsible for providing these non-covered services.

The Center’s hours of operation will be in accordance with the regular daytime workday, Monday through Friday. From the date of its entry into force, public, autonomous and

municipal institutions will have 12 months to install the corresponding CAPI; in the case of the private sector, they will have 18 months for their installation.