El Salvador: Children of a Rape (Enhanced DVD)

This short documentary film takes an in-depth look at the gangs of El Salvador: Their formation, history, and present day issues. MS13 and the infamous 18 are El Salvador's biggest rival gangs, controlling and brutalizing civilians and businesses alike, charging taxes for protections against violence and rape, often directed at youth and the elderly. They recruit children from schools, neighborhood streets, and villages to join their gangs, sell drugs, and murder. Joining these gangs often involves violent initiation rites including brutal murders and rapes.

This documentary interviews head gang members at gang segregated prisons, collects commentary from the experts, and includes an elaborate history lesson as to how these terrorist groups got started in the first place.

The Salvadorian Civil War started in 1980 and lasted until the 1990s with close to 100,000 civilian casualties by its close. These gang members are brutalized children themselves, most of them in their early 20s and born into one of the bloodiest civil wars in all of human history.

The United States of America is highly criticized for aiding the right wing military protecting the interests of the El Salvador's oligarchy. The United States supplied weapons and closed their eyes to the fact that the 'leftist guerilla groups' were primarily comprised of students, teachers, farmers, and union workers simply frustrated by a lack of human rights and attempting to stand up against the government officials whose main tactic of control was oppression and brutalization.

• Enhanced DVD
• ISBN: 978-1-61753-194-1
• 66 Minutes long
• Copyright 2009
• Closed Captions in English and Spanish