✝️ Nelson Arquímedes Díaz Córdova, age 29, transgender – January 30 2019, San Salvador, El Salvador 🇸🇻💔
Nelson was born in Santa Maria Ostuma, La Paz.
Nelson had little education and no support from the family after transitioning. Nelson joined the Armed Forces but left after three months and moved to San Salvador. The only option to make money was in prostitution. For a while Nelson was controlled and violated by a cousin. Tantrums were transformed into blows, abuse and burnt clothing, until the cousin kicked Nelson out oft he house. Nelson was in prostitution for 12 years and tried to get out for a long time, trying out other occupations that did not work out. Nelson moved in with trans friends. What followed was a sequence of address changes, absences, migrations, displacements, escapes, harassment and the same search at every step: try a quiet life.
Barrio 18 is one of two criminal organizations that control large urban swathes of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Threats by Barrio 18 against Nelson dated back to 2014, when a first complaint was filed with the National Police. Prices for prostitution rank between $15 and §20 per client. The gang demands 10 dollars a week to „work in their territory“. If the fee isn`t paid, the gang members give „discounts“. This is what they call the beatings they infringe so that it does not happen again. Remaining unpaid bears the reason of being killed.
An attempt to flee to Mexico in 2014 failed, because of suffering discrimination there as well: Four days after arriving in Tapachula (Mexico) Nelson and friends were attacked by other trans migrants, whom they identified as Hondurans. According to their testimonies, they tried to assault them, beat them and warned them to leave their territories, it was their place of work. After filing a complaint in the prosecutor’s office, the group disintegrated. Nelson decided to settle for a few months in Mexico City, but returned to El Salvador in the end.
In August 2017 Nelson was an asylum seeker in the USA to escape the death threats Barrio 18. in the US after an interview and inspection by officers with American CBP Nelson was processed for expedited removal and transferred to ICE custody, and was placed in deportation proceedings . On November 1, 2017 Nelson asked an immigration judge to be sent back to El Salvador. The judge issued a final order of removal and both parties waived appeal rights. Nelson was deported to El Salvador on November 22, 2017. In El Salvador Nelson first tried to change jobs and worked at a restaurant, doing cleaning, serving customers and helping in the kitchen. Plans were to open an own business, but the procedures made Nelson give up and return to prostitution. According to a friend Nelson was threatened by other prostitution trans women in the days leading to the death, in part because Nelson refused to work on the same block as other and suespected jealousy. On the night being left battered on the streets, Nelson sent audio messages saying other trans women were threatening.
„I’m here on these horrendous and fatal streets. Here I am, oh well. Putting up with these gossipy and troublesome girls.“
Nelson did not return home that night on January 30 and was admitted to Rosales National Hospital in San Salvador on January 31 with multiple injuries. Nelson passed away on February 3.
Nelson`s friend Virginia Flores presented two hypothesis of what happened: One of the hypothesis is that Nelson’s fellow transgendered prostituted persons attacked her. But a number of these told that they saw police attack Nelson and dump the body several kilometers away from where Nelson worked.
In July 2019 three police officers, Carlos Valentín Rosales, Jaime Giovanni Mendoza and Luis Alfredo, were arrested on suspicion of having participated in deprivation of liberty and aggravated homicide. The prosecutor’s office said the officers beat the victim for 40 minutes and left her alive on the street. The police officers had been recorded by surveillance cameras of a band and others of vehicle traffic monitoring.