March 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of legal recognition for Jehovah’s Witnesses in El Salvador. After the government granted our brothers legal status on March 27, 1972, the number of publishers in El Salvador quickly increased from a peak of 2,524 in 1972 to 5,632 in 1976. Today, there are more than 38,000 publishers serving in 662 congregations.

Missionaries arrived in the country in 1945 and devoted themselves to the ministry. At that time, they could easily become legal residents. Congregations began to be formed, and a branch office was established in May 1946.

In 1968, a new immigration law prevented the missionaries from staying in the country for longer than five years. Seeing how this could impair the ministry, the brothers taking the lead set about trying to acquire legal recognition.

Near the end of 1971, some 30 elders from El Salvador were invited to meet at the branch office to discuss the issue. During the meeting, Brother Baltasar Perla, Sr., who later became a member of the Branch Committee, asked all the elders present to give him their government-issued identity cards. He then informed the elders that their names and addresses would be included in a written request to the government for legal recognition.

Brother Juan Antonio Flores, one of the elders present at that meeting, recalls: “Brother Perla, Sr., then explained to us that since our names and addresses would be in that document, if the authorities ever wanted to ban our work, we would be the first ones they would come after and the first ones to be thrown in jail.” Brother Perla, Sr., offered to return the identity card to anyone who was afraid. No one asked for his card back. Thankfully, the government never opposed the work, and no one was imprisoned.

The plan was successful, and the Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses was officially recognized the next year. From that point forward, missionaries could once again obtain permanent residency. Additionally, it was easier for the branch to import literature and the brothers to defend their neutral stand before school and government officials.

On April 26, 1972, the official government newspaper of El Salvador published what would be the main objective of the legal association: “[To] preach about the teachings of the Bible and the good news of the Kingdom of God as a witness to the name, word, and supremacy of the almighty God Jehovah.”

In the decades since that statement was made, Jehovah’s Witnesses in El Salvador have proved true to that commission.—Isaiah 25:9.