Marianella García Villas (7 August 1948 – 13 March 1983) was a Salvadoran attorney, who served in the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador from 1974 to 1976 before resigning her post to found the first independent human rights commission in the country.

After the 1979 coup d'état led to the installation of a military junta, she began documenting human rights abuses in the country, helping families report disappearances and imprisonments.

[2] In 1974, García was elected as a deputy to Parliament as a representative of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP),[4] the only women to serve in the Legislative Assembly from 1974 to 1976.

[4] [7] That same fall, García went to Geneva and met with Theo van Boven, head of the United Nations' Division for Human Rights to show him the archive of photographic evidence.

[8] She returned to El Salvador in February 1983 to photograph abuses and try to collect evidence of the use of chemical weapons by the Salvadoran Armed Forces for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

", was hosted in Oslo by the Fritt Ord Foundation, to discuss the strides made in El Salvador since García had brought the situation to the attention of the international community.