Venezuelan migrant women victims of border abuses
Writing by our venezuelan correspondent
Poverty and the lack of well-paid job opportunities in Venezuela are factors that make Venezuelan migrants easy prey for abuse, according to women’s rights advocates.
“Let’s say that this type of crisis is used by trafficking and smuggling networks to attract women and girls in vulnerable situations and take them to other countries to exploit them, especially sexually,” Selene Soto, a Women’s Link lawyer, told the Voice of America. .
According to data from the Center for Justice and Peace of Venezuela, in 2020 56 Venezuelans were victims of femicide abroad. The agency warned that the closure of the border with Colombia, for 10 months, heightened the risk because to migrate to other South American nations, they must pass through illegal roads, controlled by armed groups.
Half of Venezuelan immigrants are undocumented, according to the Organization of American States (OAS), and, in the opinion of feminist movements, not having a permit or visa approved in the country of arrival makes women more vulnerable.
“There have been cases of women, victims of trafficking, who are captured in Venezuela, through deceptive job offers, for example, and when they arrive in Colombia, in reality, they are sexually exploited,” said attorney Soto.
