Not only are girls and women who fled Venezuela in urgent need of protection from non-state actors involved in trafficking, child exploitation and sexual slavery, but also, based on gender grounds, they should be granted refugee status. One of my childhood memories is being in a playground and playing Miss Venezuela. It was not a small thing. Only after several years did I realise not only the self-inflicted damage on our national psyche, but that other countries would also have this image of ourselves as the country of the beauty pageants.
What we did not know was that in times of crisis, this was to become a double-edged sword. Due to a political, economic and humanitarian crisis, Venezuelans are fleeing and leaving everything behind to reach safety.
According to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, as the number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela tops 4 million, this has become the largest migratory flow in the history of the American region and after Syria it is currently the second largest in the world.
While a government accused of committing gross violations by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is in denial, Venezuelans are living a daily nightmare without seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Last month, the Organization of the American States OAS released a report according to which Venezuelan migrants and refugees could reach between 5.
While Venezuelans are desperately trying to leave the country and hoping to send money for food and medicines back to their beloved ones, the whole situation has become a breeding ground for trafficking, sexual slavery, child exploitation, forced prostitution and survival sex of Venezuelan women and girls. The sexualisation of this tragedy is widespread.
