Venezuelan women face increasing gender-based violence in host countries: Amnesty International

By Laura Gamba ​​​​​​​

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Venezuelan women are facing increasing gender violence in Colombia and Peru, the main destinations for Venezuelan refugees and migrants, Amnesty International (AI) said in a report Tuesday.

The report said Colombia and Peru are largely absent when it comes to guaranteeing, protecting and respecting the life of Venezuelan female refugees.

“Protection from gender-based violence should be a priority for all states in the Americas, as should the protection of those fleeing massive human rights violations in their countries of origin. Instead, Venezuelan refugee women are facing a double and brutal lack of protection, as our report on the situation in Colombia and Peru reveals,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

The group said that according to official data, gender-based violence against Venezuelan women escalated 71% between 2018 and 2020 in Colombia and 31% between 2019 and 2020 in Peru.

Venezuelan women face attacks along migration routes and in the places where they settle and experience economic, physical and sexual violence, predominantly from partners or former partners.

In the work environment, they also suffer violence and labor exploitation, including sexual exploitation.

The report noted the high levels of underreporting that obscure the reality of what is experienced.

"Many Venezuelan women, victims of gender-based violence and whose lives are at risk, prefer not to denounce for fear of being expelled from the country, due to their documentation status,” said Marina Navarro, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Peru.

The report concludes that both countries have failed to ensure protection.

It denounces the lack of effective access to migration regularization processes which cause "the perception that they do not have the same rights as the rest of the population and that, therefore, they cannot demand them before the institutions, or that by doing so they would run the risk of being deported to their country."

Colombia and Peru have received more than 50% of the more than 6 million people who have fled Venezuela in recent years because of massive human rights violations.