Venezuelan women who have fled their economically ravaged homeland have been forced to sell their bodies and locks of their hair to Colombians just to earn a few dollars. Teachers, police officers and newspaper carriers are among those turning to the sex trade in Colombia to provide for their children and relatives back home. The undocumented women often end up working in sordid bars and the tropical climate exposes them to infections and diseases such as malaria. Colombia has taken in the most refugees, with more than 1 million Venezuelans pouring into the country, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Venezuelans flee their country destitute. With no work permits or passports, they are forced to make do in any way they can. Women near border areas are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking, since drug-trafficking groups are known to operate there. Poverty has soared after four years of recession and years of financial mismanagement. The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will hit a staggering 1. Psychologist Jhon Jaimes says the women prostituting themselves in Colombia suffer from 'anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.
Mother-of-three Patricia, 30, was beaten, raped and sodomized by a drunken client at a brothel in Calamar, where approximately 60 Venezuelans work as prostitutes.
The region is a hub for drug-trafficking and a bastion of dissident former FARC guerrillas. A year-old mother calling herself Alegria also travelled to Calamar. She is a teacher of history and geography but was earning just , bolivars a month: less than a dollar.
With nine other women, Alegria prostitutes herself every night in a bar in the town of 3, people. Joli, 35, is another victim of Venezuela's poverty who turned to the sex trade. Joli lost her job as a newspaper carrier in because 'there was no more paper to print them. She left her three children with her mother before trekking from town to town and job to job looking to make ends meet. When she crossed the border into Colombia without a passport, she had nothing but the clothes she was wearing.
