Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the
hands of traffickers Published reports & articles from 2000 to 2025 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Venezuela.htm
Venezuela is a
source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children
trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced
labor. Venezuelan women and girls are trafficked within the country for
commercial sexual exploitation, lured from poor interior regions to urban and
tourist areas such as Caracas and Margarita Island. Victims are often
recruited through false job offers, and subsequently coerced into
prostitution. Some Venezuelan children are forced to work as street beggars
or as domestic servants. Venezuelan women and girls are trafficked
transnationally for commercial sexual exploitation to Mexico, in addition to
Caribbean destinations such as Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands Antilles,
and the Dominican Republic. - U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June,
2009 Check out a later country report here and possibly a full TIP Report here |
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CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in
Venezuela. Some of these links may
lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even
false. No attempt has been made to
validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of
particular interest to you. Would you
like to write about Forced-Labor? Debt
Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to
the subject of Trafficking. Scan other
countries as well. Draw comparisons
between activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** VenInfo.org, 2006 www.libertadlatina.org/LL_EN_News_06_2010.htm [accessed 16 January
2011] [scroll down] IS ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. human
trafficking report: China, Iran, N. Korea worst offenders Nicholas Sakelaris, United
Press International UPI, 20 June 2019 [accessed 20 June
2019] U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo said Thursday human trafficking is a strain on humanity
that violates basic human rights. He named China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba among the worst
offenders. Those countries all
scored the lowest on the 2019 Trafficking in Person report released by the
U.S. State Department. CARICOM report:
Trinidad & Tobago officers involved in sex trafficking Stabroek News, 20 July 2020 [accessed 20 July
2020] [Official
Complicity] According to
investigations carried out in the Venezuelan town of Tucupita,
which included interviews with human traffickers, some of the gangs in the
region are headed and operated by law-enforcement officers from Trinidad
& Tobago. One Venezuelan
trafficker indicated that through his connection with elements in the T&T
Police Service, he has been assured of protection by officers who advise him
where to enter the country. Another trafficker
confirmed the claims, saying that he had been working with a police officer
from Trinidad and Tobago who pays him to provide women for his T&T-based organisation.
Admitting that he was part of a gang that specialised
in kidnapping Venezuelans and carrying them to T&T, he said the officer,
a constable, is a member of an organised South
American crime network. He said they
worked together to bring across the women, where they were forced to work, in
many instances, as sex slaves and prostitutes. Sold Off As a
Prostitute in Trinidad A shipwreck saved
her the first time, but the human trafficking ring that works from Güiria to Trinidad and Tobago came back to get her one
year later Nayrobis Rodríguez, Caracas
Chronicles, 16 May 2020 www.caracaschronicles.com/2020/05/16/sold-off-as-a-prostitute-in-trinidad/ [accessed 18 May
2020] They had clubs and knives, they hit me and my daughter. They told her: ‘come
with us and we’ll leave your mom alone.’ I ran out to look for the police,
but they didn’t listen to me. I went back home and they had taken my
daughter, she wasn’t there.” None of the
authorities paid attention to Keyla’s complaint. A few days later, some
acquaintances told her that the girl was in Trinidad. “She was taken by
people working with those she accused,” the mother claims. During the last
week of April, Yosqueili managed to call for a few
minutes, using another girl’s phone: “Mom, I’m in
Trinidad. They sold me for $300.” 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Venezuela U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/venezuela/
[accessed 29 June
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR According to
FADESS, more than 60,000 Cubans worked in the illegitimate Maduro regime’s
social programs (such as the Mission Inside the Barrio) in exchange for the
regime’s provision of oil resources to the Cuban government. FADESS noted
Cubans worked in the ministries of Education, Registrar, Notary,
Telecommunications, and Security. FADESS also cited that the G-2 Cuban
security unit was present in the armed forces and in state enterprises. The
Cuban government may have forced some Cubans to participate in its
government-sponsored medical missions. Some Cuban medical personnel who
participated in the social program Mission Inside the Barrio described
indicators of forced labor, including underpayment of wages, mandatory long
hours, limitations on movement, the use of “minders” to conduct surveillance
of participants outside of work, forced political indoctrination, and threats
of retaliatory actions against workers and their families if they left the
program or did not return to Cuba as directed by government supervisors. The
Cuban government acknowledged that it withheld the passports of Cuban medical
personnel in the country. Venezuelan authorities did not investigate
allegations of forced labor in Cuba’s overseas medical program. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Most child laborers
worked in the agricultural sector, street vending, domestic service, or in
small and medium-size businesses, most frequently in family-run operations.
There continued to be isolated reports of children exploited in domestic
servitude, mining, forced begging, and commercial sexual exploitation (see
section 6), many of whom could be victims of trafficking. Members of the
illegitimate Maduro regime supported the operations of the National
Liberation Army and dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
dissidents by allowing the exploitation, sex trafficking, forced labor, and
forced recruitment of children. A study by Cecodap
found that child laborers constituted up to 45 percent of those working in
mines. Media reported children as young as nine years old working in mines. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/venezuela/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 10 May
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Venezuelan women
and children are increasingly vulnerable to sex trafficking within Venezuela
and in neighboring countries, as well as in Europe, with the problem
exacerbated by worsening economic conditions. Migrants to Venezuela have also
been subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The government has
reportedly done little to combat human trafficking. With job opportunities
growing scarce and wages not keeping up with hyperinflation, more citizens
have turned to jobs in the informal economy, where they are more exposed to
dangerous or exploitative working conditions. Among businesses that are
legally registered, sanctions for labor law violations, when levied,
generally target private-sector operations, and not those that are state-run. FM Rodríguez
rejects OAS report on human trafficking El Universal EU
Daily News, [accessed 16
February 2016] Venezuelan Foreign
Affairs Alí Rodríguez Araque Wednesday rejected as biased, influenced and
judgmental a report on Annual Report Of Activities
By The Anti-Trafficking In Persons Section Of The Organization Of American
States - April 2005 To March 2006 [DOC] SIXTH MEETING OF
MINISTERS OF JUSTICE OR OF MINISTERS OR ATTORNEYS GENERAL OF THE AMERICAS,
April 2005 to March 2006, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 13 April 2006 www.procuraduria.gov.do/PGR.NET/RemjaVI/Informes/Ingles.doc [accessed 16 January
2011] scm.oas.org/doc_public/ENGLISH/HIST_06/MJ00334E08.DOC [accessed 19
February 2018] VENEZUELA - At its 35th
regular session, held in Fort Lauderdale, the General Assembly of the
Organization renewed the mandate of holding a Meeting of National Authorities
on Trafficking in Persons in its resolution AG/RES. 2118 (XXXV-O/05)
“Fighting The Crime Of Trafficking In Persons.” In turn, the OAS Permanent
Council, meeting on August 25, 2005, adopted the resolution “Convocation of
the Meeting of National Authorities on Trafficking in Persons,” CP/RES. 889
(1503/05), which was later reviewed at the sessions held on November 30,
2005, and January 24, 2006, and in which it was agreed that the meeting would
take place on Isla Margarita in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on March
14-17, 2006. The meeting on Isla Margarita was attended by national
authorities from the member states, civil society, and international agencies
including the IOM, the ILO, and the UNODC; it was also the first hemispheric
forum at which the countries of the Americas met to discuss issues related to
the implementation of legal instruments for tackling human trafficking,
preventing the phenomenon, punishing traffickers, providing protection and
victim assistance, and exchanging information, experiences, and international
cooperation. One of the outcomes of this meeting was the production of a
document containing its conclusions and recommendations, which will be
presented at the REMJA VI meeting to be held on April 24-26 next in the Trafficking and Sexual
Exploitation Between Venezuela and Ecuador Survivors' Rights
International SRI, July 17, 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 13
September 2011] BACKGROUND - Women and
children are also trafficked into What a difference a
year makes: The US Trafficking in Persons Report! Philip Stinard,
VHeadline.com, June 17, 2004 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13
September 2011] Venezuelan Vice
Foreign Minister Arevalo Mendez Romero was correct to brand this report as
?cynical and arrogant,? even if you ignore that fact that the Venezuelan
Statement to UN The Dominion Daily
Weblog, September 15, 2004 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13
September 2011] The reason given to
justify this decision consists of an alleged negligence on the part of the Government of the Domestic media spin
suggests Cuba is trafficking teenage women to Venezuela Patrick J.
O'Donoghue, VHeadline.com, August 27, 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13
September 2011] In a misleading
title Venezuelan tabloid El Mundo reads: report reveals sexual trafficking
from The report does not
offer proof or confirm the spin that the Cuban government is responsible for
the trafficking, or maliciously that it forms part of the current cultural
and economic agreement signed by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez Frias. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/venezuela.htm [accessed 16 January
2011] www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2017/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 8 May
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Venezuela is a destination, transit, and source
country for children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Children are trafficked internally for
labor and sexual exploitation, as well as from other South American
countries, especially Ecuador, to work in the capital city of Caracas as
street vendors and domestics. There
are also reports that children from Venezuela have been abducted and used as
soldiers by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 8 October 1999 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/venezuela1999.html [accessed 16 January
2011] [24] The Committee
welcomes the measures taken to eliminate irregularities in the procedures concerning
adoption (e.g., direct placement of children, known as entrega inmediata),
but it remains concerned that the State party has not reformed its domestic
legislation relating to inter-country adoption in accordance with the
obligations established under the Hague Convention of 1993 on the Protection
of Children and Co-operation in respect of Inter-country Adoption [33] While the
Committee notes the information submitted by the State party on the
trafficking and sale of Ecuadorian children and welcomes the measures
undertaken by the State party's authorities to combat this phenomenon, the
Committee is of the opinion that measures in this regard need to be
strengthened. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights 21 May 2001 www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,CESCR,CONCOBSERVATIONS,VEN,3cc7f9e86,0.html [accessed 26 August
2011] www.refworld.org/publisher,CESCR,,VEN,3cc7f9e86,0.html [accessed 19
February 2018] [16] The Committee is alarmed about the high
rate of domestic violence and the extent of child prostitution and
trafficking in children, and regrets the lack of available statistics on the
number of street children. The Committee is deeply concerned about the extent
of the sex trade involving children and the inability of the State party to
address these issues. Human Rights
Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/americas/venezuela [accessed 16 January
2011] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/venezuela/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 8 May 2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Venezuelan women
and children are vulnerable to sex trafficking both within Venezuela and in
neighboring countries, particularly amid worsening economic conditions.
Migrants to Venezuela have also been subjected to forced labor and sex
trafficking. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61745.htm [accessed 11
February 2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– There were reports that the country was a source, destination, and transit
country for trafficked men, women, and children. An underdeveloped legal
framework, corruption among immigration authorities, and the ease with which
fraudulent passports, identity cards, and birth certificates could be obtained
created favorable conditions for trafficking. No overall statistics on
trafficking were available from government or NGO sources. Human rights NGOs
received complaints that women were trafficked to Europe for purposes of
prostitution. Subgroups particularly at risk included women from poor areas.
Undocumented or fraudulently documented Ecuadorian and Chinese nationals
transited the country and reportedly were forced to work off the cost of
their transportation in conditions of servitude. Organized criminal
groups, possibly including Colombian drug traffickers, Ecuadorian citizens,
and Chinese mafia groups, reportedly were involved in trafficking activities All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - |
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