Yolanda arrived in Colombia with her two daughters and husband because of a job offer to sell red wine and other hot beverages. The offer included payment for transportation, food and lodging for her and her family. She accepted the offer in order to survive, as her situation in Venezuela was unsustainable. When she arrived at the place of supposed employment, she was told that she would have to prostitute herself. Although she managed to escape, she and her seven-year-old daughter were sexually abused by the people running the trafficking network into which they had unknowingly fallen.

Their story may be similar to that of the nearly 4,000 people who have been victims of human trafficking in South America between 2019 and 2022. According to the most recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the region has seen a significant increase in the number of victims identified after a considerable reduction during the pandemic. During this period, the most common forms of exploitation were trafficking for forced labor (55%) and sexual exploitation (40%). The report documented that in the region, women and girls are the main victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and men and boys for labor exploitation. Despite the increase in cases, the response of justice systems is very weak. According to UNODC since 2019 there has been a worrying reduction in convictions for the crime of trafficking in the region.  

Within this regional context, this article analyzes the violence and the risks of being victims of trafficking faced by women during the migration process, focusing on the case of migration to Colombia. On the Colombian-Venezuelan border, women face a hostile environment where the presence of legal and illegal armed actors increases the possibilities of being victims of different forms of violence and where the risk of sexual exploitation is latent. Human trafficking has become a global and transnational phenomenon, with more nationalities and more destination countries involved. Thus, this entry presents just one example of the dynamics of human trafficking that are occurring worldwide and seeks to draw the attention of States to address these cases more forcefully.     

Context: Migrating to Colombia

Approximately 8 million people have left Venezuela and about 36% (2,811,570) of them are in Colombia, the main receiving country of the Venezuelan migrant population in the region. According to Migration Colombia for August 2024, women, adolescents and girls represented 52% of the Venezuelan migrant population in the country. Of these, 23% (333,397) were between 5 and 17 years old, and 30% between 18 and 29 years old (435,900).

Like Yolanda, people from Venezuela arrive in Colombia with a number of unmet needs such as health, food, education, among others. By 2023, 51% of households in Venezuela were living in poverty and inequality continues to increase. The Venezuelan state’s provision of health services was precarious and private care was very expensive. Likewise, 32% of the population surveyed by the Living Conditions Survey stated that they stopped eating one meal a day.  

When they arrive in Colombia, migrants and refugees continue to face barriers to access rights that make it difficult for them to live in dignified conditions. These barriers are aggravated in the case of people who have had to migrate informally and who cannot access a migratory status. For example, migrants in an irregular situation cannot access health services, except in emergencies, and cannot work formally. Although the Colombian State has made significant efforts to regularize the migratory situation of this population through the creation of the Temporary Protection Status for Venezuelan Migrants (ETPMV), about 16% of Venezuelan migrants in the country are in an irregular situation.         

Violence faced by women in the migration process

The barriers to access and rights violations faced by migrants and refugees are aggravated in the case of women, adolescents and girls. The absence of support networks and poverty increase their risk of becoming victims of violence. Violence against their life, integrity and sexual and reproductive health are some of the causes of their forced migration, which persist during the migratory transit and when they arrive at their destination, so that violence against them extends over time and takes various forms. 

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) identified that the types of violence most frequently faced by women during the migration process are physical, verbal, psychological and sexual violence. The women interviewed in this study stated that among their main needs are lack of resources, lack of food/water, lack of transportation, and limitations in accessing information. This same organization documented that between 2017 and 2019 there were more than 120 cases of femicide of Venezuelan women during the migration process.

While these needs may be common to all migrants and refugees, in the case of women they have compounded impacts. It exposes them to multiple forms of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, human trafficking, forced disappearance, or to accept demands for sex for survival. In host communities, Venezuelan migrant and refugee women also face violence, sexual exploitation, harassment and stigmatization, in addition to the increasing hypersexualization of their bodies. Civil society organizations have documented several cases of Venezuelan women and girls who, through deception and false promises of work, are taken to other countries, particularly Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago, for the purpose of exploitation, mainly sexual.  

What has been the State’s response?

Human trafficking, including trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, is one of the most serious forms of violence suffered by women, girls and adolescents and is contrary to human rights treaties and protocols, particularly the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention of Belem do Para, the Refugee Statute and the Palermo Protocol. These international standards establish clear obligations for States to prevent, investigate, punish and provide redress to victims of human trafficking. 

Despite the fact that the Colombian State has a legal framework to combat this crime and a protection roadmap for victims, many cases of migrant and refugee women, such as Yolanda’s, remain invisible and they do not receive adequate attention from the authorities. For example, when she managed to escape, Yolanda went to the authorities to request protection, but the Prosecutor’s Office considered that the crime committed against her was inducement to prostitution and not trafficking in persons, so she was not granted the protection and assistance measures that victims of trafficking in persons are entitled to. 

In 2021, after a long court battle, her case reached the Constitutional Court, one of the highest courts in the country. The Court issued a landmark decision, which not only protected Yolanda’s rights, but also ordered a series of structural measures to improve care for victims of human trafficking in Colombia. First of all, the Court was emphatic in affirming that the care of victims of human trafficking should not depend on the development of the criminal process. This implies that the responsible authorities must activate the program of protection and assistance to victims whenever there are indications that a case of human trafficking is involved, and this attention cannot be subject to the development of the criminal investigation. The Court also ordered the Inter-institutional Committee for the Fight against Trafficking in Persons to propose a regulation that would allow the authorities to provide protection to victims of trafficking in a context of massive migration such as the one the country is experiencing.

The measures ordered by the Colombian Constitutional Court are aligned with the recommendations given by the Inter-American Development Bank in its report “Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean”. One of the most relevant is the call to the authorities to have a comprehensive approach against human trafficking. This approach implies, among other efforts, improving the identification and registration of cases, creating specialized units within judicial authorities, establishing and maintaining standardized procedures, as well as accompanying and considering the needs of victims and their families. 

Despite these advances, it is urgent that the actions of the States to prevent human trafficking and protect the victims have a particular focus on forced migration, since those who migrate in this way are more likely to fall into trafficking networks. This situation imposes important challenges for the authorities and the need to adopt creative measures in accordance with the needs of the victims. In the case of forced migration, it is urgent that human trafficking be recognized as a legitimate reason to apply for refugee status with the authorities of the host country. Recognizing victims of trafficking as refugees is a humanitarian measure consistent with international law that can help ensure the protection of their rights and prevent this crime from continuing to occur.