VENEZUELANS ON FOOT

Extreme hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, power cuts and stagnating employment prospects have caused the mass exodus of over 4 million people from Venezuela since 2015, making this one of the largest displaced communities in the world. Though the economic crisis is complex with many interplaying factors, mass migration in recent years has been predominantly driven by the country’s imploding economy, alongside political unrest surrounding the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro’s leadership and shortages of both food and medicine have led to the re-emergence of diseases such as tuberculosis as well as a rise in cases of child malnutrition. The cause of migration from Venezuela is unusual in that it is not violent conflict that is forcing people to leave their homes, but protracted socioeconomic disaster, on a scale never before seen in Latin America.

Venezuela was previously the wealthiest South American nation due to its rich oil reserves, which are responsible for 90% of the country’s foreign revenue, but since 2014 as oil prices plummeted the country’s economy has been in collapse. With hyperinflation currently being the highest in the world, it has become virtually impossible for Venezuelans to continue to purchase everyday necessities with prices, on average, doubling every 19 days by the end of 2018.

Migration throughout South America is no new phenomenon and Venezuela has long been a host nation for migrants from neighbouring countries. However, this current crisis is an unprecedented exodus in the sheer volume of people who have migrated in the past few years and has, as a result, shifted migration patterns across the continent. Historically, migration in the region has been from South to North as ongoing conflict in Colombia led millions to flee violence in search of refuge in Venezuela over the 1980s and 1990s. However, the current economic and political crisis has led to increased southbound migration as thousands of Venezuelans have fled to countries like Peru, Chile and Ecuador. Though migration routes have varied, most Venezuelan migrants have remained in South America, with Colombia hosting the overwhelming majority of Venezuelan migrants - at least 1,100,000 as of March 2019.

As neighbouring countries, Colombia and Venezuela share a long border of 2,219km, making Colombia the logical choice for most Venezuelan migrants, although this route is by no means without its complications. Colombia has also been a welcoming host-nation, largely due to the shared history of migration between the countries. Indeed, despite the 2015 migration crisis following the shooting of three Venezuelan soldiers on the border, which led to Maduro closing this border and deporting thousands of Colombians from the country, the border has since been reopened, allowing for thousands of Venezuelans to now make the crossing into Colombia in search of a more secure and prosperous livelihood.

The waves of migration from Venezuela began in the early 2000s, followed by second and third waves in 2015 and 2017-18. The first wave of migration was comprised predominantly of those who sought to protect family assets or felt persecuted by the new policies under President Chavez’s government. Additional waves took place due to political and social instability after a 2002 coup d’état attempt and after Chavez’s re-election in 2006. During Chavez’s rule, despite achieving advances in housing, health care and education, shortages of basic supplies, rising debt, and a complex system of currency control that encouraged extreme inflation, began to grip the country. After Chavez’s death and Nicolas Maduro’s accession to power, violent antigovernment protests gripped the county in 2014 over the election process, government corruption and growing socioeconomic problems in the country. When the price of oil plummeted in 2014, Venezuela descended further into a downward economic spiral. The second wave of migration began demographically similar to the first wave, but it included more middle-class professionals, students and those fleeing violence and oppression. Since 2014, there has been an 8000% increase of Venezuelans seeking refugee status worldwide.

Today, the protracted economic crisis over the last decade has led to devastating hardship for a majority of the Venezuelan population. Hospitals have no medicines, there have been outbreaks of communicable diseases as living conditions deteriorate and vaccines are no longer available and an estimated 80% of households are facing food insecurity. Despite Venezuela importing over 75% of its food, imports fell by 67% between 2016-2017 as the limited resources available were funneled to debt repayments rather than food. Such policies have led to life becoming unmanageable for much of the population and the third wave of migration since 2017, has been the most dramatic and most complex. It has involved the movement of predominantly more vulnerable groups in society – families, women with children, older people, disabled and chronically ill people seeking medical care, indigenous populations and poor and struggling middle- and low-class populations – usually by foot or by bus to neighboring countries such as Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil. This has led to the rise of ‘Caminantes Venezolanos’ – Venezuelan Walkers – those who have no choice but to travel by foot due to limited financial or social resources, to escape the hardships of home and attempt to find a better life. In light of this, Xchange decided to explore what the consequences of this shift in migration dynamics are by exploring what the journeys are like for some of the thousands of Venezuelans leaving the country on foot.

Research Objective

The aim of this video-report is to:

• Understand the reality of life in Venezuela and understand the push and pull factors that make people migrate,
• Explore the routes being taken by migrants on foot, as well as vulnerabilities and risks while on the move,
• Investigate what day-to-day life is in Colombia for Venezuelan migrants - what the main difficulties are and where there are significant needs gaps,
• Understand what Venezuelan migrants’ short, medium and long-term plans are.

Research Design & Data Collection

In July 2019, Xchange conducted in-depth interviews with Venezuelan migrants in Cali, Colombia. The location was chosen due to its geostrategic relevance in the Venezuelan migratory routes. The interviews were carried out with the use of a semi-structured interview guide which was informed by informal discussions with key actors and stakeholders. All 15 interviews were audio recorded and filmed; parts of the recordings can be found in the video-report highlighting the key findings.

The interviews were carried out over the course of two weeks at multiple locations in Cali, Colombia. Participant recruitment was done with the help of two cultural mediators using an availability sampling technique; recruitment was continued until saturation was achieved in order to ensure a diverse, albeit non-representative, sample. All participants were informed in advance that a team of researchers was interested in understanding their experience in leaving Venezuela and their journeys, as well as the nature and objectives of the project. They were also informed that their participation in the interviews was voluntary and that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time. Written consent was provided before starting any interviews, which included consent for being filmed and audio-recorded: 7 participants decided not to have their faces shown on camera, with 5 of them also deciding not to have their voices heard.

The sample comprised of 16 Venezuelan migrants, 5 men and 11 women, who had left Venezuela within the last year and had carried out all or part of their migration journeys on foot; two of them, a man and a woman, were interviewed together. Most participants had left Venezuela within the last 3 months; a few had left earlier and had spent months working in different parts of Colombia in order to fund their travels. Their time in Cali ranged from 3 days to 2 months, participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 49. All but one were parents to at least one child or expecting a baby, with 6 being the maximum of children any participant had. Two of the youngest participants were 6 and 8 months pregnant at the time of the interview. Participants occupations’ previous to migrating included shopkeeper, construction contractor, IT worker, army personnel, taxi driver, mechanic and casino worker.

The data collection team was comprised of 4 people: one Xchange researcher, two cultural mediators, and a videographer. The cultural mediators were trained in recruitment of participants and ethical considerations during research. Each interview was conducted by the Xchange researcher, with one of the cultural mediators and the cameraman present.

All interviews were carried out in Spanish. Once the data collection was finished, the interviews were translated from Spanish to English; the transcripts were subsequently coded and analyzed thematically. The key findings can be seen in the video-presentation. All participants’ names have been replaced with pseudonyms.

Limitations

As participants were migrants on the move, all of them lacked adequate and permanent housing, as well as means of contact (i.e. phones). This posed the biggest limitation as recruitment took longer than firstly anticipated, and coordination of some of the initially planned interviews failed to materialize.

Due to the nature of the study, some of the questions asked were highly sensitive and it is possible that social desirability bias was present as a way for the interviewees to preserve their own personal image. It was also worth noting that many of the interviewees expressed concerns for voicing their opinions freely, in fear of reprimands from the Venezuelan government.