Venezuelan Migrant Women in Arauca-Colombia

Fieldwork in the city of Arauca⁶ determined and made it possible to locate several places of transit, neighborhoods, and/or human settlements of Venezuelan migrant populations in the city. All in all, 24 Venezuelan women of different origins, some in transit, three interviewed at the city’s transport terminal, and 21 residents of the Las Cabañas neighborhoods and the Villa Estrella settlement, decided to participate voluntarily in this research exercise and allowed us to learn about their stories and life trajectories. The average age of the participants is 27.7 years old, and all of them are within the economically active population range. However, the level of schooling of most of them is below high school, because although seven of them achieved this degree, only one of them obtained a college degree in her country of origin.

Most of the interviewees in the Las Cabañas neighborhood reported that the onset of their migration was recent (between 3 and 12 months). Some of them tended towards pendular migration flows (characterized by a constant coming and going between Venezuela and Colombia). Others tended towards floating flows with longer periods of residence in the receiving country or city, but were not properly registered/identified. It should be noted that most of the participants in the Villa Estrella settlement had managed to stay longer in the Arauca territory, because they had also initiated organizational processes managed by national and international institutions present in the area.⁷ Of the 24 migrants, 11 had a pendular migratory status, 10 had a floating status, and three were in transit⁸ at the time of data collection.

In this sense, women of pendular and floating migration flows seek to remain in Colombia, earn some money and become providers by means of periodic remittances that are used by their relatives to cover basic needs. Some of them find temporary residences through networks of relatives and compatriots in peripheral areas of the city. In particular, the neighborhoods of Las Cabañas (Commune 1, stratum 2) and Villa Estrella (Commune 3, stratum 1) belong to low socioeconomic strata and are precarious in terms of care, security, and access to public services. Although this could not be a definitive characterization reference, it is uncertain to quantify the socioeconomic stratum of the study population, given its pendular, floating, or transit characteristics.

In the context of the focus group and the interviews, it was possible to establish that the income of this population of women does not reach the current legal minimum wage, which for July 2021 in Colombia was 908 525 COP (Colombian peso), corresponding to 237.20 USD. However, it would not be possible to establish this average income homogeneously among the group of female collaborators, since, according to their accounts, this capital is difficult to access, given the economic activity they carry out.⁹

However, one of the issues closely related to the labor trajectory and the economic sphere has to do with the fact that the women interviewed have an average of between two and three children, and are directly responsible for their care. While some of them have managed to get their children into local preschool or elementary school, thus having certain hours available to pursue resources, others are conversely unable to work, and spend most of their time on household chores and caring for their children.

Thus, being unemployed, a paradoxical situation arises for them, since, as one of them says: “I haven’t set myself to look for a job because I have no one to leave [the] girls with; I would like to work, but it is very complicated because of the girls” (E14, personal communication, March 14, 2021). Here we show the classic gender asymmetries in the Western context (^{Scott, 2008}), where women, being the biological progenitors, must socially assume the role of protectors, even more so than males/fathers (^{Butler, 1999}). It seems that this gender disparity persists even in contexts of migration and high vulnerability, resulting in problems for economic integration in the receiving country.

As for their marital status, about 50% of the participants admitted to being in a common-law relationship; 33% said they were single; 8% were married; 4% were separated; and another 4% were divorced. Some explained that they left their partners in Venezuela because of the need to move or because of the shortages they faced. Others mentioned that they met their current partners in the course of migration, or that they met them in Arauca or other cities to which they have been displaced.

In general terms, of the 24 interviewees, 19 did not self-identify with any ethnic-racial category, and only three stated feeling they were mestizo. In fact, on several occasions, this category was not known to them. This data is interesting as it suggests that for them, conditions such as gender (being a woman) and nationality (Venezuelan) are more important in the identity construction of their subjectivities than their ethnic-racial condition.

In order to characterize the group of Venezuelan interviewees who participated in the research, it can be established that they are young women, with children and without stable marital partners, of basic or medium levels of education, who from their phenotype (external evaluation) could be characterized as mestizo; they live in vulnerable and hillside areas of Arauca; their migration flows are of a pendular/floating nature, and trace dynamic labor and relational trajectories.

Life in Venezuela: Labor and Relational Trajectories of Venezuelan Women

One of the reasons that encouraged the migration of these women has to do with the shared ideology in relation to Colombia as a country with better life opportunities.¹⁰ Many of them stated being interested in staying in Colombia, as this would allow them to maintain the necessary proximity to visit their relatives occasionally. One of the interviewees stated: “We are thinking of staying here [in Colombia], the work over there [in Venezuela] is so bad, there is nothing” (E15, personal communication, March 15, 2021). In this sense, their reasons for migration are mostly of an economic, labor and familial nature.

Before the onset of their journey, this group of women sustained a lifestyle marked by the current political and social dynamics in Venezuela, i.e., situations of humanitarian crisis, emergency and shortages. These realities worsened in the last five years and are reflected in both the political and economic contexts, as the international economic siege, altogether with the depletion of the oil industry, are factors affecting the current Venezuelan diaspora. Thus, the motivation to stay in Colombia has been reinforced by the monetary relationship establish by migrants, since the devaluation of the Venezuelan currency and the precariousness of State care have forced them to migrate and to obtain informal jobs in Arauca. This way, their income allows them to meet their basic needs, something unthinkable in Venezuela. In this regard, the Organization of American States (^{Organización de los Estados Americanos [OEA], 2020b}) warns:

The absence of a democratic system in Venezuela, systematic human rights violations, food shortages, precarious health systems, an electricity crisis, generalized violence and economic collapse are some of the causes that have forced more than 5 200 000 Venezuelans to flee their country since 2015 (p. 3).

The interviewees expressed many times that the health system in Venezuela did not work, as it had been collapsing for some time. One of them narrated it this way: “I had not been going to the doctor for almost seven months, I did not have the resources, medical service was private; it was complicated” (E9, personal communication, March 11, 2021). Another factor that raised and still raises concern among the interviewees pertains the need for their children, Venezuelan minors, to have access to health services, even if they are undocumented. In the midst of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, access to health services was essential, not only in situations classified as urgent or priority, but also in those aimed at prevention and care.

For all these reasons, migration is an alternative that Venezuelan women consider and undertake in order to improve their living conditions. As Woo notes, “the permanence and mobility of migrant women depends on the interrelation of several factors, such as their migratory status, their life cycle, and the formation of new families” (1997, p. 127). In this sense, the family trajectory of the interviewees has been fundamental to their decision making regarding their migration flows. Therefore, the family, as a life structuring and anchoring territory, occupies a transcendental position in the migration environment (^{García & Restrepo, 2019}).

As a matter of fact, many of the interviewees mentioned that the family meeting spaces in Venezuela strengthened solidarity relationships, despite all difficulties. Specifically, one of them stated with respect to her family: “Very close even if we had very little, I at least used to tell my dad: ‘I have some rice, and you put the grains’, we are all in this together, so let’s all get together and everyone gets to eat” (E6, personal communication, March 5, 2021). In this way, special dates such as the carnival, Easter, Christmas, and birthdays, among others, were shaped as moments for different generations to meet and share their joys and resources.

Consequently, food security and food supply were among the most constant concerns of the women interviewed in the last few years they lived in Venezuela. They reported that food was only available through the Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP, acronym in Spanish for Comités Locales de Abastecimiento y Producción), which were in charge of the door-to-door distribution of food subsidized by the State. However, these CLAPs have been harshly scrutinized by several international media and by Venezuelans themselves, mainly due to allegations involving political leaders in corruption processes, in addition to being considered as clientelist instruments. In this regard, one of the interviewees related some benefits to the closeness or kinship with some of the members of the pro-government State as follows: “My daughter’s godfather is from the government and he used to hand me these subsidized aids” (E6, personal communication, March 5, 2021).

Participants also expressed feelings and memories of solidarity and reciprocity when referring to the familial environment. Several agreed that their family in Venezuela supported them in caring for their children while they worked. Contrastingly, finding a job in Colombia is difficult for them, as they often do not have someone to support them in this regard.

In the sphere of labor, women in Venezuela were engaged in occupations very similar to those they have been able to perform in Colombia. Of course, migration has brought important changes in the capital they receive in exchange for their workday, in intensity, in the social status that their real estate and movable properties generated in their nation of origin, and in the earnings from their occupations there. For example, some migrants used to work in the education or military sector, and mentioned that even in those areas the situation was precarious-at least during the period of worsening political and economic crisis, from 2015 to 2021-although this was not always the case. In fact, several interviewees recalled moments of economic and family stability during their childhood, adolescence and part of their adult life. In their words, the crises worsened from Nicolás Maduro’s first presidential term (2013-2018).

As for social trajectories, it should be mentioned that, as it happened with their family trajectories, their neighborhood relationships and relational circles were severely affected. The life course of these women in the last five years has been characterized by the rupture with their peers due to migration, which generated feelings of helplessness and loneliness while living in a territory where they have no support networks to establish assertive communication with and to provide them with solution options to their problems. For many of these migrants, the loss of contact with friends and family was accentuated with the entry into force of strict quarantines in Venezuela, and with the confining decreed in Colombia due to SARS CoV2.

The Migration Experience at the Colombian- Venezuelan Border

Due to the commercial activity and the presence of governmental and non-governmental, national and international entities, the capital of the department of Arauca is a city with the characteristics of a metropolitan area. El Amparo and Guasdualito could be considered satellite cities, where workers go to sleep or rest after the workday (^{Castro, 2021, p. 38}), which translates into an important flow of transit and permanence of Venezuelan migrants. Thus, the Colombian- Venezuelan border between the state of Apure and Colombia turns Arauca into a place of massive, floating, pendular, mixed migration flows, that is, a dynamic place par excellence (^{Mojica Acevedo, Aliaga Sáez et al., 2020}).

However, the Venezuelan pendular migrant population arrives in Colombia and returns the same day or a few days later to Venezuela, as they enter Arauca through the dry or fluvial border, for food or family matters. The floating population, although not legalized in the city or formally established, works informally for short periods of time, while they articulate their support networks and decide where to go; others stay for slightly longer periods of time due to work or romantic relationship reasons, or for medical treatment. This is how border inhabitants establish their codes and mechanisms to strengthen and benefit from their condition, where relational fluidity prevails (^{Valero, 2009}).

However, the unemployment levels in Arauca are discouraging. According to information from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (^{DANE, 2018}), the unemployment rate for 2020 in the capital was 32.5%, which represented a 5.2% increase compared to the 2019 results (27.2%). This in addition to the public health situation due to the pandemic, and the confinement that hit workers in general and informal vendors in particular. “The nearly 30 000 Venezuelans residing in Arauca [...] must be employed in whatever they can get. They are unskilled labor” (^{Castro, 2021, p. 38}). Moreover, in the case of professionals, the modality of offering their services at low cost is not so evident, since it is kept rather underground, thus impacting the unemployment rate in the area.

In the case of the women who participated in the research, it is worth noting that only 21% were working. Accordingly, although some migrate alone, for others, their partners play a central role in the process, as they tend to be providers and points of support. Thus, the labor trajectories of our interviewees were marked by the lack of opportunities in both Venezuela and Colombia. Still, it is evident from their accounts that in Colombia they were able to carry out various informal activities such as the sale of red wine and prepared foods, street sale of various products, housekeeping for families and restaurants, among other commercial activities that enable them to obtain the economic resources needed for the purchase of a basic consumer basket and personal care products.

Thus, for this group of Venezuelan women, the experience of migrating means searching for new horizons,¹¹ a renunciation of what is known, but also the facing of their fears, expectations and fantasies, as well as a complex process of social, cultural, family and emotional disengagement (^{Woo, 1997}). In this regard, two of the interviewees mentioned the following:

I come from Barquisimeto, but the pandemic caught me in Valdivia; from Valdivia I came here (Arauca), but I came without my partner, only with my boy. I made fifteen hours from Barinas, that day we got a ride,¹² [...] we had to go through two rivers hiding from migration; my sister came with her three daughters, and me with my daughter and pregnant, we went crossed two rivers (E23, personal communication, April 7, 2021).

Truth is I came with fear, because I brought the children, I didn’t pass through bridges but through trails because they were asking for an ID card and my ID is away; and I went through the trails, but it seemed good to me because I came with a company that crosses migrants over (E12, personal communication, March 12, 2021).

Indeed, the departure and arrival in another country activates those elements of insecurity and uncertainty, anxieties and danger alerts when facing the unknown and settling in that new context (^{Oquendo, 2019}) where the migrant population is signified and represented as a competitor in the labor market, and in access to health services and education (PMV, 2020a).

This is linked to one of the most common problems associated with human migration: xenophobia and discrimination (^{Krüger et al., 2020}), as well as aporophobia.¹³ In this regard and in terms of her migration experience, one of the women related:

It is hard, first because there is a lot of discrimination, you go to a place and the first thing you hear is trash talk about Venezuelans, you feel bad; “women come to take the husbands,” many comments like that (E13, personal communication, March 8, 2021).

In Arauca, Venezuelan women, especially those of limited economic capacity, are particularly stigmatized. In this regard, two of the interviewees commented:

I have heard that about the tinteras,¹⁴ maybe some but not all of them, because they say “they sell coffee shots and something else,” but not all of them come here to do that, they come to make a living, I think what people do is generalizing and they shouldn’t (E5, personal communication, March 3, 2021).

They say that Venezuelan women are prostitutes, thieves, you hear that a lot, but that is not the fault of Venezuelan women only, men have a lot to do with it too (E24, personal communication, April 7, 2021).

Indeed, a series of social problems that were already present in Colombian are often ascribed to Venezuelans, this resulting in xenophobic and stigmatizing discourses, these being more accentuated and visible against women (^{Pineda & Ávila, 2019}). Thus, it can be stated that Venezuelan women suffer constant discrimination because of the social representation of them in the municipality, which connotes ideas related to their supposed sexual availability. Such representations and imaginaries are reinforced by the Colombian media, according to research by ^{Espinel et al. (2021)}.

On the other hand, the support networks that the interviewees partake in Arauca are generally very fragile. Although they keep communication with their relatives and have neighborly relations with other migrants, their friendships with their social circle in Venezuela have lost strength over time. Thus, the most relevant transformations in the familial and social sphere have been greatly impacted by social networks and electronic messaging applications.¹⁵ For their part, women in the Villa Estrella settlement have a firmer support network due to projects to strengthen the social fabric promoted by some NGOs, such as courses on recycling and solid waste management, as well as the creation of a network of health promoters, trained through first aid workshops.

This highlights two important phases in their life trajectories: before and after migration. On the one hand, their last years in Venezuela, characterized by political and subjective uncertainty, on top of scarcity in relation to material subsistence conditions. In contrast, their current life cycle, which is characterized at least by the ability to resolve minimum subsistence conditions (food, health, and shelter), but also by the facing of new challenges such as xenophobia and discrimination, due to their gender, nationality, migratory status, and economic condition. As already mentioned, these are people who have fled Venezuela mainly for economic reasons, yet it should be noted that a third of them mentioned as another cause the violent situation they were living with their partners. Therefore, the migration of undocumented women can also be linked to fleeing from violent relationships or partners; in other words, it is a search for freedom (^{Fernández Labbé et al., 2020}). Thus, the experience of migration is an agency in migrant women’s personal autonomy and self-valuation of their own capabilities (^{Flores, 2020}).

Pendular and/or Floating Migration Flows: Hardships and Challenges

Several studies evidence that an important part of the Venezuelan population in Colombia follows a floating migration trend that tends to move along the border (^{Polo Alvis et al., 2018}). Other authors speak of pendular displacements as a type of daily border trade (^{Valero, 2009}), while still others highlight cultural permeability over economic or security logic (^{Palma, 2015}). What is clear is that a portion of the Venezuelan migrant population in the Araucan border, seeking stability in housing, health, income and education, tends to participate in floating movements that allow them to achieve a formal migratory status and access some of the available institutionally-guaranteed rights.¹⁶

Indeed, border states are seen as favorable places in terms of security and refuge (^{De Flores, 2019}). However, staying in these areas implies assuming a certain migratory status: within or without legality, with all the benefits and difficulties that this implies. In this scenario, women who participate in floating, pendular and mixed¹⁷ migration flows tend not to move away from the border, and continuously demand formal or informal labor opportunities, and access to health and education for their children. They emphatically express the need to find the necessary stability to survive in Arauca. In this context, the Venezuelan migrant population is often seen as a threat or detriment, even when there are reasons that justify perceiving it as a source of wealth (^{Wabgou, 2008}), or as a tool for transformation and improvement (^{García & Restrepo, 2019}).

In accordance with the above, several of the interviewees, in their accounts and in the focus group, positioned themselves positively in relation to the recent actions of the Colombian government with the announcement of Decree 216 of 2021. ¹⁸ Within the generalities on regulatory and/or administrative aspects to access legal entry, several documents may be requested according to specific requirements, depending on the situation of each migrant and their future plans.¹⁹ Regularization measures are not sufficient for successful integration (PMV, 2020b), it is also necessary to implement flexibility measures to further facilitate the regularization of Venezuelans and enable access to their identity documents (^{OEA, 2020a}).

In other cases, it is impossible to apply Colombian regulations in the face of migration due to the lack of state presence at the border (^{Woolcott & Gamarra, 2020}), which reflects a level of vulnerability and risk framed by institutional weakness (Polo et al., 2018). Thus, although the Colombian state has shown progress in recent years in terms of documentation protocols in the face of the migration wave, and has adopted exceptional measures to deal with the high number of immigrants, it still fails to address the phenomenon in all its dimensions (^{Cabrera et al., 2021}).

The pandemic exacerbated crimes against women stemming from family cohabitation, evidencing that most perpetrators live with the victims. In also made it visible that gender-based violence affected the migrant population, especially women, in equal or greater proportion (PMV, 2021a).

As already noted, Colombia lacks significant experience as a receiving country of migrant population. It is in this context that Colombians experience the transformation from being a nation of emigration to one of immigration, transit and return (^{Palma, 2015}), for which they must assume multiple tasks, as well as define strategies articulated with the formal and informal dynamics around the phenomenon. They will have to then promote the effective incorporation of migrants into the social fabric, promoting adequate psychosocial care for this population (^{Reverol, 2017}) and the implementation of public and comprehensive policies able to address and mitigate the inconveniences byproducts of migration. All of the above from a constitutional perspective and in light of international treaties (^{Tapia Bravo, 2020}), maintaining a regulatory framework with a differential approach (^{Palacios & Torres, 2020}). Such are some of the challenges Colombia faces as a receiving country.