By Hector Pereira |
Caracas (BLAZETRENDS).- Behind a false job offer or an alleged romantic relationship, lies the deception that has trapped hundreds of Venezuelans in human trafficking networks in recent months. What begins as the dream of a better life becomes for them, some minors, a nightmare of sexual or labor exploitation.
The traffickers’ strategies to capture girls and women are also many, and they use social networks, legal loopholes, false promises and, above all, the needs of the victims to convince them to move to another country, as almost all begin. these stories.
For this reason, and due to the increase in cases in the last three years, the authorities have intensified the search for pimps, slavers and people traffickers in general, a war that is waged, to a large extent, on digital platforms, where trafficking has its main ecosystem.
In parallel, non-governmental organizations document dozens of cases each month and assist an equal number of victims who are trying to put their lives back together after the humiliation they endure, while grappling with the idea of recognizing themselves as survivors.
“Work” turned into slavery
Traffickers have set their sights on Venezuela in recent years, when mass migration occurred amid the economic crisis, generating a flood of potential victims at borders and on irregular roads, many of them trying to circumvent visa requirements in some nations, and others hunting for supposed job offers on the internet, where trafficking networks have an advantage.
Since 2020, the NGO Tinta Violeta has registered complaints of disappearances of adolescents and adults who stopped having communication with relatives after having emigrated to work as waitresses, brand promoters, domestic cleaners, among other jobs. The organization soon discovered that they were documenting cases of trafficking.
“In Venezuela, the most common form of recruiting is a deceptive job offer. Even those who agree to go to do sex work are being deceived and victims of trafficking,” explains Daniela Inojosa, director of the NGO that rescued 57 girls and 73 women between May and November 2022, to BLAZETRENDS.
The activist has cared for women who were under the control of the same pimp, adolescents who were deceived by cousins or brothers, young people who were tricked by their boyfriends, victims of a myriad of circumstances that began with a transfer abroad.
Like Tinta Violeta, the NGO Mulier documents the stories of rescued Venezuelans, a total of 1,390 in 2022, but which – the organization warns – is just an underreporting of cases that hides a greater number of victims and a major problem for the country.
love as lure
Carla -a fictitious name that protects a real identity- has lived in Belgium since 2022, where she arrived in love after a year of virtual romance with a European who courted her with gifts and insisted that she move to his city. Once there, she verified that she did not expect an idyll but her daily mistreatment and the loss of her freedom.
She couldn’t talk to her family, dress the way she wanted, use her phone, or go out whenever she felt like it, as her boyfriend-turned-husband immediately controlled every decision in her life, a new routine with no shortage of insults and hard work. , both domestic, at home, and in a construction company.
Before the police rescued her, she explained to BLAZETRENDS, she had opted for a “submission strategy” to avoid further attacks, in her attempt to create a bubble that would protect her 8-year-old daughter from the violent environment. Today, Carla seeks to regularize her status in Belgium and make her way with her little girl, while she waits for Justice to prosecute her ex-partner.
She still cries when recounting what she has experienced, but she is not silent, because she wants her case not to be repeated, for which she asks women and girls to be attentive and to denounce the profiles that they offer, on social networks, marriages with foreigners and dream lives, always with the initial requirement to show nudity and move to other territories.
BLAZETRENDS found that these offers are still visible on some digital platforms.
