Venezuela crisis forces women to sell sex in Colombia, fuels slavery risk

[Bacchus4.0]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-colombia-trafficking/venezuela-crisis-forces-women-to-sell-sex-in-colombia-fuels-slavery-risk-idUSKBN18W1EX

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There are around 4,500 Venezuelan sex workers in Colombia, some working in the capital, others in Caribbean tourist resorts and even in far-flung Amazon villages near the Brazilian border, according to ASMUBULI, a Colombian sex workers association.

Campaigners and the United Nations say Venezuelan migrant women and men selling sex in Colombia are at high risk of being trafficked into forced prostitution but little is known about the true scale of the largely invisible problem.

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Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have crossed into Colombia in the past year, as triple-digit inflation, a collapsed health system and weeks of violent protests engulfs oil-rich Venezuela.

As prostitution is legal in Colombia it makes it difficult for society to see sex workers as victims of trafficking, and a blurry line often exists between those who voluntarily engage in adult prostitution and those coerced into sex work.

[niyad]

1. thank you for posting about this horrible situation.

[GatoGordo]

2. Sadly, in the barrios young girls the age of 10 and 11 are working

as prostitutes... just to buy cans of tuna.

Condoms are nowhere to be found*, STD's are rampant, and even the most rudimentary of antibiotics cannot be found at any price.

*Before the last of my wife's family fled Venezuela last year, we used to send condoms in bulk to the family in CARE packages. These were like gold in a country where everything is becoming scarce. They used to barter them for dried milk and corn flour.