I want to thank you, Carolina, because I think you included all the problems and the numbers of Venezuela.
I want to highlight the humanitarian crisis that we are living in, in Venezuela, and with the Venezuelan migrants in Latin America.
In Venezuela the overall poverty rate is 96% of the population. It is a high number because we have a lack of food, medicine, water, natural gas and diesel. The levels of malnutrition and lack of education among Venezuelan children have highly increased since last year.
The crisis is highlighted in the vulnerability of migrants. We have three kinds of crises. There is a health crisis because the Venezuelan migrants are exposed to the virus and do not have food to protect themselves. The Venezuelans find it difficult to access health services in the country they have moved to as a result of legal, cultural or other barriers that they find in the surrounding countries.
When they decided to return, as Carolina said, only 123,000 returned from Colombia in buses and on foot. When they came back to Venezuela because they needed to be reunited with their families, they found that almost 90% of the hospitals had a critical shortage of supplies and that more than half of Venezuela's doctors had left the country. There aren't even enough beds for the 32 million in Venezuela.
On the other hand, the socio-economic crisis affects Venezuelan migrants because they subsist on almost nothing. They work in the informal economy and only a few of them have access to social protection in any of the countries. Non-essential workers are forced to stay home and society is operating in a reduced capacity. Venezuelans find themselves in a more vulnerable situation.
The third crisis is a protection crisis. Venezuelan women and girls—and this is a point that I want to highlight—are especially vulnerable right now. The rates of domestic violence against women have been on the rise during confinement in Latin America. Venezuelan women and girls, evicted from their homes, are at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse. The numbers are high, and more of them have to survive on prostitution just to have some food for themselves and their families.
In other cases, the fear of COVID-19 exacerbates already high levels of xenophobia, racist stigmatization and even attacks against refugees and migrants in the country.
The Venezuelan humanitarian crisis and the social and economic costs of the pandemic will require more help for people who are more vulnerable. The international community has the opportunity to ensure the well-being of Venezuelans in the country and those who are displaced.
The Canadian NGOs who work with Venezuela can help the Canadian government to reinforce the aid to help Venezuelans stay in the country, rather than being forced to return to a more difficult situation in other countries.
I want to thank the committee for inviting us.