Madre venezolana se enfrentó a una odisea jurídica para recuperar a su hija, víctima de trata de personas en Colombia
“Between Venezuela and Colombia, legal relations have apparently not been reestablished. Acts of blatant xenophobia are manifest by the Colombian authorities towards Venezuelans,” said José Mora, a Colombian lawyer, who accompanied Alejandra (fictitious name to protect her identity and physical integrity), a Venezuelan mother who had to fight for the authorities of that country to return her teenage daughter to her.
Luz Dary Depablos / Correspondent lapatilla.com
Alejandra is a woman from Tachira State who reported to the security forces of the neighboring country when her daughter was captured by an international criminal network of human trafficking. The young woman was taken to Ibagué, Colombia, where she was rescued. From that moment on the minor was handed over to Family Welfare in the department of Tolima, more than 700 kilometers from the Táchira border, a situation that forced Alejandra to face another odyssey to get the Colombian State to hand over the minor.
Although the teenager was rescued by the Colombian security forces a few hours after being captured by the criminal group which operates on the border between Táchira State (Venezuela) and Norte de Santander Department (Colombia), her daughter was not transferred to the Family Welfare headquarters of Cúcuta so that the mother could be closer, so it ended up being a long legal path, despite the fact that guardianship actions were filed that should have been resolved by law in ten business days in Colombia.
This situation prolonged to become more than six months of anguish, in which she even had to file a complaint against the President of Colombia himself, Gustavo Petro, in order to be heard, since the days began to pass and there was no official response that would allow her to know the fate of her daughter.
No answers
Lawyer José Mora stated that the Colombian State does not guarantee full compliance with the rights of Venezuelans who decide to go to that country, despite the apparent closeness that Gustavo Petro and Nicolás Maduro have publicly expressed after the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between both countries.
He explained that initially Alejandra went on her own, without any legal representation, to the police, Family Welfare of Cúcuta, Family Welfare of Ibagué, and the Prosecutor’s Office, and in none of those instances did she get a response.
This situation led her to request “protection actions” on three occasions, with a provisional measure and finally several complaints, one of them against the President of Colombia, but the response to the protection actions was issued by the Delegate of the Administrative Department of the Presidency, this response did not solve the problem.
For this reason, the lawyers considered that this action demonstrated the little importance given to human rights, “even more so if we take into account that this case was of special relevance as it involved an international conflict and a Venezuelan minor in Colombian territory, and then the Delegate of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic, states in other words in her response that no rights are being violated and that she will not request corrections.”
Petro’s representative considered that essential requirements were lacking to be able to speak of a violation of human rights, in addition to not giving relevance because she was a Venezuelan minor, even though a victim of human trafficking in Colombian territory.
Official xenophobia in institutions
It should be noted that in the requests for guardianship actions, it was requested to link in the proceedings the Venezuelan Government through its ambassador in Colombia. Nevertheless, “the Venezuelan government spoke out through the National Association of Counselors for the Protection of Children and Adolescents (Asonacop), which stated the following: “I am writing to you with the purpose of informing you that as a result of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the brother countries of the Republic of Colombia and the Federative Republic of Brazil, a fact that we from this agency celebrate, a meeting was recently held with representatives of the Office of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Popular Power for Foreign Relations. (…) In this meeting it was agreed that any request related to the procedure for reestablishing rights known to the administrative agencies for the protection of children and adolescents in foreign countries, as well as their respective follow-up, must henceforth be processed directly before the Central Authority of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (…) For this reason, we inform you that subsequently any request or commissioning office within the procedure related to repatriations of Venezuelan children and adolescents must be referred directly to the Central Authority of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, through from the email a.c.venezolana@gmail.com or repatriaciones.ac@gmail.com.”
The Family Welfare authorities of Ibagué determined that there were no guarantees in delivering the minor to the Venezuelan Government and decided that they would deliver her directly to the mother in Colombia.
It should be noted that in one of the guardianships, the representative of the Family Welfare of Ibagué asked the North Directorate of Santander for a place in one of the institutions located in the city of Cúcuta. However, it was not possible to transfer the teenager, because the director of Family Welfare of Cúcuta apparently, inhibited the minor from that right by stating that this office “would be flooded by requests concerning children and adolescents with Venezuelan nationality.”
“Venezuelan migrants will have very few guarantees in the national territory (Colombia), precisely due to the issue of xenophobia, which makes it essential that Venezuela have a strong legal team in Colombia to guarantee the rights of its nationals in this country,” José Mora pointed out.
In the file of this case, the publication made by Amnesty International in August 2022 was also cited, when it reviewed “the double lack of protection suffered by Venezuelan refugees.”
Defenseless Venezuelans
Amnesty International emphasizes in said publication that: “the absence of international protection as people who have fled massive human rights violations in Venezuela and, on the other hand, the absence of protection when these women suffer gender-based violence, in many cases being denied the rights to justice and medical care. When lacking both protections combined, the risks are also augmented.”
Finally, Andrés Yáñez, legal representative in the case, emphasized that it seems that Venezuelans do not have a real and effective place (office, institution) in Colombia where to go to be provided with legal guidance and help them safeguard their rights, a situation that becomes more complex when it encounters ineffective authorities who show evident signs of xenophobia, which then leads to no guarantees in the procedures and a lack of commitment by Colombian officials.
Likewise, he explained that if this happens to other parents, that their children are kidnapped by human trafficking organizations and go to the Family Welfare of Cúcuta, which is where the largest epicenter of the migrant population is, “What guarantees will these minors have? Will they be transferred from the cities where they are rescued to the city of Cúcuta so that they have the greatest proximity to their family?” When even the same official of the Family Welfare of Cúcuta stated that the institution “would be full of requests from children and adolescents with Venezuelan nationality ”.
Therefore, the Colombian jurist Alexander Gelvez points out that the creation of a legal team is essential, either by the Colombian or Venezuelan State, to protect the rights of the migrant population in this country, so that Venezuelans do not feel vulnerable in Colombian territory.
On the other hand, Colombian Migration authorities in their 2023 annual report indicated that they protected possible victims of human trafficking through the LibertApp application.
“We have received a total of 2,255 complaints from citizens thanks to the LibertApp mobile application, an innovative technological tool designed to report possible cases of human trafficking or request help if you are a victim of this crime and whose use was strengthened this year. Of these complaints, 1,244 correspond to women and 1,011 to men,” states the ‘Migración Colombia’ report.
