According to the United Nations, of the nearly 300 million international migrants today, about half are women and girls. Although more and more women are crossing borders in long and dangerous journeys, we rarely hear about their stories and what it’s like to migrate when you’re a woman. In this story, Heartland Alliance International (HAI) speaks with Maye, a mother of three who fled her home in Venezuela in search of safety and opportunity in Colombia.
“I left Venezuela in 2018 for political reasons and because I received two death threats at work. At the time, I was a supervisor for the Comptroller General, the entity responsible for monitoring government institutions. In that role, I submitted several complaints about irregularities in the Mayor’s Office of Caracas, which angered people,” explained Maye. “The threats got so bad that I remember one day my mother finally told me: ‘Daughter, go away! Don’t worry, I will stay with the girls.’ So, I took what I could and I left. I ended up in Ecuador where I worked in fast food stands because that was one of the only jobs for migrants,” she said.
Racism and xenophobia tend to rise wherever large-scale migration takes place, like in Colombia. Negative depictions of migrants and refugees often appear in the media, while their contributions are rarely highlighted. As a result, migrant women often face double discrimination – as women and as migrants.
“After six months away, I returned to Venezuela for my three daughters,” said Maye. “I couldn’t handle the distance any longer. This time, we left for Colombia. Here, our story changed. Here is where we started to face all forms of violence.”
From the moment women and girls decide to migrate, they face major risks, including sexual exploitation, trafficking, gender-based violence (GBV), and mental health distress. And when abuses occur, many victims lack the resources, support systems, and knowledge to seek help. Further, due to migrants’ uncertain legal status and a pervasive culture of impunity, many perpetrators feel emboldened to abuse freely.
“On February 27 of this year [2021], my partner forced me and my three daughters out of the house and into the street at two in the morning. I’m not from this country [Colombia], so I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to,” Maye said. “This wasn’t our first time experiencing his rage, but I decided it would be the last,” she added firmly.
With funding from the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), HAI is able to provide critical mental health services and legal aid to survivors of GBV across the Colombian departments of Nariño, Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Córdoba, Cundinamarca, Atlántico, Boyacá, and Cauca. Our team of case managers also work to refer participants to reproductive health services and specialized care.
When we asked Maye how she found HAI, she said, “I learned about HAI at a service fair. They helped me find a place to shelter with my daughters, and that is how we arrived at the Ventana de Luz Shelter–a home that provides emotional, spiritual, and social support to vulnerable women and their families.”
Freddy Albeiro Rodríguez, a psychologist with HAI, shared with us: “When I first met Maye and her girls, they were in severe distress, so we immediately brought them in for emergency psychological sessions. Through those sessions, survivors like Maye begin to recognize the patterns of violence and learn how to cope with the accompanying trauma.”
About her experience with HAI, Maye said, “before HAI, I was very depressed and in a constant state of depression. Now, I am calm and I finally understand that being around such violence was not only harmful to me, but also to my daughters who witnessed how poorly my partner treated me.” She added, “I don’t want my girls to think that’s how they should be treated.”
