Henderlyn Castillo, 12, barely walks out the door. Since she was traveling on the street with her mother to sell corn patties, since a taxi driver stopped and asked how much an hour she had sex with, she feels unwell when she leaves home. Her mother cursed the driver with words she does not want to repeat. He drove off. Disgust and fear remained.
"I'm ashamed of how the men look at me," says Henderlyn.
At least 3.4 million Venezuelans have left their homes, most of them because of the severe economic and supply crisis that has intensified since 2016. Around 1.2 million Venezuelans live in neighboring Colombia. At least 700,000 have moved to Peru. Henderlyn is one of those who have traveled more than 2500 kilometers, sometimes on the bus, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes on foot.
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Refugees from Venezuela: behind high wallsThey came to Lima. Henderlyn lives with her mother, stepfather, and half-brother Dilan, who are housed in a Catholic Scalabrini order housing migrants around the world. They have escaped food shortages, blackouts, political unrest and high crime rates.
They are now suffering from stigmatization. The government of Peru, like most other states in the region, is officially promoting a culture of welcome. But in everyday life especially girls and young women from Venezuela adhere to unpleasant stereotypes.
"They call us Venecas," says Henderlyn. The word Venezuelan women is insulting. It comes from Colombia and moved with the refugees to the south. Meanwhile, people use it in Ecuador, in Peru, even in Brazil.
"You only want your money"
Venezuelans have a reputation not only in Latin America for being very pretty. Already 13 times, a Venezuelan won the Miss World or Miss Universe elections - far more often than any other South American country combined.
Now that they have left their homes, their jobs and their possessions and have slipped to the lowest rung of the social ladder as refugees in their host countries, this reputation does not earn them respect, on the contrary. Many Venezuelans report that they face prejudice: Venecas sell their bodies, Venecas are easy to have.
Sometimes these clichés are particularly obvious. For example, the Peruvian music group Son de Tambito released a song on YouTube in March in which the two singers warn men of the "Venecas". "They only want your money," it says.
Surveys also indicate that discrimination is on the increase. UNHCR staff have interviewed hundreds of Venezuelans in Peru and Colombia in recent weeks. In both countries, about six in ten feel discriminated against, most of them because of their nationality. The UNHCR has therefore launched campaigns against xenophobia.
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Henderlyn sits on the top floor of her bunk bed, her bare feet dangling over the edge. She is petite, her hair is long and dark. She wears a birthmark on the snub nose and one under the left eye. If she can borrow a smartphone to listen to music, she sings softly.
First, the crisis in Venezuela took her mother. When Henderlyn's little brother Dilan got sick and the family did not get any medication, she went to Colombia with the baby and her new husband. That was last May. Henderlyn stayed with her grandma and her dad. "My mom told me that the money is not enough to take me," says the girl.
Five months later, the crisis took her father. It was to be her first day in high school. Henderlyn packed her backpack in the morning. Then came a phone call: Her father was on his way to the supermarket where he worked, was attacked and killed. The perpetrators stole his moped. Henderlyn drove her grandma to the hospital. She was asked if she wanted to look at the body. "I could not," the girl says softly. Tears fill his eyes.
Continue to the south
Henderlyn's mother came back to pick her up nine days later. They did not go back to Bogotá, where the mother sold empanadas, coffee and cigars in the street during the day and slept in a room with husband and son during the night, in front of whose broken door men were dealing with drugs. The family moved south for days, from Ecuador to Peru.
Thanks to a friend, they ended up in a small oasis: a year ago, the Casa Scalabrini in Lima was still a haven for nuns who wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The walls are high, the metal entrance gate has a solid latch, and a porter checks who walks in and out.
In the courtyard is a statue of Our Lady between neatly trimmed bushes. Up to 90 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, share a kitchen, a lounge, a computer room, a chapel and clean shared rooms, separated into women and men. The costs are shared by the UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration and the Peruvian Episcopal Conference.
A compartment in the wardrobe
Henderlyn shares a room with mother, brother, two other women and a girl. She has a compartment in the closet where she can put her few clothes. A photo of her and her father is in front of the pile, her grandmother has given her a farewell.
Henderlyn would like to go to school, and actually, the Peruvian state grants her a right to free education, regardless of residence status. But it's not that easy. She needs a permanent residence to enroll, and she has to wait for the beginning of the school year.
According to the UNHCR, only every third Venezuelan child is officially registered in a Peruvian school. However, if the school administration allows it, Henderlyn may attend classes without registering.
Her mother has visited two schools in the area. "They were not very nice to me," she says. There is no free space right now, it was said there. On Monday she wants to ask in the next school.
School place after two months
2275 kilometers northeast of a girl had more luck: Criger, 16, lives since 2016 in the Colombian border town Cucuta. After two months, her mother had found a school for her. At first, the rector did not want to admit her because she could not present all the documents. But when the mother asked a lawyer for help, he was retuned.
Criger, too, knows the stereotypes that Venezuelans face: she talks about classmates talking to each other about how Venezuelans went down the line - so loud that she could hear it. Her mother reports that even the secretary does not name her, but calls her "Veneca".
Criger wants to be a gynecologist, Henderlyn maybe an actress. But whether they have until then a regular residence status, which would enable them to study or a permanent job, is uncertain.
Integration falters, rejection grows
Although Peru and Colombia had issued a temporary work permit quite simply for months to Venezuelans. In the meantime, however, they have restricted the offer: in Colombia, only Venezuelans who arrived before 17 December can make an effort. In Peru, the deadline is October 31st. The asylum system offers no real alternative: it is completely overloaded in both countries.
In other countries too, the integration of refugees into the labor market is slowing down - and rejection is growing. In Ecuador, the situation escalated at the beginning of the year, when a Venezuelan stabbed his pregnant Ecuadorian girlfriend on the street. Since then, all Venezuelan refugees who wish to enter by formal channels must have a certified police certificate of good conduct.
A return is probably not so soon to think. The situation in Venezuela has worsened in recent days: opposition leader Juan Guaidó has lost his parliamentary immunity, which makes his arrest even more likely.
Thousands of people stormed the bridge across the border river near Cucuta last Tuesday to buy food and medicines in Colombia.
The ruler Nicolás Maduro had largely sealed off the bridge in February, so thousands of people walked through the riverbed every day for weeks. But it is just so much water that these informal secret paths have become even more dangerous. According to UNHCR estimates, more than five million Venezuelans may have fled their country by the end of the year.
Henderlyn's mother has found a job in a bakery in Lima, where she works every day from two in the afternoon to half past ten in the evening. Henderlyn waits at the property, she listens to music, sometimes she writes her grandma on WhatsApp. "My mom said when things get better, we'll go back," she says, smiling.
This article was written as part of a research trip by the German Society for the United Nations to Colombia and Peru.