At the symposium “20 years of Socialism of the 21st century”, experts from the Institute of Legal Research of the UCAB , presented a grim outlook for minors exposed to new forms of sexual and labor exploitation, with an all but dismantled legal protection system.
Carla Serrano Naveda is a teacher and member of the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas (Institute of Legal Research) of the UCAB (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello), a member of the group of specialists who drafted and promoted the Organic Law for the protection of children and adolescents (LOPNA), ratified in 1998 For the Congress of the Republic, in force since 2000.
As a “niñologa” (specialist in children), Serrano affirmed at the symposium “20 years of Socialism of the XXI century”, that the regime found by Hugo Chávez in 1999 dismantled the entire system of protection of childhood, inherited from the government’s predecessors – even since the times of dictator Juan Vicente Gómez – and the specialized institutions that had been created because of the LOPNA.
María Gabriela Cuevas, also an expert in that field and a member of the IIJ team of the UCAB, elaborated on the discouraging details. She denounced that Venezuela, went from being a transit country in the trafficking of people to a capture-by-deception-or-by-violent-means zone.
The days of meditations on Socialism of the 21st century, which took place between May 29 and 31 at the UCAB on the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas (IIH) iniciative, will be included in a forthcoming book. During three days, 27 expert investigators of humanistic and technical fields reviewed the generalized deterioration of the country in the last two decades.
Serrano mentioned that courts, councils and ombudsmen for children and adolescents have disappeared, even though the area is at the highest level in the State’s organizational chart, but “that does not help,” he said.
“It hurts to say, but almost 30 years have passed since the declaration of the rights of children and there is no worse time to be a child in Venezuela than now.” He spoke of the fact that the levels of orphanhood and diminished quality of life in the right to education, health and vaccination had never been worse.
“Everything is catastrophic,” said the lawyer, who lamented that what was enshrined in the Constitution of 1999 -basis of socialism of the XXI century- for the protection of childhood, has not been fulfilled. “We are divorced from the needs of children, and do not even expect to receive the bachelor’s degree to leave the country,” he lamented.
Cuevas addressed the issue of human trafficking and how that transnational crime is affecting minors , who are increasingly being victims of domestic, criminal and sexual violence. He regretted that the prevailing economic conditions lead to “dignity being devalued and exchanged for money or goods” and there are always those who profit or benefit from these transactions.
He mentioned “modern forms of slavery where transactional or survival sex, prostitution, begging, pornography and crime involve children and adolescents.”
He said that they are conducting an investigation trying to cover the off-the-record numbers, given the lack of official data, for which they gather information from NGOs, journalists and public officials who have raised it directly from the victims of human trafficking.
Cuevas said that they have detected that, “while the ages of the exploited decrease, the forms of exploitation increase”. The most frequent forms of exploitation are sexual and laborial, for the first the most sought after being females, and for the latter, males.
He warned that behind most offers for modeling and sports club opportunities abroad are mafias trafficking in minors. Expanding into deceptive offers of scholarships for postgraduate studies. He made it clear that although there are children who know that they are going to join a network of exploitation, they often cannot imagine the terrible conditions to which they will be forced to submit to. Specifying that a child’s willful acceptance of predatory conditions does not void the fact a crime is being committed.
“1999 Constitution was born from embezzlement”
In this section of the symposium Professor Ruth Capriles also intervened with a talk entitled “Metamorphosis of the snake 1999-2019” in which she addressed the spread of corruption throughout the national network of public and private relations to the point that ” everyone has to recognize that they bought stolen property. “
He asserted that Socialism of the 21st century was established over “a Constitution that was born from embezzlement” that would have benefited a few members of the political helm that accompanied Hugo Chávez in the establishment of his model.
Capriles affirmed that, not for nothing, Venezuela ranks among the five most corrupt countries in the world and the first in Latin America, he said, citing data from Transparencia Internacional. He used the metaphor of a “Boa that completely swallowed the body of its prey.”
He said that since year 2000 there have been “twelve new types of corruption” that added to the previously registered rates, characterized mainly by clientele and bureaucratic corruption. Among the most important in the last two decades mentioned money laundering, “which is the consequence of all other crimes” and warned that Venezuela has the challenge of modernizing its legislation and prepare specialists to fight against this transnational crime.
Regarding the current situation where a possible political transition takes shape, Ruth Capriles invited to address the – “practical challenge” debate – of “how much corruption are we willing to forgive”?
