ABA ROLI’s Efforts to Respond Effectively to the Growing Migration Crisis in Colombia: An Overview of the Venezuelan Migrant Human Rights Activity

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 5.9 million Venezuelan citizens have left their country since the beginning of the Venezuelan migration crisis due to factors such as political and financial instability. Subsequently, as its bordering neighbor, Colombia hosts the largest number of Venezuelan migrants in Latin America and worldwide—numbering approximately 1.7 million, according to the UNHCR Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela. As a result of the migration phenomenon, the Colombia faces new challenges to prevent and protect individuals and groups from human rights violations (HRV). Efforts to address these concerns are urgent and necessary for Venezuelan migrants, Colombian returnees, and host communities, where community cohesion and civil security are sought. To respond effectively to this growing migration crisis, ABA ROLI is implementing the USAID-funded program Conectando Caminos por los Derechos (CCD), as part of a consortium of partners, including Pact International, Freedom House and Internews. Launched in 2020, the program supports local initiatives focused on preventing, protecting, and responding to human rights violations of Venezuelan migrants and Colombian returnees.

The CCD program is composed of four key objectives: Prevention of HRV (Objective 1); Protection of Human Rights (Objective 2); Response to HRV (Objective 3); and Rapid Response (Objective 4), and cross-sectional areas such as Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI), Capacity Development, Communications, and Monitoring, and Evaluation and Learning (MEL). Within the consortium, ABA ROLI is the technical lead responsible for Objectives 1 and 3 (Prevention and Response), the integration of GESI initiatives, and mapping key stakeholders to find opportunities to empower those from the legal profession and civil society to respond effectively to the migration crisis. To fortify the Colombian government, local institutions, and civil society organizations (CSOs), ABA ROLI probes the contextual dynamics that define the national and sub-national systems related to migration and offers technical support for strategies for preventing and responding to HRV. CCD prioritizes the following HRVs: gender-based violence, trafficking in persons (sexual and labor exploitation), forced recruitment, and forced disappearances.

With regards to the prevention of HRV (Objective 1), ABA ROLI works to strengthen institutions and their human rights prevention processes. We also engage with civil society members in efforts to improve Venezuelan migrants, returnees, and receptor communities’ access to information and services that seek to prevent HRV. These activities set the stage for strengthening the Government of Colombia’s human rights institutional responses at national, regional, and local levels, specifically to implement prevention protocols and monitoring tools and mechanisms for HRV. They also work with public officials to strengthen their knowledge and skills on preventing HRV and their cooperation with civil society counterparts to increase access to justice and public services for Venezuelan migrants and Colombian returnees.

With regards to responses to HRV (Objective 3), ABA ROLI leads specific interventions that strengthen the investigation and prosecution of human rights violations, access to justice services, and support for victims of violations. These activities center on strengthening the Government of Colombia’s response to serious violations, especially when committed against women, children, youth, ethnic communities, and LGBTI persons within the migrant and refugee population. For example, our activities under Objective 3 seek to increase justice sector officials’ awareness of HRV in the context of migration, to decrease discriminatory practices by government officials against migrants, to increase capacity for national and local institutional response, to strengthen the inter-institutional cooperation between the entities responsible for responding to HRV, and to engage with local partnership initiatives with non-state actors to pursue legal actions and remedies for HRV, including strategic litigation. ABA ROLI anticipates that these initiatives will increase access to quality justice services for victims of human rights violations and, thus, re-establish their rights.

Since CCD is committed to identifying and addressing gender and xenophobia-motivated factors in the project’s efforts in target geographies, ABA ROLI ensures that the activities under each objective incorporate gender and differential perspectives. Accordingly, every vulnerable group must be carefully considered and prioritized, while also considering each context in which these groups are at risk (prevention) or are suffering from HRV (response). Simultaneously, pedagogy for community inclusion is also developed to build a frame for basic human rights and promote access to the justice system for these vulnerable groups within the host communities throughout the country.

Learn more about ABA ROLI’s work across Latin America and the Caribbean.