Tragic, many of Venezuelans disappear into the black economy in Spain

News24xx.com -  Now, Venezuelans have topped the list of asylum requests in Spain for three years, but only a tiny fraction are granted refugee status: just 15 out of 12,875 last year. It means that Venezuelans are asking them to return the favour. 

Because, in past, Spaniards fleeing repression and poverty in Francisco Franco's dictatorship found themselves building new lives in Venezuela, given refuge by their cousins across the Atlantic.

Most Venezuelans arriving at Spanish airports claim to be tourists. In reality many have sold everything that they have in Venezuelan just to get there.

The UN says that 208,333 Venezuelans were living in Spain by April 2018, but August figures from Spain's labour ministry show that fewer than 40,000 are officially registered to work.

In past, Venezuela received Spaniards with no questions asked, regardless of whether they had money or papers.

"The least we expect is to be received in the same way. Venezuelans don't come here to beg; they come to work." says Luis Manresa, a Venezuelan politician from the opposition party Acción Democrática. He fled to Madrid in 2011 because, he says, he had received threats from the government and was about to be arrested on trumped-up charges.

Volunteers in Mr Manresa's support network say 200 to 300 families arrive in Spain every week, some of whom end up being held at the airport because they lack money or cannot convince the police that they are planning only to visit.

Maria Eugenia Carrillo was enthusiastic about the system of free schooling introduced by Hugo Chávez in the early 2000s. But increasing pressure by her bosses to include political content in lessons bothered her. And then there was the poverty.

"I saw my children sick and hungry, their parents looking for food among the rubbish and diseases like measles running rampant through the school. When parents came to pick up their children they stopped asking 'what did you learn today?' and asked instead: 'What did you eat today?'" she says.

The 52-year-old teacher says that the political pressure caused her so much stress that her fibromyalgia became more acute - until she decided she had to leave Venezuela, flying to Madrid in October 2017.

Without official papers, she has no chance of working as a teacher.

But Spain says Venezuelans cannot be considered "displaced" in the same way as refugees fleeing a war zone.

Venezuela's government, meanwhile, claims that the exodus of citizens is the result of a propaganda campaign aimed at bringing down the socialist regime.
 

 

 

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