Family of Venezuelan migrants in Brazil.acnur
Once an audiovisual technician at a local television company in Venezuela, Carolina fled to Brazil with her husband and daughter in search of food, work and education.
Since she arrived in the country, she has dedicated herself to taking Portuguese classes and making and selling handicrafts, such as dolls, as a means of sustenance.
She is the perfect example of what displaced Venezuelans can endure in order to adapt to life in another country. Since 2005, around 5.6 million Venezuelans left their homes behind due to the worsening economic and social crisis in Venezuela. Of these, some 261,000 entered Brazilian territory seeking protection and a better future.
A new study by the World Bank and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) analyzes the access that this population has to education, social protection and the labor market in Brazil. The results reveal a shocking reality. While their educational level is similar to that of their Brazilian counterparts, Venezuelan adults are 64% less likely to be employed in the formal sector and children 53% less likely to attend school.
“We analyzed an accumulation of administrative and census data between 2017 and 2020 to investigate whether Venezuelan refugees and immigrants face differentiated access to education, the formal labor market and social protection programs. Our goal is to help policy makers and humanitarian and development agencies in order to optimize the design of current programs and thus improve the economic and social inclusion of Venezuelans in the host community, ”says Pablo Acosta, head of the program at the World Bank and co-author of the report Integration of Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in Brazil together with World Bank social protection specialist Rovane Battaglin Schwengber, young Bank professional Mrittika Shamsuddin, and UNHCR economists Jedediah Fix and Nikolas Pirani.
Venezuelan displaced persons residing in Brazil are equivalent to 18% of the 1.3 million refugees and migrants from that country.
In addition to the 46,923 Venezuelans recognized as refugees, there are 96,556 asylum seekers, according to the most recent data from CONARE and the Federal Police.
Adding these two figures together, there are 156,300 Venezuelan refugees and asylum seekers, while 145,462 already have a residence permit.
Access to education and health
Brazil provides universal access to education, health and social protection, regardless of legal status. However, many Venezuelan refugees and migrants continue to face obstacles when enrolling in the public education system or accessing social protection programs and the formal labor market. According to the report, only 10% of the Venezuelan population of working age residing in Brazil manages to access the formal labor market.
The reality is even more complicated for women. “On average, Venezuelan women are 75% less likely than Brazilian women to be employed in a formal sector job, while Venezuelan men are 65% less likely to be employed in a formal sector. formal sector job, ”says Mrittika Shamsuddin.
"Integration in a foreign country is a long-term process that requires a holistic and multisectoral approach to be effective, especially when it comes to refugees," underlines the UNHCR economist and co-author of the report, Nikolas Pirani.
"This is why UNHCR brings the talent and capacities of these people closer to the demand of the private sector, ensuring the existence of a mutually beneficial situation for refugees and host communities," he adds.
Of course, the pandemic also contributed to the aggravation of an already complicated situation with regard to the outlook faced by refugees and migrants.
An analysis of the 2021 data reveals that those who are outside the labor market can access the Bolsa Familia assistance program as a means of survival while they settle in Brazil.
However, the study also shows that Venezuelans are 30% less likely to be registered in the program, compared to their Brazilian counterparts.
“Of those who receive Bolsa Familia, 42% have completed secondary education and 15% have university degrees, compared to 19% of Brazilians who have completed secondary education and 1% who have university degrees,” reveals Rovane Schwenberg.
In terms of education, 42% of Venezuelan children are enrolled in a school.
However, even if they attend it, they experience downgrades and capacity limitations, hindering the creation of productive human capital and the self-sufficiency of future generations.
"They are more likely to attend overcrowded schools than their counterparts in the host community and also to hold lower-quality jobs, characterized by temporary, lower pay and longer hours," says Schwenberg.
Economic impact
The main gateway to Brazil for Venezuelans, the state of Roraima, experienced significant economic growth during the period of intensification of the flow of Venezuelans, between 2016 and 2017, according to the study
The economy of Roraima and the Venezuelan flow: evidence and subsidies for public policies
(in Portuguese), carried out by UNHCR and the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV).
“Roraima experienced significant growth in its agricultural production, including Brazil nuts and some types of livestock, a sign that integration is as good for the migrants as it is for the host country.
The flow of Venezuelan refugees and migrants to Brazil is both a humanitarian crisis and a development challenge, but it is also an excellent opportunity for social and economic development, ”Pirani says.
Both to reduce the impact on infrastructure in Roraima, and to generate greater opportunities for social and economic absorption in the rest of the country, one of the axes of the Federal Emergency Response, Operation Welcome (Operação Acolhida), is the voluntary relocation of Venezuelans in other Brazilian cities.
“In March, the program turned three years old and reached the 50,000 mark.
Despite covid-19, relocations did not stop last year.
Since the pandemic began, more than 1,000 Venezuelans have been safely relocated each month.
In total, 675 municipalities welcomed refugees and migrants, increasing integration opportunities throughout the country, ”said Pirani.
One of these beneficiaries is Ismenia Elena Beria, a 48-year-old nurse who currently resides in the capital, Brasilia.
She arrived in Brazil in early 2018 in search of treatment for her thyroid cancer, leaving behind her husband, her children and her job as a nurse.
After living in the temporary shelter in Roraima for almost a year and a half, her treatment ended successfully, as well as the opportunity to be relocated.
"In Venezuela I was not rich, but I had a good job, a house, everything," he says.
Now he works in a fast food franchise in the Federal District.
Away from his family since he arrived, he now waits for the border to open to meet them in Brazil.
As a way of helping to improve integration, the team presented the main findings of the report in a meeting with the Chief of Cabinet of the Brazilian federal government, in charge of coordinating government initiatives around refugees and migrants, as well as with representatives of all the organizations and entities involved in the program.
“Now we are preparing a new study to analyze the integration program and identify the main obstacles that prevent this population from entering the Brazilian workforce.
We hope that our recommendations can help Venezuelans find a home in Brazil, ”says Acosta.
The report is part of the
Gathering Evidence on Forced Displacement program:
a multi-stakeholder alliance
, funded by UK Aid from the UK Foreign Office, Commonwealth of Nations and Development.
It is managed by the World Bank and was established together with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Juliana Braga
is a World Bank communicator for Brazil