Another Sign of the Venezuelan Invasion

A sign in the red light district offers to wire money to Venezuela.

A window sign in a different part of town
offers to send money to Venezuela.

Venezuelans everywhere! It's not news that many thousands of Venezuelans - some guesstimate more than a million - have fled into Colombia from the shrinking economy, hyperinflation and raging crime in their own country.

As a result, it seems as tho nearly every hotel, restaurant and shop has at least one Venezuelan employee.

More notoriously, reportedly many Venezuelan women have also gone into prostitution in Colombia. That was evidenced dramatically in Bogotá's red light district the other day: I saw at least four signs offering money transfers to Venezuela on a single street.

For some, prostitution must be a rational professional choice in which the dangers, risk of suffering abuses and social stigma are compensated by a relatively high income. But many Venezuelan evidently enter the profession out of sheer desperation, to bring some food home, or to send a few rapidly devaluating bolivars home to Venezuela.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours