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The work of Vergara Pérez, better known as Maye, has just been recognized by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which Awarded this year’s Nansen Refugee Award.
“People like Maye represent the best of us. Their courage and selfless dedication to rescue and protect some of the world’s most vulnerable children are nothing short of heroic.”Said Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, quoted in a statement from that agency.
The children under the care of Vergara Pérez were victims of forced sexual exploitation, sometimes by human trafficking networks, or they have been separated from families distorted by the abuse, thus have been through almost unimaginable trauma, adds the UNHCR in a profile that makes the winner. “Her recovery process is long and convulsive,” she says about caring for minors.
“She embodies the essence of this award. His unwavering dedication has saved the lives of hundreds of refugee children and given them hope for a better future ”, added Grandi, referring to Vergara Pérez, whose activity has often put her own safety at risk, when walk the streets of towns and communities in northeastern Colombia where smugglers and traffickers operate.
The sexual exploitation “has an enormous impact on childhood, emotional, psychological, physical and social”Said Vergara Pérez, quoted in the same UNHCR office. “We see girls who feel that their bodies do not belong to them. Their bodies have been so mistreated, so abused, so exploited that they feel alienated from those bodies, as if they did not belong to them. Sexual violence has practically destroyed their ability to dream. It has stolen their smiles and filled them with pain, anguish and anxiety. The pain and emotional emptiness they feel is so deep that they just don’t want to live. “
Specifically, Vergara Pérez has advanced her work as regional coordinator for La Guajira of the Renacer Foundation, which has the objective of eradicating the exploitation and sexual abuse of minors for 32 years.
But his work to recover children from the clutches of criminals has not been limited to strict field work. In 2009, their incessant activism and lobbying contributed to the adoption of two laws classified by UNHCR as “historic”: Law 1329, which established a mandatory minimum penalty of at least 14 years in prison for people convicted of facilitating and instigating the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents; and Law 1336, which targeted the owners of establishments that allow the sexual exploitation of boys and girls in their facilities.
Many child victims are refugees from Venezuela
UNHCR recalls that since 2015, the deterioration of the situation in Venezuela has forced millions of people to become migrants fleeing their country, and estimates that 1.7 million people have sought protection in Colombia. “Desperate for safety and a better life, Venezuelans have resorted to all possible means to flee the country, and many have fallen prey to human trafficking networks, criminal gangs, and illegal armed groups that often operate throughout the borders. Traffickers often force women and girls to undergo sexual exploitation to pay for their fare”Says UNHCR.
That agency cites data from the Colombian authorities, according to which, between 2015 and 2019, the number of victims of human trafficking in Colombia increased by 23%. “This increase is due in part to the influx of Venezuelan refugees and migrants to the country,” estimates UNHCR. “Just In the first four months of 2020, the authorities detected a 20% increase in human trafficking cases affecting foreign citizens, with respect to the previous year. In more than half of the cases, sexual exploitation is the ultimate goal of trafficking ”.
In the midst of that reality, Vergara Pérez “has responded to innumerable night calls, has heard thousands of stories of complete misery, has dealt with innumerable crises and has taken on dozens of high-risk reconnaissance missions at hotspots for sexual exploitation and prostitution, ”UNHCR highlights. “She has tirelessly given herself, skipping vacations and other important milestones with her family and even giving up the certainty of a full night’s sleep for years.”
She recently volunteered to spearhead the opening of a new residential home in La Guajira, which has seen an increase in child sexual exploitation among refugees and migrants fleeing the current political and economic crisis in Venezuela. “Over the course of its first year, this new home provided a safe therapeutic space for 75 children and adolescents, some as young as 7 years old.”, Remarks the UN agency.
In a robust profile that El País, from Spain, makes on Vergara Pérez, it highlights that the award you just received is also known as the Humanitarian Nobel Prize. That medium reports that she was born in Sahagún (Córdoba) in 1975 and that at age 18 she began teaching primary school children in Cali. But a few years later, when she was living in Barranquilla, she saw in a newspaper ad that an NGO was looking for a psychopedagogue.
“It had nothing to do with me. She did not know what an NGO was or was a psychologist, but she was daring, “Vergara Pérez told the Spanish newspaper. She sent her resume and was called the following day for an interview in which they explained that the organization worked with minors who were victims of sexual exploitation. “I think they need a person to listen to them,” she said, and that phrase, she confirmed to the newspaper, earned her the position. ONE day later, on July 23, 1999, she started as a night educator in one of the foster homes of the Fundación Renacer.
The ceremony for the presentation of the Nansen Prize for Refugees to Vergara Pérez will take place virtually on October 5. Mexican actor and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Alfonso Herrera, will host the ceremony, which features a keynote address by successful Chilean novelist and former refugee Isabel Allende. The main musical performance will be performed by world renowned UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, philanthropist and Afro-pop music legend 2Baba from Lagos, Nigeria.
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