Caracas Chronicles

• Venezuela is the country with the highest prevalence of modern slavery in Latin America due to the institutional weakness that affects all spheres of this phenomenon: prevention, investigation, punishment, reparation of the victims, a state incapable of providing official figures, and a government that uses migrants and refugees as propaganda. 
  • The UCAB Center for Human Rights (CDH UCAB) published its fourth report on the forms of modern slavery that affect Venezuelan migrants, and indicates that considering them as ‘voluntary migrants’ violates their right to international protection, makes them vulnerable to other violations, and enables them to suffer exploitative experiences that often begin with deceptive job offers that lead to human trafficking and sexual slavery. 
  • According to estimates from the Global Slavery Index, 174,000 people are victims of modern slavery in Venezuela, and a report prepared by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in five countries in the region revealed that 21% of 4,600 respondents were forced to work without receiving any type of remuneration or were held against their will. 
  • The CDH-UCAB documented chilling examples of what Venezuelan migrants have suffered and are suffering. Children, adolescents, and women are the most vulnerable group among migrants and refugees.

• Roberto Picón, the main rector of the National Electoral Council (CNE), offered a balance of the audit that was carried out by the Electoral Registry to detect irregularities related to voter data. 
  • He explained that this process analyzed the biometric information of the voters and that approximately 6% of the records obtained between May and July by the fingerprint experts were excluded from the Electoral Registry. 
  • Picón also said that the CNE evaluates the municipalization of the Electoral Registry, which would allow voters to permanently and independently change their data. 
  • The details of the audit will be published on the official website of the CNE.
• CNE Rector Enrique Márquez presented a proposal to the CNE board that aims to regulate the activities prior to the campaign, which includes restricting the propaganda time and penalizations for misuse of electoral propaganda. 
• Lawyer Ramón José Medina stated that opposition parties should have made the decision to participate in the November elections “a long time ago.” He warned that there still isn’t “a final and formal decision,” but he estimates that by announcing their participation, with the eventual observation of the European Union, Chavismo would begin to comply with international standards in the elections. 

Mothers and relatives of the children and adolescents of the J.M. de los Ríos protested to demand responses to the supply crisis and the reactivation of transplants: “Even if my son is gone, I will continue to support the protests until transplants are reactivated,” said Emilse Arellano, Winder Rangel’s mother, who passed away last week. The protest was attacked by a bus driver who blocked the protest’s route at the hospital entrance.

• Molly de la Sotta, sister Luis de la Sotta, a political prisoner without trial for more than 3 years, denounced that there are still 20 people held in inhuman conditions between the basements of the DGCIM, Fuerte Tiuna prison and ‘La Tumba’ from Plaza Venezuela.
• United States authorities arrested businessman Jorge Nóbrega on charges of money laundering and violating the sanctions imposed on Maduro’s regime, for acquiring a contract to provide services to Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jets. 
  • Nóbrega allegedly tried to hide payments that he received from the regime in a Portuguese bank account in the name of his company Achabal, which has a subsidiary in Venezuela. 
• Mérida’s Governor Ramón Guevara confirmed the presence of the first case of black fungus in a 50-year-old patient. Mucormycosis is a life-threatening infection that has affected COVID-19 patients. 

Emergency in Bolívar state continues after the red alert was declared on Monday due to the increase of flow in the Caroní River. It has increased by 12,71 meters above sea level. This state registers several municipalities severely affected by rains, river overflows, and floods.

• There was a brief fire on the roof of Saime’s main headquarters, located in Plaza Caracas. The firefighters of the Capital District put out the fire that started with the explosion of a transformer, the product of some renovations on the roof.
• Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, expressed that he wants the dialogue between the opposition and the regime to result in agreements, and hopes for the recognition of the regime and the lifting of sanctions. His role is supposed to be neutral.