How U.S. Aid Cuts Are Leaving Venezuelan Migrant Women in Colombia Vulnerable

In the mountain town of Pamplona, Colombia, Victoria watches her children sleep on a mattress on the floor — her one-year-old daughter and newborn son spread across rose-pink sheets. She reaches to touch the ends of her waist-length black hair, only to remember it’s gone. She sold some of it for $15 to help cover the journey ahead.

But now, resting at this migrant shelter, she hesitates to go further.

Victoria is one of the 7.7 million Venezuelans who have left their country over the past decade due to crippling economic hardship, failing public services, corruption, and repression.

This 118-mile route is well-trodden, beginning at the border of Cucuta and traversing through the mountains to the city of Bucaramanga. It’s the main way those leaving by land  — both on foot and by bus — start their journeys to towns and cities across Colombia and further afield.

Shelters and aid points provided by the Colombian government have dwindled in recent years, but those that remain have been crucial lifelines for migrants. Now, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. State Department on hold, Colombia’s financial support for migrants has crumbled, disproportionately leaving women to face greater hardship and danger.

For years, U.S. funding has been the backbone of Colombia’s humanitarian response, providing 70 percent of all aid in 2024 — around $330 million, according to the Congressional Research Service. Half of that came from USAID, with migrants as the primary beneficiaries.

Ronald Vergara, a Venezuelan migrant, runs Hermanos Caminantes, an aid point that has been operating since 2019.  Situated along a busy transit road between Cucuta and Pamplona, it’s about an hour's drive or a grueling two days’ walking for those trekking from the border. It has large tents, shower cubicles, and plastic chairs for migrants, along with what was once a children's playroom.

But with funding now dried up, it has little to offer those passing by.

“Migrants arrive with high hopes of shelter, food, rest, transportation, and help for their children,” Vergara told More to Her Story. “Now I can barely offer anything, just a little of our own food.”

Aid points, including Vergara's, are often used as a base by larger NGOs that form the Interagency Group on Mixed Migration Flows (GIFMM) in Colombia—a coordination platform comprised of UN agencies and national and international NGOs. They provide essential services such as medical aid, legal assistance, meals, hygiene kits, and, in some cases, transport. 

One such NGO was ZOA, a Dutch organization that offered vouchers for food, luggage, clothing, and medicine, as well as limited hotel accommodation and transport along migrant routes in Colombia. Between September 2022 and August 2024, the project assisted 41,374 migrants in transit, including 2,578 pregnant and breastfeeding women.  A ZOA survey revealed that 45 percent of migrants had spent the previous three nights without shelter before receiving aid.

The latest round of funding for the project — $5 million for 2024-2025 — came from the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). However, with the termination of USAID and U.S. Department of State grants, ZOA has halted its migrant-related operations in Colombia, leaving no funds to pay staff or continue projects at aid points like Vergara’s.

Now, that crucial support has disappeared, leaving women like Victoria stranded and uncertain.

The 21-year-old had hoped for a bus to help her and her children cross the mountain pass. But walking it with two small children is too great a risk.

“It’s cold here, and my son is so small. He’s not used to the change in climate,” López told More to Her Story.

Low temperatures and inadequate clothing can lead to hypothermia in those traversing the long road between Bucaramanga and Pamplona, which increases to ​​around 2,800 meters above sea level. In 2020, a child died due to a respiratory arrest brought on by near-freezing temperatures here.

But it’s not only the elements Victoria is afraid of.

“I'm terrified that someone will see me out there with the babies and take them,” she said, explaining that she feared arrest or harassment from the Colombian authorities, but even more so, criminal groups.

The route from the border is arduous and filled with danger. Criminal organizations such as Tren de Aragua, armed groups like the ELN and FARC dissidents, as well as smaller gangs, have taken advantage of migrants — robbing them of the little money they have left.

When Lopez was 17, she briefly lived in Cucuta before migrating to Peru. Her partner at the time worked as a trochera, ferrying belongings for people using illegal border crossings for a small fee. But one day, he didn’t come home.

“He disappeared and turned up dead,” she said, describing how she found out about his death online and immediately suspected he was killed by one of the area’s dangerous groups. Many people are never found. Between 2019 and 2024, the foundation, Fundadores, documented 1,092 cases of missing Venezuelans along the border with Colombia — and others have disappeared further along the migrant route.

This time, Lopez was not willing to risk further danger and heartbreak. The money from selling her hair paid for a room in a hotel near the border and most of her journey to Pamplona. The bus driver took pity on her and let her off, paying the full fare.

Vanessa Palaez runs the shelter where Lopez was staying that night.

“Women are exposed to various dangers, being forced to grab whatever lift they are given, or to sleep in places that expose them to danger, to the cold, to hunger, to dehydration," said Palaez.
Cases of trafficking have also become increasingly common. Often, the women are taken to the camps of armed groups such as the ELN, or trafficked by the criminal group Tren del Aragua, either within Colombia or to other Latin American countries, according to a U.S. government report. But between 2018 and March 15, 2023, only 147 Venezuelan migrants have been registered by the Ministry of the Interior as victims of sexual exploitation in Colombia. Human rights groups argue that official figures vastly underestimate the true scale of trafficking for sexual exploitation, citing widespread underreporting and the hidden nature of these crimes. 

With the reduction in aid services, Venezuelan migrant women are even more susceptible to exploitation, including human trafficking and forced labor. The lack of support systems makes them easy targets for criminal organizations operating along migration routes. 

Along with trafficking, some women with little money are forced to make impossible choices — trading sex for food, a ride, or cash for accommodation.

Erika* made this journey in 2019, which took her over a month to complete from her home city of Botogá. At one point, she briefly turned to sex work to pay for rent and food.

But passing the route again four years later, in 2023, while pregnant and with a young son, she was able to take advantage of a service to ferry migrants to the capital, Bogota. 

“We might not have made it here without that support. For us, it was a blessing,” Erika said.

The last few years have already seen a severe reduction in the amount of help available to migrants. According to (GIFMM), there were 26 aid centers along this route in 2020, but 70 percent of these organizations shut down, largely due to lack of funding. The withdrawal of U.S. funding has squeezed the resources of remaining NGOs implementing projects for transiting migrants — and ones settled in Colombia. Half of the projects under GIFMM’s umbrella have been affected.

In the region of North Santander alone — next to the border with Venezuela, 10 out of 17 projects for the protection sector, which includes human trafficking and sexual exploitation, have been suspended. Half of the projects focusing specifically on gender-based violence, mainly directed at women, are no longer running. Other projects affected include access to primary health care, help with rent, and employment and training programs.

With the latest cuts, some local shelters and groups have often left to pick up the pieces. At Palaez’s shelter, a woman is slumped over her partner, too weak to sit upright. It’s mid-afternoon, and she hasn’t eaten or had a sip of water since yesterday. Palaez said her shelter isn't directly affected by the USAID cuts, as they rely on other funding sources. Yet indirectly, she is already beginning to feel the impact at her shelter and on the migrants who arrive at it.

"The pressure on my facilities is that people arrive with more needs — needs we cannot satisfy," Palaez explained.

Route to legal immigration status blocked

According to Colombia’s migration agency, the freezing of USAID also impacted the help points that assist with the regularization of Venezuelan migrants in the country. By early February, Colombia’s government migration agency had stopped processing documents for migrants and refugees due to the staffing cuts that resulted from the pause in funding.
The funds provided by USAID for the Permiso por Protección Temporal (PPT) program were instrumental in integrating Venezuelan migrants into Colombia's health system, a critical support for pregnant women. 

From January to May 2023, 10,001 migrant girls and adolescents aged 10 to 19 were registered in Sisbén IV— Colombia’s system for identifying low-income individuals eligible for social programs. Of these, 952 (9.5 percent) reported pregnancies.

According to PPT’s 2023 report, this significant number of pregnant adolescents highlights the urgent need for targeted policies addressing sexual and reproductive health among migrant populations.

“Every pregnant woman is a person of special protection (whether a Colombian citizen or a foreigner), and the Colombian State and society must provide all the necessary guarantees for the respect of her rights,” the report stated, emphasizing that such is the case whether or not migrant adolescents are registered in the health system.
But in many cases, cities can no longer guarantee the care of pregnant women not already registered in the health system. Bucaramanga, the city’s health secretary, Claudia Amaya, stated that due to the withdrawal of USAID support meant that for those without their permits, the city would no longer be able to provide prenatal screenings or checkups due to a lack of resources and mechanisms to include them in the social security system. It can now only offer support with childbirth, as it's deemed an emergency. As she breastfeeds her young son in the shelter, Lopez worries about the lack of support for new mothers and women like her.

“I feel frustrated,” she said. “We [women] have to think about a home, stability, but also about buying diapers, what the kids are going to eat and if they’re tired.”
A lack of humanitarian transport and accommodation options means continuing her journey is an unattractive option. But returning to Venezuela, where she can barely afford basics, is even less appealing. Venezuelan women are used to challenges, but the cuts to U.S. funding have only exacerbated their already fragile situation, leaving migrants like Lopez in limbo.

“Ultimately, I’m just thinking and thinking without really knowing what I should do next,” she told More to Her Story.