The Venezuelan Women Bearing the Weight of Maduro’s Dissident Crackdown

Elizabeth González both cherishes and dreads the little time she spends with her son, a political prisoner in Venezuela. Each visit, allowed by the prison twice monthly, is an opportunity to see him. Yet they also serve as a reminder of the harrowing conditions he endures: beatings, rotten food, and drastic weight loss — impacts that have taken a toll on both him and González herself.

“I go to bed thinking about my son. I wake up from the little sleep I get, thinking, ‘Did he eat? Did he sleep?’” González told More to Her Story. “I have had anxiety attacks. I’m in debt; I’m tired and desperate.”

Her son, Eliander Santaella, was among over 2,200 people arrested shortly following Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s July presidential election — an election that evidence suggests he lost to opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez. Maduro’s months-long crackdown on dissent following the stolen victory targeted activists, politicians, journalists, protesters, and even bystanders, all of whom were accused of terrorism and inciting hatred for disputing the election result.

González is not alone in her experience. She is one of many Venezuelan women whose lives have been upended by the imprisonment of a loved one. While most political prisoners are men, female family members endure a distinct and often unrecognized burden of sacrifice. In most cases, only women are allowed as visitors due to arbitrary “security reasons” enforced by the prison. Some prisoners are not allowed visitors at all. 

As of February 3, Venezuela recorded 1196 political prisoners, according to the rights group Foro Penal, which provides free legal assistance for those arbitrarily detained in the country. 

“Their suffering is rendered invisible,” a recent report stated. The report, put together by a collection of Venezuelan human rights groups, highlighted the direct and indirect vulnerabilities experienced by women in Venezuela, including the country’s brutal system of imprisonment. 

When a family member is imprisoned, these women’s lives are upended. Many abandon jobs to fight for justice, navigating courts and bureaucracy while also stepping in where the state fails—bringing medicine, clean water, and even food. Most come from struggling communities, where single-mother households prevail.

Marino Alvarado, a lawyer from the human rights organization PROVEA, said that these policies violate the rights of contact for both families and prisoners. Additionally, restricting visits to female relatives places an unfair burden on women who have assumed the responsibility of looking after political prisoners as best they can. 

Mariangela Guevara, using a different name to protect herself from authorities, has spent four months living a five-hour bus ride from her home to be closer to her imprisoned 18-year-old son. She rents a tiny room for $3 a day — an astronomical sum in Venezuela, where the minimum monthly wage is just $2.50. From this base, she delivers medicine and food packages, attends brief ten-minute visits every two weeks, and makes repeated trips to Caracas to plead her son’s case before courts and government ministries.

The sacrifice has devastated her both emotionally and financially. “The other day, I only ate because a charity gave me something. I hadn't had a drop of water all day,” Guevara said, describing how she's fallen behind on rent despite her husband sending whatever money he can. She's even contemplated selling their house to make ends meet and has missed important family moments like her husband's birthday — their first apart since marriage.

But perhaps the most profound pain comes from leaving her teenage son behind at home. “I can tell you with all my heart, I am so scared for my only son at home, far from my protection and care,” she said, emphasizing her fear that he too might be detained or that she herself could disappear into the system with no one knowing her whereabouts. 

Through prison visits, Venezuelan women have become crucial witnesses to unreported abuse within the system. The Committee of Relatives and Friends for the Freedom of Political Prisoners (CLIPPVE), comprising families of political prisoners and former detainees, recently gathered their testimonies of prison conditions.

The women reported their loved ones being fed decomposed food, rotten sardines, and worm-infested sweet potatoes, with limited access to drinking water. Many, like Guevara, shoulder the burden of providing basic medicine for their imprisoned relatives.

“When I saw how much weight he’d lost and the vacant look in his eyes, I was so devastated I ran from the prison like a mad woman, begging people at the pharmacy to let me skip the line to buy his medicine,” Guevara recalled.

Apart from the emotional trauma of seeing their loved ones suffering and the financial burdens, female family members have also been subject to demeaning treatment and gendered violence by state authorities.

In Yare III prison in San Francisco de Yare, prison guards strip-search women before they are allowed to visit family members. In one of the testimonies from the CLIPPVE report, a woman whose son was imprisoned there said female guards forced her to undress in front of other women visitors, bend over and open her legs. “They placed a cell phone with the flashlight on between my legs,” the woman added.

González told More to Her Story that when her son was in Yare, she also had to undergo these invasive checks. “The visits were very humiliating. They even made me feel [as if]l I had been raped,” she recalled.

Lies and broken promises by prison authorities have also played a large part in the ongoing repression that has suffocated the lives of families of political prisoners. Sometimes, food packages sent by families to prisoners are denied, visits are canceled at the last minute by prison authorities, and families have been reportedly tricked into paying bribes. 

“At first, we got into debt with a bribe that the officials who arrested my son demanded of us. They were asking us for a sum of ten thousand dollars,” said González. Although they paid part of it, their son remained imprisoned.

On another occasion, officials at one detention facility asked for $700 so he wouldn’t be transferred to a prisoner further away. “They took the money and transferred him anyway,” she said.

CEPAZ, a Venezuelan human rights group, said improvements in the treatment of these female family members are unlikely to change soon. This is not a matter of ‘a few bad apples,’ nor is it a matter of a lack of resources to improve jails, but a coordinated strategy by the regime.

“They are purposefully sending a message to all Venezuelans,” Cristina Ciordia, a research consultant with CEPAZ, explained. “They are asking: ‘Are you willing to be responsible for your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter having her vagina searched by a National Guard? Can your family bear the cost of having their primary caretaker dedicate her entire life to making sure you are okay?’” 

For González, her long sleepless nights are not yet over as she continues to demand justice and the freedom of her son.

“It’s agonizing not knowing what could happen to my son,” she said. “Yet as a mother and as a woman, you try to take the reins no matter what. You try not to give in to anything.”