|
Yuliana Rocha with her son, Diogel. Fabiola Ferrero for The New York Times
|
|
| Venezuela blocks access to many journalists and is a difficult place to cover, so I don’t think the world understands just how desperate the country’s plight is. And because Trump is hostile to the government there, some liberals are more sympathetic to it than they might otherwise be. So I give my column over today to the voices of Venezuelans I met on the Colombia/Venezuela border while I was traveling with Mercy Corps, an aid group active there. The stories are harrowing. |
| One striking thing about the desperate Venezuelans is that they are hungry, homeless — and pregnant, or holding new babies. That’s because contraception is virtually impossible to come by now, and what oral contraceptives are on the market are often fakes. So just when people are least able to feed babies, there’s a baby boom. Listen to their voices! |
Sonia Nazario, author of “Enrique’s Journey,” represents the gold standard for writing about immigration. She wrote recently about the brutality suffered by some women in Central America that impels them to flee to America, but she also went one step further: She started this GoFundMe to raise money for some of the women leaders in Honduras who are trying to create order there. If President Trump wants to reduce immigration from Central America, I think one useful step would be to donate to this GoFundMe and reduce the push factors forcing families to flee.
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment