Lives on the move: Experiences of exclusion, vulnerability, and resilience of Venezuelan forced migrants in Peru

Venezuelans who are forced to migrate as a result of violence, food shortages, an unstable economy, and an inadequate public healthcare system—crises that uproot them from their home country—experience exclusion and vulnerability from the start. Men, women, and children have had no other option than to embark largely on foot, enduring perilous journeys. Upon arriving in Peru, Venezuelans have increasingly encountered stricter legal entry requirements, reduced integration efforts, and rising negative perceptions of Venezuelan immigration, all of which have pushed this population toward irregularity and increasing precarity. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the mounting layers of exclusion and vulnerability, primarily through labor instability and unemployment, lack of state-led socioeconomic assistance, and limited access to the Peruvian healthcare system. Within this framework, we focus on displaced Venezuelans’ voices and narratives stemming from semi-structured interviews, conducted between 2019 and 2020, with 61 Venezuelans at the Ecuador–Peru border and in three Peruvian cities. We also look at the resilient strategies employed by displaced Venezuelans throughout the migratory process that renegotiate notions of belonging and community.