The flows of displaced persons leaving Venezuela are made up of both migrants and refugees, considering refugees as defined in the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, and the expanded definition as set forth in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (Cartagena’s expanded definition). That definition has been adopted by a large number of states in the region in their national legislations, and by the organs of the inter-American system, as an operational definition with respect to the right to seek and receive asylum in one’s status as a refugee.

Accordingly, it must be recognized, regionally and in a coordinated manner, that the flows of persons leaving Venezuela include persons who are being forced to leave the country and who require international protection and that all of them require means to ensure their regular stay in the destination countries so as to enable them to access social rights and become integrated into the host communities. READ MORE