October 11, 2024
The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) condemns in the strongest terms the atrocities committed by the Venezuelan regime against dozens of children and adolescents in Venezuela, illegally detained and subjected to unimaginable abuse and torture, thereby violating all international conventions on human rights and lowering their limits of humanity and decency to the worst levels of barbarism.
The systematic violations of human rights against adolescents reveal patterns of the utmost gravity and, as an international community, we must ensure that they do not go unpunished and, to this end, we will continue to adopt measures at the international level to ensure that they are effectively subjected to the action of justice. The organization of the judiciary in Venezuela is only an instrument of repression.
These crimes against humanity committed against minors constitute a new legal dimension of international criminal responsibility of the authorities of the regime. The audios and reports from torture centers in Venezuela are chilling: minors are tortured with electric shocks, beatings, lack of food or even sexual abuse. Their pain and screams are a new, unavoidable reason for all democrats to demand without hesitation the end of barbarism in Venezuela.
According to some reports, there are minors detained with irrational and unfounded accusations such as terrorism and treason, and the public denunciations of numerous mothers, other relatives and civil society confirm this. The OAS General Secretariat demands the immediate release of the minors kidnapped by the Venezuelan regime, that all types of torture be stopped, and that those materially and intellectually responsible for these infamous crimes be brought to justice.