Human Rights
'I sell candy in the street to survive': Retirees demand better pensions in Venezuela
Pensioners receive about $28 per month after the increase decreed by Nicolás Maduro
April 27, 2022 9:07am
Updated: April 29, 2022 7:15am
Thousands of pensioners in Venezuela marched through the streets of Caracas on Tuesday to protest against the low amount of money they receive each month. The protesters took to the streets as the delegates of the International Labor Organization (ILO) visited the country.
Alí Enrique Moreno, a 67-year-old Venezuelan retiree who worked for 40 years in the public administration, said he decided to sell candy on the street to pay for his medicines.
"I sell candy in the street to survive," Moreno told AFP while showing a bag of candy packets during the demonstration organized by retirees.
Demonstrators demanded better conditions for the more than five million pensioners who receive around $28 a month after the increase decreed by Maduro in March. Prior to the increase, they were paid the equivalent of two dollars.
"I take five pills a day, tell me, how do I buy them? I'm going to be 70 years old, hungry and in need," Moreno said.
During the protest, the pensioners shouted slogans: "We want to continue living." "No more death pensions." "ICC prosecutor is starving us to death." "We pensioners do not want to die before our time."
Other retirees joined the protest demanding compliance with Article 91 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which states that all workers have the right to a salary "that allows them to live with dignity."
However, the $28 they receive is far from the more than $470 needed to buy the basic food basket, according to calculations by the private Documentation and Analysis Center of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas).
In the statement calling for Tuesday's demonstration, the Coordinadora de Pensionados y Jubilados de Venezuela (Copenjuve), acclaimed that they will take to the streets again on May 1st with the same objective.
"To that [Maduro] we want to say that, we reject his manipulative and pitiful speech of who is the intellectual and material author of the poverty of the elderly," Copenjuve said in the statement.
