Venezuela sees 43 protests against Maduro in 3 days, according to NGOs

During the first three days of August, 43 protests against the regime of Nicolás Maduro have been registered in Venezuela, according to data published on Wednesday by the NGO Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS).

On August 1 and 2, there were at least 30 demonstrations in some 16 regions of Venezuela. As of 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, there were 13 protests in nine states, detailed the NGO on its Twitter account.

The protesters' demands are related to housing, social security, education, and labor rights, according to the organization. Hundreds of public sector teachers have also been marching since Monday in the country denouncing that they received incomplete payments of several benefits, such as their vacation bonus.

With pots, pans, and spoons, the demonstrators marched through the center of Caracas until they reached the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor. Once there, a commission delivered a document rejecting an instruction of the National Budget Office (Onapre), which contemplates the reduction of several benefits, and the incomplete payment of the vacation bonus reported Efe.

The calculation of the vacation bonus, which is paid to teachers at the end of the school year in July, was based on the 2021 salary, i.e. $1.52 per month.

Onapre claimed that the payment was made in this way since the new labor agreement has not been signed, causing discontent among the educators, who consider that it is a "disrespect to their rights and demands." 

"It's not fair what they did to us this year with our vacations, besides the fact that our pay was incomplete. They paid us with a salary that was not fair," Sixta Fuentes, a 52-year-old elementary school teacher of 19 years The Associated Press, who said they only received 25% of the bonus.

The previous week, the OVCS published a document detailing that 3,892 protests were registered in Venezuela during the first half of the year or an average of 22 per day, an increase of 15% compared to the same period in 2021 when 3,393 demonstrations were documented.