Cúcuta, Colombia (CNN) The human toll of the Venezuelan crisis is evident in the women's faces.

They speak with pain in their voices and sadness in their eyes. At first reserved, they eventually open up and tell, through tears, how they came to be in a situation that would once have been unimaginable: selling their bodies to make ends meet.

Mariza, a certified nurse, made the journey across the border from Venezuela to Colombia two years ago, leaving behind her mother and three children. Like most immigrants with professional careers, she expected to find a job in her own field, but when doors were repeatedly closed in her face and even a cleaning job was nowhere to be found, Mariza found herself making an impossible decision.

"To have one guy today and another person tomorrow," she says of her fall into prostitution, is not easy, and it's dangerous. But as a mother, "you don't think -- you do what you have to." Mariza's name has been changed to protect her identity, as have other names in this report.

Disappointment rings in her voice when she speaks of her time spent in education and being unable to work as a nurse. "It's frustrating because you realize that you worked. Five years of my life studying, preparing -- I feel at this moment that it's five years I've lost because I can't practice," she said, tears streaming down her face.

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