Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

It’s been five years since At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi put for­ward draft leg­is­la­tion for a refugee pol­i­cy, yet to­day there ex­ists no mi­gra­tion and refugee pro­tec­tion in T&T.

Based on da­ta from the Re­gion­al In­ter­a­gency Co­or­di­na­tion Plat­form for refugees and mi­grants from Venezuela (R4V) over 28,500 Venezue­lan refugees and mi­grants are liv­ing in T&T up to Jan­u­ary this year.

In­creas­ing­ly, mi­grant des­ti­tu­tion has be­come com­mon­place with Venezue­lans beg­ging on the streets and walk­ing around with their chil­dren seek­ing help from lo­cals.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Rochelle Nakhid, co­or­di­na­tor of the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty’s (LWC) Min­istry for Mi­grants and Refugees said she could not com­ment on the draft pol­i­cy.

“We and oth­er key stake­hold­ers have not been en­gaged in the prepa­ra­tion of the new pol­i­cy, so we are un­able to com­ment on it,” she re­vealed.

Liv­ing Wa­ters is an im­ple­ment­ing part­ner of UN­HCR in T&T and en­sures that asy­lum-seek­ers and refugees re­ceive as­sis­tance with lo­cal ori­en­ta­tion and in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing hous­ing, health, ed­u­ca­tion, doc­u­men­ta­tion, se­cu­ri­ty and oth­er so­cial ser­vices.

De­spite be­ing the main stake­hold­er, LWC has not been con­sult­ed.

Nakhid said be­fore the pre­vi­ous refugee pol­i­cy that was ap­proved by Cab­i­net in 2014, there was a com­mend­able par­tic­i­pa­to­ry process that con­tin­ued even un­til 2017 when draft leg­is­la­tion was put for­ward to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“Na­tion­al Con­sul­ta­tive Com­mit­tees and stake­hold­er meet­ings on mi­gra­tion and refugee pro­tec­tion no longer ex­ist. Mi­gra­tion re­form and re­vi­sion of the 1976 Im­mi­gra­tion Act has long been on the ta­ble but have not yet ma­te­ri­al­ized,” Nakhid re­vealed.

She said the 2019 reg­is­tra­tion process was a wel­come ini­tia­tive that pro­vid­ed work rights to many.

“Giv­ing peo­ple the right to work al­lows them to live a life of dig­ni­ty by meet­ing their own needs ver­sus be­ing re­liant on oth­ers and re­duces vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to ex­ploita­tion. We see ac­cess to work rights as a huge boost for the econ­o­my. They can add val­ue to the en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion sec­tor, agri­cul­ture and tourism and trav­el sec­tor, and ICT ser­vices,” she added.

Nakhid said T&T is not al­ways the fi­nal des­ti­na­tion for mi­grants.

“While some may have re­turned to Venezuela, some have moved on to oth­er Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries in search of rights, ed­u­ca­tion for their chil­dren and ac­cess to cru­cial health ser­vices,” she added.

Nakhid ex­pressed hope that work rights can be ex­tend­ed to all refugees.

“Be­ing able to pay tax­es is key if they are to ben­e­fit from ed­u­ca­tion and sec­ondary health ser­vices. I’ll end by not­ing that a gen­er­a­tion of chil­dren un­e­d­u­cat­ed is a dim prospect for our fu­ture as a na­tion both post-pan­dem­ic and with an age­ing pop­u­la­tion. Mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion breeds dis­con­tent. We pray that our lead­ers will act in every­one’s best in­ter­est,” she said.

Mean­while, the co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port group Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine al­so said she had no de­tails of the mi­grant pol­i­cy and her group was not in­volved in any dis­cus­sions.

“Many mi­grants are now job­less and close to star­va­tion. We are al­ready see­ing mi­grant peo­ple on the streets. High amounts of va­grancy and home­less­ness tak­ing place,” Ram­nar­ine said.

Like Nakhid, she said she had not seen the draft pol­i­cy and did not know what it con­tains.

She said the new mi­grant pol­i­cy should in­clude pro­tec­tion for chil­dren.

Some Venezue­lans send their chil­dren un­ac­com­pa­nied so that they could get their refugee ap­pli­ca­tions processed quick­ly once they ar­rive at the UN­HCR and Liv­ing Wa­ters.

Ram­nar­ine said with harsh eco­nom­ic times, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of mi­grants have opt­ed to re­turn to Venezuela as they can­not get jobs here.

“The new draft pol­i­cy should pay spe­cif­ic at­ten­tion to chil­dren and their right to ed­u­ca­tion, safe spaces and prop­er health care be­cause Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren are de­nied ac­cess to cer­tain types of surg­eries,” she added.