Venezue­lan women have com­plained of be­ing ex­ploit­ed and dis­re­spect­ed by not on­ly or­di­nary cit­i­zens but al­so by T&T's im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials says Dr Mar­lene Attzs, lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

She said these mi­grants were in­ter­viewed in 2020 as part of the Pan Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (PADF) con­ver­sa­tion se­ries as well as Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) re­searchers.

“Some of them, by the time they hit the shores of T&T, there is a kind of vi­o­lence met­ed out to them and ex­ploita­tion that is met­ed out to them by some of our state agents. There is the ele­phant in the room, the stereo­types of fe­male mi­grants that they could not pos­si­bly be com­ing here to make an hon­est liv­ing and to re­mit funds back to their fam­i­ly. They couldn’t be here be­cause they are try­ing to eke out a de­cent liveli­hood for their fam­i­lies back home, but they are here be­cause they want to en­gage in pros­ti­tu­tion,” Attzs said speak­ing at a vir­tu­al fo­rum on Venezue­lan mi­grants host­ed by the Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Unit of the De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ics, UWI, St Au­gus­tine, on Fri­day.

Some of the mi­grant women are even hu­mil­i­at­ed while do­ing in­ter­views to en­ter the coun­try.

“Some of the women in­ter­viewed have ac­tu­al­ly said that they are ridiculed by T&T’s im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials and state agents in terms of they come here legal­ly and an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cial would say to them ‘I don’t want to see your Let­ter of In­vi­ta­tion be­cause I know what you’re here to do.’ Then he or she will use the full brunt of the pow­er that they have to be­lit­tle and em­bar­rass that mi­grant.”

Attzs said T&T needs a gen­der pol­i­cy for mi­grants.

“If T&T is in­te­grat­ing Venezue­lan im­mi­grants in­to our so­ci­ety, it has to be an all-en­com­pass­ing in­te­gra­tion in­clud­ing the gen­der pol­i­cy,” she added.

She said T&T needs an im­mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy not on­ly for Venezue­lans but for oth­er Caribbean coun­tries as well as coun­tries as far as Africa.

Mar­i­ano Browne, CEO, Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, who al­so spoke at the vir­tu­al fo­rum, es­ti­mates that at least 3.5 per cent of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion are al­ready made up of Venezue­lan mi­grants.

He said if there are 50,000 im­mi­grants in T&T then that works out to be at least 3.5 per cent or 3.6 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion.

He added that T&T needs a prop­er pol­i­cy on mi­grants and the coun­try should have fore­seen mass mi­gra­tion from Venezuela.

“What we have here is a fail­ure to plan. Venezuela has been im­plod­ing for some time. This is not news and this has been hap­pen­ing for some time. His­tor­i­cal­ly T&T has al­ways been a sort of haven for Venezue­lans dur­ing their time of cri­sis.”