At­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed has called on Gov­ern­ment to have con­sul­ta­tions with var­i­ous groups on the planned Re­turnees Bill which is geared to­wards repa­tri­at­ing lo­cals from refugee camps in the Mid­dle East.

“I’m call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to please take the pol­i­tics out of the process ... There are crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers out­side of the Gov­ern­ment will­ing to col­lab­o­rate and as­sist in the repa­tri­a­tion, re­uni­fi­ca­tion and rein­te­gra­tion of our cit­i­zens in a dig­ni­fied and hu­mane man­ner. Let’s, there­fore, see a draft of this Bill and help to achieve con­sen­sus amongst stake­hold­ers,” Mo­hammed said last week.

The bill is ex­pect­ed to be pi­lot­ed in Par­lia­ment some­time af­ter the next ses­sion be­gins. It’s geared to­wards the repa­tri­a­tion of peo­ple be­ing kept in Mid­dle East refugee camps fol­low­ing the 2018 de­feat of the Is­lam­ic State ter­ror­ist group. In 2017, Gov­ern­ment stat­ed that 130 peo­ple—men, women, and chil­dren—left T&T from 2012 to 2015 for ISIS con­flict zones, join­ing that en­ti­ty.

Mo­hammed has spear­head­ed repa­tri­a­tion ef­forts for 72 chil­dren and 25 women de­tained in refugee camps and cen­tres in North East­ern Syr­ia and Iraq since 2019.

Mo­hammed said these are all T&T cit­i­zens, “Amongst the chil­dren, 33 were born in Syr­ia to moth­ers who are Trinida­di­ans. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 56 chil­dren are un­der age of 12. The Ad­min­is­tra­tive Au­thor­i­ties that con­trol these de­ten­tion cen­tres have the mech­a­nisms and elec­tron­ic da­ta bases to as­sist any gov­ern­ment that re­quests rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to car­ry out DNA tests if re­quired.”

She said most of the fa­thers of these Trinida­di­an chil­dren have been killed. Mo­hammed said since 2019, some of the rel­a­tives of the Trinida­di­an refugees be­gan re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion from the In­ter­na­tion­al Red Cross about their con­di­tion at the camps.

Mo­hammed said a draft Repa­tri­a­tion bill in 2020 was very dra­con­ian, con­sul­ta­tion very flawed and the bill was with­drawn. She added a Repa­tri­a­tion Plan was made avail­able to Gov­ern­ment in 2020. She al­so not­ed the ap­point­ment of the Nizam Mo­hammed-led com­mit­tee, but lament­ed no one has been sent back to T&T.

Cit­ing the up­com­ing Re­turnees Bill in Par­lia­ment, Mo­hammed said, “Be­ing one of the very few per­sons trained in Refugee Law, In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man­i­tar­i­an and Hu­man Rights Law and hav­ing served in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fam­i­ly Court, the In­ter­na­tion­al Civ­il Child Ab­duc­tion Au­thor­i­ty, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and oth­er re­lat­ed fields, I con­tin­ue to be con­cerned about the ex­cus­es and glar­ing de­lay­ing tac­tics and re­sis­tance em­a­nat­ing from cer­tain quar­ters.”

Claim­ing a di­vide-and-rule strat­e­gy was be­ing de­ployed, she added, “We’ve seen how re­al Is­lama­pho­bia is and the re­cent un­fold­ing dra­ma with­in the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and oth­er Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus speaks vol­umes about Gov­ern­ment’s sin­cer­i­ty to want to repa­tri­ate cit­i­zens.

“I’m there­fore ask­ing kind­ly for deep­er con­sul­ta­tion on this leg­is­la­tion.”

Mo­hammed said the rel­a­tives are crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers but ques­tioned why they haven’t been en­gaged in con­sul­ta­tions. She said civ­il so­ci­ety and oth­er groups and in­di­vid­u­als, as well as, the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion should be en­gaged in con­sul­ta­tions.

Mo­hammed said it was about bal­anc­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns with hu­man­i­tar­i­an and hu­man rights con­sid­er­a­tions.

“Mil­i­tary minds alone can­not fix this. The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty should be at the fore­front of this process ... I once again of­fer my will­ing­ness to make peace with the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to re­solve this is­sue in a more time­ly man­ner. The elec­tion sea­son is around the cor­ner and elec­tions have con­se­quences. There are hurts that were in­flict­ed up­on the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty over the years. The PNM Gov­ern­ment still has some time to recog­nise and re­pair this,” she said.

Mo­hammed said in 2019 a Trinida­di­an moth­er re­ceived in­for­ma­tion about her two sons in Syr­ia and with the help of Pink Floyd’s Roger Wa­ters, they were brought back to Trinidad.

“Those boys have since been re­unit­ed with their loved ones and are do­ing ex­treme­ly well in school . They’ve nev­er posed any threat or dan­ger to any­one,” Mo­hammed said.