The Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) has called on the Gov­ern­ment and stake­hold­ers to join us in pre­serv­ing the progress achieved un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR).

Their state­ment comes five days af­ter the UN­HCR an­nounced it would per­ma­nent­ly close its na­tion­al of­fice in Trinidad and To­ba­go on 31 Au­gust due to glob­al fund­ing short­falls. The Port-of-Spain of­fice will stop serv­ing the pub­lic from 25 Ju­ly. All op­er­a­tions will be man­aged re­mote­ly by the UN­HCR’s Mul­ti-Coun­try Of­fice in Pana­ma, sup­port­ed by a min­i­mal staff pres­ence lo­cal­ly.

The CCHR says it is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of vi­tal ser­vices for refugees and asy­lum seek­ers, in­clud­ing the reg­is­tra­tion process, le­gal pro­tec­tions, and ad­vo­ca­cy for their fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights.

"We have for­mal­ly writ­ten to the rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties to ex­press both our readi­ness and strong de­sire to con­tin­ue the es­sen­tial work UN­HCR be­gan. How­ev­er, this can­not be done with­out the com­mit­ted part­ner­ship of our gov­ern­ment and civ­il so­ci­ety al­lies," the state­ment said.

It con­tin­ued, "As proud part­ners of the UN­HCR, we at CCHR reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to safe­guard­ing the rights of asy­lum seek­ers, refugees, and state­less per­sons. We owe the UN­HCR a debt of grat­i­tude that can on­ly be re­paid by ad­vanc­ing the cause they so brave­ly cham­pi­oned."