KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Videos of mi­grant chil­dren on mat­tress­es in crowd­ed cells at a de­ten­tion cen­tre and asy­lum seek­ers beg­ging for hu­man­i­ty were some ev­i­dence shared by the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR) as the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights (IACHR) shun a light on T&T’s mi­grant sit­u­a­tion.

At Thurs­day’s vir­tu­al hear­ing, the IACHR not­ed that T&T con­sid­ers the en­try of mi­grants with­out doc­u­men­ta­tion il­le­gal, there­fore de­tain­ing them un­der de­plorable con­di­tions.

It al­so ex­pressed con­cern with the dis­pro­por­tion­ate im­pact on mi­grant women.

The IACHR said it al­so re­gret­ted T&T’s lack of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the hear­ing.

Co-chair­man of the CCHR, Dr Car­olyn Gomes, said the cen­tre re­ceived sev­er­al re­ports that mi­grant women and chil­dren in de­ten­tion were not sep­a­rat­ed and that chil­dren of­ten shared spaces with oth­er adults.

Gomes said the State holds mi­grant chil­dren in Ch­aguara­mas for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods, which vi­o­lates the best in­ter­est of the child.

While videos of protests and re­ports of hunger strike sur­face from time to time, she said there is a con­cern about the lack of trans­paren­cy about the op­er­a­tion of de­ten­tion cen­tres.

“The sit­u­a­tion in im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties in Trinidad & To­ba­go re­mains an ur­gent one giv­en the in­hu­mane con­di­tions, giv­en the lack of trans­paren­cy by the gov­ern­ment, de­ten­tion of per­sons for in­def­i­nite pe­ri­ods, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of the asy­lum process, the lack of in­for­ma­tion on the poli­cies and pro­ce­dures on the im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion and the de­ten­tion of chil­dren and breach of the gov­ern­ment’s oblig­a­tion to pro­vide spe­cial care for them,” Gomes said.

The CCHR sub­mit­ted a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest in Sep­tem­ber 2020, seek­ing in­for­ma­tion on the pro­ce­dures and pro­to­cols con­cern­ing im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion. Gomes said the CCHR has not yet re­ceived a re­sponse from the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, lead­ing to an in­fringe­ment un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. 

“There is a lack of trans­paren­cy by the Gov­ern­ment with re­spect to mon­i­tor­ing of con­di­tions in im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion. In­de­pen­dent bod­ies and civ­il so­ci­ety ac­tors have not been al­lowed ac­cess to de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties, and this pre-dates the pan­dem­ic,” Gomes said.

The CCHR was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the pub­lic health pro­to­cols as it re­cent­ly re­ceived a re­port of an asy­lum seek­er con­tract­ing COVID-19 in de­ten­tion. 

Gomes said that even when the State de­ports mi­grants, there are in­stances where they place every­one on the same ves­sel, re­gard­less of where they stayed, quar­an­tined or if they un­der­went COVID-19 test­ing.

She al­so stressed that while Or­ders of Su­per­vi­sion serve as an al­ter­na­tive to de­ten­tion, the courts ap­ply the prac­tice in­con­sis­tent­ly. It al­so re­quires a bond pay­ment, which many mi­grants can­not af­ford.

“We have re­ceived re­ports that there are 10 chil­dren cur­rent­ly in de­ten­tion who will not be re­leased be­fore the bond is paid, and the fam­i­ly is scram­bling to gath­er that bond. It is, in fact, a vi­o­la­tion of the non-pe­nal­iza­tion prin­ci­ple. 

The prin­ci­ple of non-re­foul­ment gives pro­tec­tion un­der in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights, refugee, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and cus­tom­ary law. Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice of the High Com­mis­sion­er on Hu­man Rights (OHCHR), it pro­hibits states from trans­fer­ring or re­mov­ing in­di­vid­u­als from their ju­ris­dic­tion or ef­fec­tive con­trol when there are sub­stan­tial grounds for be­liev­ing that the per­son would be at risk of ir­repara­ble harm up­on re­turn.

Gomes said there are oth­er cas­es that they did not use in the hear­ing but were hap­py to pro­vide to the IACHR.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­cent re­port by Con­nec­tas, an in­ter­na­tion­al cen­tre of jour­nal­ists, smug­glers traf­ficked 21,000 women and girls be­tween Venezuela and T&T in the last six years.

Gomes not­ed that T&T was a sig­na­to­ry to the UN Con­ven­tion against Transna­tion­al Or­ga­nized Crime and its pro­to­cols and es­tab­lished a Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit and Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act. De­spite this, she said hu­man traf­fick­ing net­works ex­plod­ed due to the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Venezuela, where smug­glers lured many women with the promise of jobs, but they end up work­ing in broth­els.

Gomes al­so not­ed that in the US State De­part­ment’s 2020 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port, it main­tained its Tier 2 rank­ing of T&T. This was be­cause of T&T’s in­abil­i­ty to meet the min­i­mum stan­dards to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing.

“The re­port links gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to traf­fick­ing in per­sons. A 2019 Cari­com re­port links the Trinidad & To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to hu­man traf­fick­ing and smug­gling rings be­tween Trinidad & To­ba­go and Venezuela.”

De­spite Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley an­nounc­ing that stiffer penal­ties are im­mi­nent, Gomes said the gov­ern­ment must do more to curb this se­ri­ous hu­man right is­sue.

She said that the State on­ly charged and pros­e­cut­ed a few peo­ple and has not charged a sin­gle gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial.

CCHR ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Denise Pitch­er ac­knowl­edged the ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment to ho­n­our in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions.

It in­clud­ed the reg­is­tra­tion of Venezue­lan mi­grants in June 2019, where 15,653 reg­is­tered over two weeks. This na­tion­al reg­is­tra­tion al­lowed Venezue­lans to live and work in T&T legal­ly.

“This is a tremen­dous hu­man­i­tar­i­an ges­ture that has al­lowed for the eco­nom­ic mo­bil­i­ty, self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, and in­te­gra­tion of mi­grants and refugees.

How­ev­er, there are sev­er­al thou­sands more Venezue­lans that were not able to reg­is­ter un­der this process, and there are over 30 oth­er na­tion­al­i­ties that seek asy­lum in T&T and are ex­clud­ed from the na­tion­al reg­is­tra­tion process,” Pitch­er said.

The CCHR al­so not­ed, with ap­pre­ci­a­tion, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley state­ments to dif­fuse pub­lic hos­til­i­ty to­ward Venezue­lan mi­grants and dis­cour­age at­tempts to blame the Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty for the surge of COVID-19 cas­es.

Pitch­er al­so ac­knowl­edged the in­clu­sion of mi­grants and refugees in the COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme.