radhica.sookraj@guardian.co.tt
They’ve faced every form of abuse–domestic violence, xenophobia, sexual harassment and emotional trauma as they fled their homeland of Venezuela to find a new life in Trinidad.
But now with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, Venezuelan migrant women are facing mass unemployment, starvation, eviction and possible death not just by COVID-19 infections, but also by physical abuse from the ones they love.
In an interview with Guardian Media, Luisa Gonzales said she is terrified of the future she now faces. Every day she wonders where she would get food for herself and her two daughters.
“Life is terrible since the pandemic but I thank God that I still have people who help me. In Venezuela, there is no one to help. People are dying of starvation,” she said.
Gonzales said she can no longer provide money to send back to Venezuela and every day when she wakes up, she sees the hungry faces of her mother, her two daughters and her seven siblings whom she left behind.
The grandmother of five said she did everything possible in Trinidad to earn money to send back home and was thankful for the good people she met along the way.
“I worked in construction, domestic work and even cutting grass to make some money to provide but as soon as the pandemic hit I was out of work,” she said.
Last Monday, when she opened her cupboards, all she had was a packet of cornflour which she used to make arepas for herself and her 16-year-old daughter Ruby. Then they used their last few dollars to travel to San Fernando in a desperate bid to get assistance from Angie Ramnarine, the coordinator of the La Romaine Migrant Support Group.
Gonzales said her family has been dying of hunger in Venezuela and she paid US$350 to come here by boat in January 2020.
Gonzales said her worst experience was last year when a taxi driver tried to interfere with her while heading to Marabella. She escaped sexual assault by fighting him off.
Meanwhile, another Venezuelan migrant Ruby Romero who has been living in Trinidad for the past year said she too has been out of work.
“Since restaurants were shut down, I have no work. I am very worried about the rent because we have no money to pay. Not having money means that we cannot eat,” she said.
Romero said she paid US$350 to come to Trinidad with her daughter in 2019.
“At first we went to Brazil but that did not work out so we went back to Venezuela. Then we came to Trinidad. My husband came afterwards. We both had work but after the lockdown, we have no more work. It is hard,” Romero said.
In central Trinidad, migrant Mayra Urbina said she too needed help.
“We have nothing to eat. We have no work,” Urbina said. She explained that life in Trinidad has been difficult adding that during the pandemic she faced job loss. She said a former employer stripped searched her and she never recovered from the emotional trauma.
A week ago, Guardian Media also found a woman named Leidys Dejong, who claimed to be a Venezuelan doctor, living on Harris Promenade. Dejong said she too was evicted.
And in Penal, Auris Marcano, 29, gave birth without medical assistance in the sweltering heat of an abandoned container.
Marcano, her sister Ana and their husbands, as well as 12 children, were also evicted earlier this year after they lost their jobs.
Ana said she left two sons back in Venezuela and they hate her because she could no longer provide financial aid to them.
“They say I am a bad mother because I am not sending money back home but since we lost our jobs, we cannot provide for ourselves,” Ana said.
Migrant families get help
But while hundreds of migrant women deal with the socio-economic turbulence of the pandemic, some migrant women have also been resilient.
Director of Living Waters Community Rhonda Maingot, who spoke during an online seminar hosted by the Trade and Economic Unit of the University of the West Indies (UWI), said many Venezuelans lost their livelihoods because of the pandemic.
Maingot also said there were horrifying stories of child abuse and gender-based violence among the migrants.
But amid the chaos, Maingot said a few Venezuelans have shown remarkable resilience as they weather the storm of the pandemic.
“A lot of people in this 16,000 registered are very eager to get going and to work and to bring all their skills to T&T and the economy here. We see a lot of people getting into businesses here and doing well. People also like agriculture and want to get into this,” Maingot said.
For those finding it difficult to get food, the group has offered a range of assistance to migrants including food aid, education, help for those facing sexual abuse as well as requests for asylum.
Meanwhile, Ramnarine said on average the La Romaine Migrant Support Group provides food assistance to 70 to 100 Venezuelan migrants in South Trinidad.
She also agreed that some migrant women face sexual harassment and xenophobia from people who believe that Venezuelans were not deserving of help.
“The pandemic has affected everyone but while locals can get aid from State agencies, Venezuelan migrant women have to depend on the goodwill of people or the support from humanitarian groups which do not always reach everyone,” she said.
Ramnarine lamented that many Venezuelan women continue to face homelessness and evictions.
Others, she said, live unseen shuttered behind the doors of brothels where they are forced to perform the most atrocious sex acts under the pommel of violence.
