Gail Alexan­der

The Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights of­fice has called on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gov­ern­ment to safe­guard the hu­man rights of refugee and mi­grant chil­dren - and it says chil­dren should nev­er be forcibly de­port­ed.

The UNHR of­fice in Gene­va did so yes­ter­day, stat­ing it was deeply con­cerned at T&T’s de­ci­sion to de­port 16 Venezue­lan chil­dren and nine adults at the same time a le­gal ap­pli­ca­tion was be­ing lodged against their re­moval.

UNHR spokesper­son Liz Throssell de­liv­ered a state­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day. The state­ment was list­ed on UNHRC’s web­site along­side oth­ers re­gard­ing hu­man rights is­sues in Cam­bo­dia, Iran and Ethiopia.

Throssell re­count­ed the is­sue con­cern­ing the group which ar­rived in T&T on No­vem­ber 17 and was lat­er placed on two boats and es­cort­ed by Coast Guard back in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters. Lo­cal courts dis­missed their ap­pli­ca­tion to stay as they were con­sid­ered out­side of T&T’s ju­ris­dic­tion when the mat­ter came up on Mon­day. But the group re­turned to T&T on Tues­day and was im­me­di­ate­ly tak­en in­to cus­tody by po­lice.

In call­ing for T&T au­thor­i­ties to safe­guard the hu­man rights of refugee and mi­grant chil­dren, Throssell said this should in­clude en­sur­ing ac­cess to due process and pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards con­sis­tent with the prin­ci­ple of non-re­foul­ment.

“All refugees and mi­grants re­gard­less of sta­tus are en­ti­tled to the re­spect and pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights. With re­gard to refugee and mi­grant chil­dren, states have a spe­cial du­ty of care - the best in­ter­ests of the child must be a pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion in all de­ci­sions af­fect­ing them,” Throssell said.

“Chil­dren should nev­er be forcibly de­port­ed based on their or their par­ents’ mi­gra­tion sta­tus.”

Throssell said the pre­con­di­tion to any re­turn in­volv­ing a child is that an in­de­pen­dent, im­par­tial de­ci­sion has been tak­en, in­volv­ing child pro­tec­tion of­fi­cials and that a re­turn is a sus­tain­able so­lu­tion that will en­sure the rights, wel­fare and best in­ter­ests of the child.

She al­so said state par­ties to the UN’s Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child must safe­guard the rights of all chil­dren on their ter­ri­to­ry, ir­re­spec­tive of their na­tion­al­i­ty or im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus.

“We urge all gov­ern­ments to sus­pend all forced re­turns amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to safe­guard the health of mi­grants and com­mu­ni­ties and pro­vide safe, le­gal path­ways for mi­grants, in­clud­ing chil­dren, to reg­u­larise their sta­tus and avoid de­por­ta­tion risk.”

The de­por­ta­tion is­sue al­so at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the Pe­nal Fo­rum, a Venezue­lan hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tion that pro­vides le­gal as­sis­tance pro bono to peo­ple sub­ject to ar­bi­trary de­ten­tions and their rel­a­tives.

Di­rec­tor/vice pres­i­dent Gon­za­lo Himiob said the NGO is tak­ing up the case. He de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “del­i­cate” and said they will file a re­quest for pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures of pro­tec­tion for the mi­grants with the In­ter-Amer­i­can Court of Hu­man Rights.

Himiob claimed that “ar­bi­trar­i­ly and in vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al pro­vi­sions,” the 16 chil­dren and nine adults were “placed in pre­car­i­ous boats and re­turned to Venezuela.” He said in 2018 the Pe­nal Fo­rum in­ter­vened in an­oth­er de­por­ta­tion case in­volv­ing 80 peo­ple.

“This shows that there is a state pol­i­cy of not al­low­ing Venezue­lans to en­ter T&T even in breach of clear in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on this is­sue be­cause T&T has rat­i­fied the con­ven­tion on the sta­tus of refugees,” he claimed.