Give Venezuelans a chance to help build TT

JOSHUA SURTEES

Not many Trinidadians have spoken to Venezuelan refugees long enough to get to know them. I want to tell you about the ones I have met, in particular a girl named Lilli Hernandez.*

Her father, Jorge*, was forced out of his job for criticising the government and 14-year-old Lilli knew tough times lay ahead.

The Hernandez family comes from one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Its murder rate far exceeds Trinidad’s. Yes, such a place exists. Venezuelans are not just fleeing poverty, but violence too. Life amid the economic crisis had already been precarious. Lilli’s schooling suffered as teachers deserted the education system in droves.
Ladrones (thieves) ruled the streets and her parents refused to let Lilli and her sister go anywhere alone. With no steady income, the family’s previously comfortable existence was in turmoil, until Jorge met a pastor from Trinidad who suggested a new life on this Caribbean island with its better economy and work opportunities.

At first Jorge came alone, sending back what he could. But hotel bills became a burden and his wife and children feared for their own safety and his.

Now registered as a political refugee here in Trinidad, Jorge, an educated middle-class writer, earns money unloading boxes at a grocery. He wants to write again, but companies cannot legally employ him because immigration laws do not allow it. Lilli’s older sister, who left university when the family fled Venezuela, now works in a factory. On the streets, men ask her “How much?”

Lilli’s English is good: she learned from watching TV shows in her childhood. Her five-year-old brother also understands English. The rest of the family do not.

I met the Hernandez family – kind, polite, church-going folk — last year at a weekly English language class for refugees taught by TESOL volunteers at UWI. It was the first time I’d witnessed Trinidadians helping refugees and it was so touching I wanted to cry.

In a nurturing environment, children, parents and grandparents received the language skills necessary to better integrate into society. They met other refugees from Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Syria and Pakistan, and took part in music, dance, drama and puppet shows. It was clear that for many this was the only fun leisure time they had enjoyed all week. It was poignant.

But away from this safe space, the refugees told me, life in Trinidad is hard. They are at the bottom rung of the ladder and vulnerable to exploitation.

They told me stories that were difficult to listen to. Like the soldier who said he deserted the Venezuelan army after refusing orders to shoot a student protester. After three weeks working on a construction site in Chaguanas he went for his pay but was turned away with nothing. His girlfriend later told me that drug dealers were threatening her family and a taxi driver had tried to rape her.

The Government has a responsibility to protect refugees under the 1951 Geneva Convention. The media have the power to create an environment that facilitates such protection. If these institutions neglect their duties, it is vital that ordinary citizens take responsibility for welcoming and supporting those coming here in desperate situations.

That support could be as simple as inviting them in for coffee, or as generous as helping them learn English or showing them where to buy the cheapest food and clothes. As an island of religious people, surely this is what the various gods would expect?

Some Venezuelan refugees are finding it so tough here they want to leave for other countries, but once granted asylum by the authorities, it is difficult to do so.

They are stuck here, without the right to work or send their children to free public schools. In at least one case, a man was detained and deported for simply forgetting to carry his asylum certificate.

People ask why some choose not to seek asylum and instead work undercover for low pay or turn to prostitution and other activities. Refugees and migrants do not arrive in foreign countries with crime or prostitution aforethought. Work, survival and acceptance are their aims. If we make it harder to achieve those aims, people become desperate.

Trinidad has accepted refugees before. It took in Jews escaping Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. But its treatment of them was questionable – hundreds were interned as “alien enemies” during the war. Trinidadians, who know what it is to be migrants in other countries and to be victimised, should take their example from the people in UWI’s language department, and the volunteer students from TESOL, who showed compassion and understanding, rather than that wartime aberration. The Hernandez family are coping, just about. With more support, they could thrive, pay taxes and contribute to building a better Trinidad. They could see this place as a salvation.

*Names changed for protection reasons

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"Give Venezuelans a chance to help build TT"

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