Refugee reform urgently needed

IT IS A matter of great relief that the TT national and his family who were stranded in Ukraine have made it safely across the border.

The Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs is to be commended for its efforts in securing this outcome and all of our diplomatic personnel in Brussels, as well as international allies who offered assistance in this matter, are to be thanked.

The TT citizen and his family endured what must have been a terrifying ordeal. Their journey out of Ukraine was a long and difficult one, according to Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Dr Amery Browne.

This country should learn lessons, however, from the peril so narrowly escaped by one of its own and his loved ones.

The current turmoil involving Russia’s flagrant attack on Ukraine has dramatically underlined the need, the world over, for a complete re-examination of refugee policies.

Since Russia’s attack began, many European countries have opened their borders and relaxed visa and residency requirements for Ukrainians wishing to flee the bombardment. After coming under criticism for initially resisting, even the United Kingdom relaxed visa requirements, though some believe by not enough.

This country, having now seen firsthand the vital importance of having conduits through which refugees can be assisted, must re-examine its own policies and practices with regard to refugees seeking entry here.

It is not simply that our laws and policies have been deficient. It is also the fact that officials have at times seemed to adopt an aggressively inhumane approach to potential refugees that borders on the barbaric.

Women and children have been routinely caught up and separated.

A probe into the appalling death of a baby in the arms of its mother during an incident at sea involving the Coast Guard weeks ago is yet to be closed or its findings made available to the public. There are concerns such a probe will be of little use, especially since many of the witnesses were reportedly deported.

Such conduct is unconscionable. And it is rank hypocrisy for this country now to pat itself on the back for the successful extraction of one of its own from Ukraine without taking a good look in the mirror.

Efforts at reforming the legal framework for dealing with refugees seem to be infernally slow.

Meanwhile, basic respect for the authority of the courts is not shown. State officials have looked the other way when entire families are separated and deported pending legal proceedings or registration processes under international public law agencies here.

With an increasingly unstable Vladimir Putin in Russia sabre-rattling by threatening the world with nuclear war, and with Nicolas Maduro in next-door Venezuela seemingly intent on joining him, refugee policy reform is urgently needed here.