(Trinidad Express) Even with borders closed 70 per cent of Venezuelan migrants entered Trinidad through illegal entry points.
This was one of the findings in the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) for 2020. The findings, which also tracked education, employment and health care, were discussed on Friday night during UWI’s virtual discussion on Venezuelan Immigration to Trinidad and Tobago: A comparison of the Displacement Tracking Matrix Reports for 2019 and 2020, which featured panellists Leigh-Ann Waldropt-Bonaire with contributions from Dr Roger Hosein, Dr Anthony Gonsalves, and Eric Walcott.
Waldropt-Bonair said a total of 950 Venezuelan migrants participated in DTM 2020 with the area with the highest number of respondents was Arima closely followed by Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo. In 2019 however, 216. She noted that 2019 showed a much reduced survey mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We captured incomplete as well as complete education and in looking at completed education we note that in 2019 there were a number of responders completed secondary school education however in 2020 we are having a high number of persons who completed secondary education but as we progress throughout the other age groups we are seeing that there were reported cases of more persons with university level education. Based on our interviews with authorities and other key stakeholders, this finding varied to the national registration exercise information that was captured during that exercise in June 2019,” Waldropt-Bonair said.
Regarding pregnant interviewees Waldropt-Bonair said there was a two percent decrease between 2019 DTM and 2020 DTM. We are also seeing baseline interviews refer to mounting pregnant female migrants and that is certainly something we need to be aware of in terms of policy makers planning our programmes for migrants.
“We are seeing not much difference between 2019 and 2020 findings. We know that the largest category of registrants were refugees and asylum seekers in both years”, she said.
Meanwhile, an examination of routes showed that there was no significant variation between the two in 2019 and 2020. “The preferred mode of entering Trinidad and Tobago was via boat in both years. With regard to the entry points in 2019, 70 percent of migrants entered through unofficial entry points compared with 42 percent in 2020. Once again there was a conflict based on interviews with key stakeholders who noted an escalation of irregular entries amongst Venezuelan nationals especially after the introduction of visa requirements and closure of national borders in 2020,” Waldropt-Bonair said.
“We note that in 2019 there was an increase in unemployment and we are seeing that also in 2020 but what’s interesting to note is that the employment figures for 2019 we are seeing an increase in employment during the post migration period however in 2020 we are seeing a decrease in employment during the post migration period.
In 2019, some 90 percent of responders of school age children stated that their children did not have access to formal education. In 2020 education in Trinidad and Tobago inaccessible to 59 percent of children residing with responders is the main reason for lack o
