By Kamilah Morain, Research Associate at OBMICA
Forced migration involving the crossing an international border brings with it, certain inherent risks for migrants. One such risk is the risk of statelessness. A number of reasons may cause statelessness resulting from forced migration across an international border. The latter include:
· a prolonged absence from one’s country of nationality which may render one’s citizenship ineffective
· loss of documents or inability of the forced migrant to access legal documentation proving their nationality
· in the case of children, the inability of parents to access birth registration services, birth in transit, conflict in nationality laws and family separation while crossing a border can result in statelessness.
Many Venezuelan migrants across the region are faced with these challenges that increase their risk of becoming stateless.
In order to avoid statelessness among Venezuelan migrants across Latin America and the Caribbean countries that host these populations, competent authorities must not only be aware of the risk. They must also take a proactive policy and possibly legislative steps to ensure that statelessness does not become a reality for the many Venezuelan migrants currently on the move across the region.
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago has signed the Convention Relating to the Rights of the Status of Stateless Persons but has not translated the Convention into domestic law nor has it developed a Statelessness Determination Procedure, which would allow it to identify and provide adequate protection to Stateless Persons who reside within its jurisdiction. This means that Stateless persons in Trinidad and Tobago may not be afforded the protections due to them under international law. In addition to this, Trinidad and Tobago has not signed the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which lays out a set of rules for the conferral and non-withdrawal of citizenship in an attempt to curtail the rise of and eventually eliminate incidences of Statelessness that may arise in any given jurisdiction.
Recently, it has emerged that the risk of statelessness among migrants in Trinidad and Tobago may be increasing for children born to migrant parents who have an irregular migratory status at the time of their child’s birth despite the fact that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to all persons born in Trinidad and Tobago with a few exceptions. Parents of these children report new and increasing obstacles to the registration of their child’s birth. This trend has been particularly visible where both parents are irregular migrants.
Birth registration is the first step to providing a child with a legal identity and all countries that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including Trinidad and Tobago have committed themselves to ensuring that the right to immediate birth registration for all children is respected and upheld. If not, the absence of a legal identity creates a series of barriers which impede one’s ability to fully benefit from a suite of social, economic, political, and cultural rights and severely hinders the development of individuals within a society.
New challenges in Trinidad and Tobago
Now in Trinidad and Tobago, some Venezuelan migrants report encountering significant difficulties when registering the birth of their children because of their irregular status. Persons who have also been registered as part of the Government-led registration process also encounter difficulties when trying to register the births of their children due to the documentary requirements in order to complete the process.
Venezuelan migrants are being requested to submit valid passports or certified copies of their passports as a valid form of identification. This practice is problematic because many Venezuelans are not in possession of a valid passport and find themselves unable to renew this document due to the exorbitant costs or because it is simply materially impossible given the widely known challenges that the Venezuelan Government faces to renew these documents.
A Venezuelan national ID (cédula) can also be accepted as a legal identity document to register the birth of a child. However, the document must be translated and, in some instances, accompanied by a verification letter issued by the Venezuelan Consulate in Trinidad and Tobago. Translation costs and the cost of the letter are prohibitive for many Venezuelan migrant families in Trinidad and Tobago and results in them not completing the birth registration process in a timely manner.
In Trinidad and Tobago, holders of the government issued registration card, for persons who participated in the registration process which was conducted for two weeks in June 2019, reported that the card is not considered to be a form of national identification and therefore cannot be used to register the birth of a child.
The UNHCR card, a form of identification document issued to persons who have registered with the UNHCR and are in the process of having their cases examined by the organisation, is also not considered to be a valid form of ID and therefore on its own cannot be used to register the birth of a child. This poses specific challenges for persons who are in the refugee status determination process especially if they have no other valid forms of identification from their country of origin, as they are unable to seek out the services of the Venezuelan Consulate in Trinidad for fear that it might compromise their asylum claims.
Persons of concern without any valid identification, that is to say no valid passport or cédula from their country of origin, can be accompanied by an ‘informant’ occupier of the house or building in which the birth took place or a person who was present at the birth in order to register the birth and apply for a birth certificate. The names of the parents can be endorsed on the document even if the parents have no valid national ID with a UNHCR card or other document merely being used to confirm the photo ID of the parents and their name for endorsement on the birth certificate. Neither the UNHCR card nor the Government Registration Card will be accepted as a valid from of ID in the absence of a passport or cédula.
What should be done?
Officials in Trinidad and Tobago cannot be accused of deliberately withholding birth registration services from persons entitled to birth right citizenship in Trinidad and Tobago. However, one must recognise that procedures and protocols have to be adapted in the matter of birth registration in order to ensure that children born to migrants are not denied a legal identity or the nationality to which they are entitled under the Constitution. The current mechanisms in place are not readily accessible to the Venezuelan migrant population since these people are often unfamiliar with both the laws of Trinidad and Tobago and the language. The process is therefore challenging for them to navigate without assistance. The costs associated with some of the procedures are also prohibitive to many and the requirement for some to obtain documents from the Venezuelan Consulate while they are engaged in a process to obtain refugee status amounts to a violation of their rights and can ultimately jeopardise their asylum case. Many families therefore do not see them as feasible options. As elsewhere in the region, special measures need to be considered in order for children born to Venezuelans on the move do not miss birth registration and the attendant rights, which this brings.
Kamilah Morain originally wrote this article in English. She is currently the Deputy Director of the Pan American Foundation in Trinidad and Tobago. This article has been translated into Spanish.