It was an unbearably hot day in late July 2023 when we arrived at Lajas Blancas, a Migratory Reception Centre located in the Panamanian region of the Darién, on the banks of the river Chucunaque, where thousands of migrants arrive each day after crossing, in small wooden boats and by foot, one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes. Darién is an area of more than 500,000 hectares of rainforest, steep mountains, and vast swamps that separates Colombia from Panama. As we delved deeper into the reception centre, thousands of people gathered in queues, trying to get something to eat, clothing and some rest in rarely available shaded spaces. They stay there for days or weeks until they find a way to continue their journeys to Costa Rica and northward to the final destination, the United States; a journey that can take up to 3 months.

According to UNHCR, a record 248,000 migrants crossed the Darién Gap in 2022, most of them fleeing hunger, poverty, and violence from Venezuela (55%), Haiti (14%), Ecuador (14%) and more recently from China. By January 2023, there was a seven-fold increase. The reduction in visa granting, together with restrictive immigration policies across the region, have forced migrants to seek alternative, more dangerous routes.

As we spoke to several migrants, they tell a common story of conditions in their home country that became intolerable and left them with no reasonable alternative other than to flee due to reasons of physical insecurity, loss of shelter and livelihood, or because their ability to care for themselves and their families were radically undermined. Pursuing a better future is a struggle for survival, including crossing the Darién. Almost all arrive at Lajas Blancas, the temporary Migration Reception Centre, with no shoes, few or no clothes, wounded and ill, and in need of urgent medical assistance and immediate humanitarian support, particularly women and girls, who are at an extremely high risk of sexual violence and trafficking. They are in desperate need of protection for their right to live lives with dignity.

The denial of rights and victimhood

Panama is ‘the bridge of the world’ for its impressive maritime and air connectivity. The Darién is, however, a long and dense jungle area that connects South and Central America. Yet an almost impossible crossing that became the route of last resort for many forced to leave their country and enter a migration process because of violence, poverty, food deprivation and hunger, gender violence and ill-health.

All the way from Colombia to Panama, migrants pay ‘coyotes’ to cross the jungle, with the poorest migrants taking longer, more dangerous pathways and reinforcing a cycle of dispossession. In other words, how much they can pay determines the distance, the route, the exposure to risk, where they arrive once they have crossed, and when they would continue their journey.

Despite increasing reports of human rights violations in such routes, the response in the Darién is minimal, with few governmental programmes available and a significant dependency on humanitarian aid from organisations such as Médicins Sans Frontiéres and UN agencies.

Upon arrival at Lajas Blancas, the scenario is highly militarised. Alongside the extremely hot temperatures and poor sanitation, it makes the place seem rather inhospitable and unsafe. The first contact is with military staff from SENAFRONT and the Panamanian National Migration Service. Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and other NGOs and UN agencies are also present, all located after initial checkpoints by the Panamanian authorities. With mandatory registration, migrants are forced to stand in long lines, without exception, even for those with ill health, carrying a baby or caring for family members with disabilities.

Migrants show visible signs of physical and mental exhaustion, wounds in feet and legs due to insect bites, lacerations on legs and arms, fever, diarrhoea, vomiting, dehydration and malnutrition, as well as psychological disorders. But arriving demands a focused effort to understand confusing space organisation and to identify points of assistance and help, as well as available places for rest and overnight stay, and how and where to board (paid) transportation that will take them from that Reception Centre to the border with Costa Rica, and beyond. There are other  (unregulated) private businesses that offer services of various kinds, such as telephone, transportation, food, and monetary transfers, among others, which add up to the chaotic environment in these centres. The constant need to pay for every step of the way, and to a large extent for essential resources, has led to the creation of a subsistence economy in which everything is bought and sold: food, clothing, cigarettes, sending money, renting tents; and even the body.

On 19^th September 2023, at the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Panamá’s President Laurentino Cortizo Cohen declared, “This is an unsustainable situation…in which we are victims and not responsible.” To be clear, forcibly migrants crossing the Darien have been victimised precisely because of violent and destructive denial of rights, protection and even humanity before, during and after crossing.

Shared responsibility for the human rights of forced migrants

Situations of mass displacement of the kind seen crossing the Darien raise important questions about states’ responsibility to protect. During the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration in Brazil, Panama and other Latin American countries unanimously adopted the Action Plan to protect the human rights of persecuted and displaced people at the national and regional levels. A decade later, Panamá’s Director of the Migratory agency, Samira Gozaine, stated that Panamá is now in the process of subcontracting charter flights to “deport or expel the greatest number of people” irregularly arriving by air, sea or land, something that not only contradicts Cartagena’s duties towards refugees within the region, but directly contravenes international law against nonrefoulement.

A polarised approach to irregular migration management not only risks undermining and weakening national and international law, but also diverts attention from a collaborative approach to respond and protect the lives and rights of refugees and forced migrants in vulnerable situations.

The dramatic number of people crossing through the Darién highlights the urgent need to strengthen protection systems, emergency responses, and find durable solutions, all of which entail, as we argue, five principles that underline a human rights based approach to shared responsibility in international migration governance, that is:

1.responsibility to expand regular routes for refugees and migrants and to guarantee safe passage: This demands the duty of protection and of cooperation amongst states to offer direct and safe passage across borders and as a potential place of first refuge. This also means keeping borders open to forcibly displaced, without preventing or obstructing safe access to a territory to claim protection. Regional and multilateral organisations such as UNHCR and IOM can provide communication, financial and technical support, and advocacy to ensure direct and safe passage.

2.responsibility to provide protection: This falls on all states to whom forcibly displaced migrants travel to/through. This involves providing safety, including the duty of non-refoulement and protection in place, such as the provision of safe housing facilities, as well as the right to access healthcare, a fair and impartial process of status determination, and access to identity documents.  UNHCR and financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are key for ring-fencing funding for preparedness, mechanisms for cross-border exchange of information and cooperation, and social protection of people in displacement.

3.responsibility to provide safe mobility in the context of prolonged transit: this means allowing safe movement in and between the states of the region, which not only denotes providing mobility rights as they move within and across states, but primarily means having an approach that is centred on protection from abuses ranging from exploitation to trafficking and beyond.

4.responsibility to provide social integration, enabling the legitimate interests of those who are forcibly displaced to determine where they settle and having access to the basic conditions for rebuilding their lives in community with others. The basic requirements of this responsibility can be expressed as the provision of access to housing, health and welfare systems; access to opportunities for education, training or employment to enable them to make effective choices and plans about their lives, where this also involves active participation in the social and political community of the locality in which they are situated.

5.responsibilities to provide adequate resources for protection, when and where funding for protection falls short of what is required to safeguard protection. This is a call for global partnerships and cooperation for development by mobilising resources, sharing knowledge, and building capacity in accordance with international governance agendas such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and Refugees, and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Given the perilous journey north through the dense Darien jungle and, more fundamentally, the human rights of people in displacement, these principles call for urgent consideration of visa-free air and/or sea travel so that forcibly displaced people can safely reach a place of first refuge, the non-criminalisation of those that enter the country through irregular pathways, and providing protection as a duty to ensure human rights of all. For it to happen, Panamá and countries of origin and transit should recognise their legal and moral responsibilities towards migrants.

Follow this link for pictures and the article on the UNU-CRIS site.

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O documentário “Sair adiante / Salir adelante” tem, como outras peças audiovisuais, a capacidade de condensar, em um formato sensorial intenso, ideias, emoções, experencias e intenções compartilhadas. Nesse caso, dentre outras, percebemos a intenção das realizadoras de solidariamente buscar caminhos possíveis para a construção de um futuro digno para migrantes, refugiadas e refugiados. Do mesmo modo, o documentário nos comunica o desejo de restituir às mulheres sua capacidade de se apresentarem por si mesmas, no meio de processos migratórios em que habitualmente são representadas por outros. Nos fragmentos em que as mulheres nos contam de onde elas vieram, nos falam sobre o caminho, as dificuldades e violências sofridas, sobre como tomaram algumas decisões e o que desejam dos dias porvir; elas são também as protagonistas da própria história. Movimento importante, especialmente quando com frequência a captura burocrática da vida, caraterística dos processos assistenciais, destitui as pessoas até da propriedade da sua biografia. A história das pessoas, na logica burocrática humanitária, importa não porque vivida, mas porque passível de ser enquadrada nas categorias migratórias ditas adequadas.

A diversidade de origens, de experiencias e de trajetórias das mulheres no documentário, nos lembra também da diversidade venezuelana. Advertência fundamental para reverter a construção congelada de estereótipos nacionais que, não poucas vezes, contribui para o desenho genérico de políticas de atendimento e para a proliferação de leituras sociais igualmente homogeneizadas. O foco nas mulheres, por último, salienta também as diferenças quando se enfrenta o árduo caminho do êxodo com corpos e condições femininas ou feminilizadas e a necessidade de entendermos tais condições, procurando que não se transformem em novas desigualdades e em situações ainda mais precárias.

Se o foco, como dito, são as mulheres, a categoria gênero, de forma mais abrangente e complexa, se torna central no documentário. Sabemos que não apenas as mulheres, mas as pessoas feminilizadas, são alvo de violências que ora são o motivo para a migração, ora a razão de mais agressões durante os movimentos que, supostamente, deveriam colocá-las em segurança. Do mesmo modo, como nos lembra Daniela na sua fala no documentário, as mulheres são atingidas pela violência que as fronteiras impõem também a seus companheiros, esposos e outros parentes homens. Ela não ia abandonar o pai dos seus filhos que foi deportado de forma separada da família. Sua busca pelo reencontro, que é um direito consagrado nas legislações nacionais e internacionais, significou, na realidade, o recomeço de um processo migratório de forma irregular e a perda do investimento já realizado na primeira tentativa de permanecer no Brasil.

Como há tempos nos alertou Kimberlé Crenshaw, quando os homens que fazem parte do grupo de parentesco estão sob a ameaça constante das forças de segurança ou de vigilância dos estados-nação é mais difícil para as mulheres expressar, por exemplo, as violências que acontecem ao interior dos grupos. Além disso, a violência contra outros membros da família impacta o grupo todo, fragilizando ainda mais as relações que são o suporte material, emocional e espiritual nas migrações em condições precárias.

Nunca é demais destacar que o conceito de família é polissêmico e que não pode ser entendido, especialmente pelos programas de assistência aos migrantes e refugiados, como uma categoria estável. Para algumas pessoas a família não é o local afetivo e seguro que costuma ser a ela associado. Aprendemos com inúmeras pesquisas que para muitas delas, cuja existência não se encaixa nos padrões hegemônicos de gênero e sexualidade, a família pode ser o primeiro local da violência e da expulsão. Também temos insistido que a configuração dos grupos familiares é extremamente diversa, assim como são as normas de parentesco e os acordos de cuidado de crianças, idosos e outros membros vulneráveis. Essa dimensão é particularmente importante quando se abordam as migrações de grupos indígenas, cujas normas de parentesco e arranjos produtivos e reprodutivos costumam ser criminalizados com base em legislações formuladas sob modelos familiares hegemônicos, brancos e de classes medias urbanizadas. Contudo, para muitas pessoas a família é, sim, um grupo de apoio e a separação dela significa uma perda material, simbólica e afetiva irreparável. Daí a necessidade de insistirmos, acompanhando ainda o relato de Daniela, no direito das pessoas de permanecerem juntas, quando assim desejado, ainda nos processos irregulares de atravessamento de fronteiras.

Outro dos aspectos sobre os quais o documentário chama a atenção é sobre o pouco avanço que temos em matéria de direitos. A maioria dos esforços de pessoas solidárias, das organizações não governamentais, agências humanitárias e até de alguns setores dos governos nacionais, orbitam ainda ao redor dos direitos pela subsistência. Lutamos para que as pessoas não adoeçam, para que não morram, para que não sejam privadas da sua liberdade, para que não sofram de violações, deportações, confinamentos etc. Não temos conseguido avançar, no caso das migrações mais precarizadas e racializadas, para os direitos pensados na dimensão do desfrute: Direito à saúde entendida de forma ampla, direito a usufruir dos avanços da ciência e da tecnologia, direito ao abrigo, direito ao prazer, a ter um lugar belo para si nesse mundo e a possibilidade imaginativa de um futuro em segurança e com a promessa da alegria como sentimento regente e não como assomo esquivo e momentâneo.

Inclusive quando pensamos os direitos sexuais e reprodutivos das mulheres – que é outro ponto importante do documentário – nossa imaginação se vê colonizada pelo pessimismo do mundo insuficiente para todos, da terra como direito para poucos. Por uma parte, vemos mais preocupação com a reprodução do que com a sexualidade, como se, por exemplo, gozar não fosse fundamental para a vida. De outra parte, assistimos ao desdobramento de esforços para garantir o direito das mulheres a não ter crianças, sem dúvida importante. Mas, ao mesmo tempo, acompanhamos a insuficiência das políticas que deveriam garantir que todas as pessoas com capacidade reprodutiva que desejem ter crianças possam fazê-lo e vê-las crescerem e terem “um futuro melhor”. Tal como expressaram muitas das mulheres do documentário, que projetam suas crianças como sendo o futuro em si, mas, infelizmente, renunciando à imaginação do seu próprio futuro que parece já condenado à luta pela subsistência ou a sua inexistência discursiva.

Seja pela fundamental luta pela subsistência, seja pela teimosia de querermos sempre uma vida plena e com mais dignidade e alegria para todos, deve ser ressaltada a importância de uma estrutura pública que forneça os elementos básicos para tal disputa. Se no contexto brasileiro conseguimos articular algum tipo de resposta para as populações migrantes é graças a um sistema público e universal de saúde e previdência social. Mesmo com todas as falhas que devem ser sanadas – e mesmo no meio da espantosa crise política e sanitária que atravessou o país – o SUS e o SUAS foram e são fundamentais para a defesa da vida e para a possibilidade de sonharmos com um amanhã de mais direitos.

É bom lembrar, então, que também nesses sistemas há uma dimensão de gênero a se considerar. Muitas das equipes de atendimento nos municípios que recebem migrantes são integradas maioritariamente por mulheres, desempenhando suas funções em condições de baixa remuneração e sobrecarga de tarefas. A melhoria nas condições de trabalho dessas equipes e o investimento robusto e permanente no sistema público de saúde e previdência são indispensáveis tanto para migrantes quanto para os nacionais que dependem do atendimento público. O fortalecimento estrutural dos sistemas universais de assistência social pode contribuir também a desmontar a falsa ameaça dos recursos escassos dos quais os migrantes estariam usufruindo em detrimento dos benefícios dos nacionais. Sistemas públicos bem estruturados, maior justiça na distribuição de renda e o avigoramento do critério de universalidade (com sensibilidade para a diferença) são uma das chaves da transversalidade da luta por direitos. Além disso, um sistema forte de bem-estar social deveria nos levar a requerer dos governos a desmilitarização da vida e das fronteiras, inclusive diminuindo os orçamentos bilionários que os estados-nacionais destinam às indústrias bélicas e ao sistema industrial fronteiriço.

Ao mesmo tempo, o plano estrutural não deveria estar isolado de um compromisso ético intersubjetivo com o cuidado cotidiano das pessoas que dependem dos esforços políticos coletivos e que se encontram em situação de desigualdade. Também nessa dimensão precisamos de equipes bem remuneradas, bem formadas e contratadas em condições dignas de trabalho que provejam ferramentas suficientes para a complexa empresa do acolhimento. Cuidarmos mutuamente um dos outros passa tanto por respeitar a diversidade, como por fazer um pacto de igualdade, dedicando aos outros o respeito e os detalhes que gostaríamos para nós mesmos. Me refiro ao cuidado encarnado nas simples coisas: respeitar a privacidade das pessoas, mesmo se estão morando na rua ou em tendas, não usar suas imagens como troféus humanitários, entender e acompanhar suas recusas de atendimento, inclusive quando nós acharmos urgente a intervenção, não condicionar o atendimento a sua obediência submissa, perceber seus gostos e desejos e, no possível, tentar que eles tenham cabimento no dia a dia. Quando os desejos das pessoas migrantes contrariarem nossos próprios princípios de democracia e igualdade, sempre vale a pena lembrar que os direitos não são apenas para as pessoas que atuam como nós desejamos, mas para todos e todas.

Finalmente, gostaria de salientar o valioso esforço do documentário por traçar as rotas percorridas pelas mulheres protagonistas. Como já consagrado nos estudos migratórios, toda presença na migração significa também uma ausência no território que se deixa para atrás. Um esforço de recepção se origina num movimento de expulsão, na inabilitação dos territórios para a vida ou no estreitamento violento das possibilidades de ação no meio de contextos de escassez. Se o movimento de recepção é fundamental, considero que também é indispensável nosso movimento teimoso de resistência diante do capitalismo predatório, contra os governos tiranos, mas também contra os imperialismos que oferecem salvação, mas desestruturam economias, violentam e confinam as pessoas que fogem e contribuem para que cada vez menos seres tenham o direito de um lugar para si na terra.

O documento completo pode ser baixado aqui

The post A teimosia de tentar o impossível -Comentários sobre o documentário de Ângela Facundo Navia appeared first on REGHID.

Gostaria de começar este texto sugerindo àquele/a que assistiu ao documentário, que pense, analise e tente compreender quais foram as sensações que experimentou diante dessas cenas. O que você sentiu? Como você se sentiu?

Faço essa sugestão porque entendo que as produções audiovisuais enquanto formas simbólicas de obras da cultura humana, levam-nos a experimentar sensações diferentes daquelas que sentimos mediante outros modos de compartilhamento de dados acadêmicos e científicos. Quando lemos uma etnografia sobre o deslocamento forçado de pessoas venezuelanas, por mais densa e detalhada que seja a descrição, ficamos restritos a um processo imaginativo por meio do qual tentamos atribuir rostos, vozes e jeitos àqueles sujeitos cujas histórias dão corpo a um texto. A emoção e a empatia podem fazer parte dessa leitura, mas elas nos tocam em dimensões diferentes.

Um filme, por sua vez, apresenta em imagens vívidas as pessoas, seus rostos e expressões, suas vozes e seus jeitos de falar. As cenas de Salir Adelante nos transportam para Pacaraima (Roraima), para Boa Vista (Roraima), para o interior dos abrigos. Particularmente, ao ver as imagens das “casinhas do ACNUR”, de imediato me peguei pensando em como seria passar meses ou anos de sua vida ali. Elas são um teto, mas será que em algum momento se tornam um lar?

Apesar disso, seguramente representam uma melhor opção que viver em situação de rua. Reparem, contudo, que isso nos coloca diante de um perigoso jogo de compensação: as “casinhas do ACNUR” não são um lar, mas são teto. Na economia de exigências (Sayad, 1998) que marca a gestão da migração no Brasil, nesse caso em específico, a venezuelana (pobre e racializada)[1], oferecer um teto já seria muito para quem não tem nada. A lógica perversa que, não raro, subjaz até mesmo a filantropia, pauta-se na ideia de que pessoas em situação de vulnerabilidade social não têm direito de escolha nem de recusa.

Viver em situação de rua, obviamente, não é uma experiência fácil. Quantos medos uma mesma pessoa, sobretudo uma mulher, chega a experimentar quando se vê obrigada a dormir na rua? É um medo que transcende os limites do seu próprio ser, é um medo por si mesma, por seus filhos/as, por sua mãe (talvez já idosa), por suas irmãs. Na rua, cada um desses sujeitos, acometidos por diferentes camadas de vulnerabilidade, são possíveis alvos de diferentes formas de violência seja física, psicológica ou material.

Os abrigos coletivos que reúnem debaixo de um mesmo teto centenas de pessoas que têm em comum apenas a nacionalidade venezuelana, ou as “casinhas do ACNUR” que tentam criar uma sensação de uso individual/familiar do espaço, são soluções implementadas mediante um contexto de crise humanitária. Para alguns estudiosos do campo das migrações (Baeninger e Peres, 2017), a ideia de uma “migração de crise” nos mostra que, embora o fenômeno seja socialmente construído no local de origem do deslocamento, ele também desencadeia uma crise no país de destino quando aquela sociedade não está preparada para lidar com a situação.

Sob essa perspectiva, ainda que a origem do problema possa estar do outro lado da fronteira, se o Brasil possuísse os instrumentos necessários para lidar com a migração talvez não fosse deflagrada uma crise também do lado de cá. É inegável que o contexto venezuelano nos coloca diante de uma situação de migração sem precedentes na história recente da América Latina, onde o Brasil[2] se tornou um dos países-tampões do Sul Global no sentido de evitar que essas pessoas cheguem ao Norte Global (Jarochinski-Silva e Baeninger, 2021). É também inegável que questões estruturais de nosso país atravessam o modo como lidamos e respondemos à crise migratória. A despeito de possuirmos leis progressistas que garantam igualdade de direitos às pessoas migrantes e refugiadas, há uma distância significativa entre o direito posto no papel e o seu exercício cotidiano. É a vivência cotidiana e não o direito enquanto abstração que define as experiências e marca os corpos e as subjetividades dessas pessoas.

Toda a estrutura que foi construída em Roraima e, em proporções menores, no Amazonas, são as respostas do governo brasileiro para lidar com uma situação de emergência. São as “respostas emergenciais” do Estado à chegada massiva de venezuelanos/as, mas observem: por quantos anos se estende a emergência? A realidade que conhecemos no Amazonas e em Roraima decorre do processo de alargamento cronológico da emergência[3]. A emergência continua não apenas porque a situação na Venezuela ainda não se estabilizou, mas porque as respostas criadas pelo Estado brasileiro são insuficientes e ineficientes.

Tomamos como exemplo a estratégia de interiorização[4], o principal programa do Governo Federal para realocar a população venezuelana que chega em Pacaraima, Boa Vista e Manaus (Amazonas). Segundo o ACNUR, a estratégia de interiorização se tornou referência mundial na acolhida humanitária em virtude de sua atuação segura e por promover, em condições dignas, a integração eficaz nas cidades de destino (Aureli, 2021). Em meados de 2021, contudo, veio à tona a notícia de que um grupo de venezuelanos cujos empregos foram conseguidos por meio da estratégia de interiorização, foi vítima de trabalho análogo à escravidão. Eles foram contratados por uma transportadora em Limeira (São Paulo) e, conforme relataram aos auditores-fiscais do Ministério Público do Trabalho (MPT), eram forçados a trabalhar até 18 horas por dia, sem direito à folga e tendo que dormir dentro dos caminhões. A Thomson Reuters Foundation analisou seis casos em que houve denúncia de exploração ou trabalho análogo à escravidão envolvendo venezuelanos/as contratados/as por meio da estratégia de interiorização, concluindo que “o programa estaria falhando rotineiramente em fiscalizar as empresas contratadas, coordenar com as autoridades locais ou monitorar o bem-estar dos venezuelanos” (Ferreira e Costa, 2021).

E o que falar das respostas do Estado brasileiro à migração indígena? De acordo com o ACNUR, em novembro de 2022, aproximadamente 8,6 mil indígenas se encontravam no Brasil; 49,6% desse contingente são do gênero feminino e 49,1% possuem idades consideradas economicamente ativas para o trabalho. Apesar disso, só no estado de Roraima, cerca de 1,7 mil indígenas vivem em abrigos institucionais.

Sob o argumento falacioso de “perda cultural”, os/as Warao seguem com possibilidades limitadas quanto à sua participação na estratégia de interiorização. Como acabei de mencionar, o programa tem sido problemático também para os/as venezuelanos/as não indígenas, de modo que é inconcebível incluir os/as indígenas sem antes realizar as devidas adequações que levem em conta as especificidades socioculturais de uma população etnicamente diferenciada. Inclusive, isso já foi posto por um parecer antropológico elaborado pelo Ministério Público Federal (MPF) em 2021 (Tarragó, Santos e Moutinho, 2021). O documento também aponta que, na percepção dos/as próprios/as indígenas, a sua exclusão do programa denota uma conduta discriminatória por parte do Estado brasileiro no acesso desse povo às políticas de inserção laboral.

Na busca diária por trabalho, como pode ser observado nos relatos apresentados por Rosa e Peixoto (2022), os/as indígenas se deparam com ofertas de salários menores que os praticados no mercado, jornadas laborais excessivas e ausência de pagamento pelos serviços prestados. Também sofrem racismo e xenofobia, com acusações de que “os/as indígenas venezuelanos/as” não sabem trabalhar.

Resta-lhes então pedir dinheiro nas ruas, que, na concepção de gestores públicos e outros atores sociais, configuraria a prática de mendicância. A mendicância, deve-se notar, embora não seja mais uma contravenção penal, é usada para legitimar a criminalização das famílias e as tentativas de destituição do poder familiar (Rosa, 2022). Logo, essas famílias, que já se encontram em situação de vulnerabilidade social, são punidas pelo Estado por sua própria condição de precariedade.

As cenas de Salir Adelante também nos revelam que o sofrimento não compõe apenas as memórias recentes da vida em um país em crise. O sofrimento se pertua na vida possível de ser vivida do lado de cá da fronteira. Fugir da Venezuela, em certo sentido, é fugir da fome, como mostra o documentário. Mas, as garras da fome facilmente os encontra também no Brasil. Qualquer pessoa que tenha tido alguma experiência de trabalho com os Warao sabe perfeitamente que a fome continua sendo uma constante na vida dessa população, inclusive em contextos de abrigamento institucional. Entre 2017 e 2020, 43 crianças Warao morreram no Brasil. É possível que esse número esteja subnotificado, pois consiste em um mapeamento extraoficial feito por mim com auxílio dos/as indígenas e outros/as parceiros/as de pesquisa (Rosa, 2020). As causas das mortes eram pneumonia, desnutrição, sarampo entre outras doenças previníveis e tratáveis.

Mas, apesar de tudo isso, é preciso Salir Adelante/seguir adiante. É preciso manter a esperança e a força para seguir na busca por uma vida melhor para si, para seus filhos/as, para sua família. Seguir adiante é o imperativo e, para os/as Warao, é marcado pelo gênero. Em muitas situações, são as mulheres que decidem sobre uma nova viagem, resolvendo para onde e quando irão. Também são as mulheres que, de modo geral, arrecadam as doações em espécie ou em gêneros alimentícios necessárias à subsistência do grupo familiar e ao financiamento das viagens. Conforme me explicou um dos meus interlocutores no início da minha pesquisa, em 2017, elas estariam buscando uma solução para o “problema Warao”, configurado pela falta de alimentação, de trabalho e de condições dignas de moradia.

No início do processo de deslocamento para o Brasil, era comum a realização de viagens apenas por grupos de mulheres e crianças pequenas. Os maridos e os filhos/as maiores permaneciam no local de partida aguardando que elas retornassem ou enviassem dinheiro para que fossem ao seu encontro. Foi desse modo que muitas famílias vieram para o Brasil, que seguiram de Boa Vista para Manaus e de Manaus para Belém (Pará), de Belém para Teresina (Piauí) e, possivelmente, para outras tantas cidades. As mulheres, assim como aquelas que têm suas histórias contadas no documentário, são força e potência para que toda a coletividade siga adiante.

Entre tantos dramas vividos por mulheres venezuelanas relatados em Salir Adelante, está também o desafio para conseguir a documentação migratória em face do ingresso no Brasil pelas trochas[5] durante o fechamento da fronteira por ocasião da pandemia de Covid-19. Embora possa parecer algo de fácil solução, são situações que também descortinam a economia de exigências (Sayad, 1998) que opera no atendimento da população migrante e refugiada no Brasil. Apesar da Constituição Federal, em seu artigo 5º, estabelecer que todos são iguais perante a lei, sem distinção de qualquer natureza entre brasileiros e estrangeiros aqui residentes, sabemos que na prática do atendimento isso não acontece. Para uma pessoa migrante e/ou refugiada, os documentos são o primeiro passo para o exercício de direitos, de modo que não os possuir afeta, sobretudo, o acesso aos direitos sociais (educação, saúde, alimentação, trabalho, moradia, assistência etc.). Reitero, portanto, a existência de uma distância muito significativa entre o direito posto no papel e o seu exercício cotidiano.

Apesar de todos esses percalços, os/as migrantes e refugiados/as venezuelanos/as não indígenas tendem a conseguir resolver as questões em torno da documentação com maior autonomia e facilidade que os/as indígenas. Isso nos ajuda a pensar no jogo de escalas: se a migração venezuelana já é marcadamente uma migração empobrecida, quando falamos dos/as indígenas migrantes e refugiados/as, a desigualdade social é ainda mais acentuada por conta do próprio perfil socioeconômico e do racismo estrutural vigente na sociedade brasileira. Os/as indígenas migrantes e refugiados/as são sujeitos a um duplo processo de subalternização: são migrantes e/ou refugiados/as e são indígenas. Se a migração venezuelana em si já poderia representar uma “pobreza exótica” nos termos de Sayad (1991), a presença de indígenas no fluxo migratório reforça esse estereótipo. Aos olhos do Estado, são uma população cuja presença só traz custos e nenhuma vantagem.

Manter-se forte e perseverante mesmo quando for preciso andar por trochas, talvez seja a principal mensagem que Salir Adelante tenta nos passar. Mas além de um chamado à coragem e à esperança, é também uma convocação ao acolhimento e à garantia de direitos. Finalizo minhas considerações, portanto, fazendo-lhes um convite ao exercício cotidiano da empatia: como seria se você se visse forçado a deixar a sua casa, seus amigos, parte dos seus parentes, a cidade onde você sempre viveu por conta da eclosão de uma crise humanitária em seu país? Imagine-se nesse lugar e imagine o modo como você gostaria de ser tratado se estivesse nele. Ações individuais, ainda que situacionalmente localizadas, são peças que compõem a perspectiva macro de garantia de direitos e dignidade às pessoas migrantes e refugiadas. A esfera doméstica, do particular, da intimidade e do cotidiano também são espaços políticos para a luta contra o racismo e a xenofobia.

Referências

[1] Uma pesquisa realizada pelo ACNUR (2021) nos abrigos destinados à população venezuelana não indígena em Boa Vista (Roraima), identificou que 61,7% das pessoas entrevistadas se declaravam mestiças, pardas, morenas ou indígenas quando questionadas sobre sua cor ou raça. No que toca à distribuição de renda, 69,9% se encontravam abaixo da linha da pobreza.

[2] Até 27 de fevereiro de 2023, conforme a Plataforma Regional de Coordenação Interagências para Refugiados, Refugiadas e Migrantes da Venezuela (Plataforma R4V), liderada conjuntamente pelo Alto Comissariado das Nações Unidas para Refugiados (ACNUR) e pela Organização Internacional de Migração (OIM), havia no Brasil cerca de 426 mil migrantes e refugiados/as venezuelanos/as.

[3] A perpetuação da perspectiva emergencial no acolhimento de refugiados/as e migrantes venezuelanos/as, em particular, dos/as indígenas Warao, é objeto da pesquisa de mestrado de Sebastian Roa no âmbito do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direitos Humanos e Cidadania da Universidade de Brasília (UnB).

[4] O programa é completamente voluntário e gratuito, e visa a transferência de pessoas venezuelanas em situação de vulnerabilidade social para outras partes do Brasil, seja para reencontrar parentes (reunificação familiar), amigos ou conhecidos dispostos a recebê-las (reunião social) ou para trabalhar (interiorização pelo trabalho). Há ainda a modalidade de interiorização institucional abrigo a abrigo, quando venezuelanos/as que estão em Roraima precisam de acolhimento institucional na cidade de destino, podendo permanecer no local pelo período máximo de três meses (Brasil, 2022).

[5] Rotas clandestinas que ligam Brasil e Venezuela.

Referências bibliográficas

ACNUR. Autonomia e integração local de refugiados (as) e migrantes venezuelanos (as) acolhidos nos abrigos em Boa Vista (RR). [S. l.]: ACNUR, 2021. Disponível em: https://www.acnur.org/portugues/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/relatorio-operacao_acolhida-Final.pdf. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2023.

AURELI, Sofia. Entenda o que é a estratégia de interiorização e por que ela é referência global. ACNUR. Brasília, DF, 20 abr. 2021. Disponível em: https://www.acnur.org/portugues/2021/04/20/entenda-o-que-e-a-estrategia-de-interiorizacao-e-porque-ela-e-referencia-global/. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2023.

BRASIL. Casa Civil. Interiorização. Brasília, DF, 12 dez. 2022. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/casacivil/pt-br/acolhida/base-legal-1/interiorizacao. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2023.

BAENINGER, Rosana; PERES, Roberta. Migração de crise: a migração haitiana para o Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Populacionais. Belo Horizonte, v. 34, n.1, p. 119-143, 2017.

JAROCHINSKI-SILVA, João Carlos; BAENINGER, Rosana. O êxodo venezuelano como fenômeno da migração Sul-Sul. Revista Interdisciplinar de Mobilidade Humana, v. 29, p.123-139, 2021.

ROSA, Marlise. A mobilidade Warao no Brasil e os modos de gestão de uma população em trânsito: reflexões a partir das experiências de Manaus-AM e Belém-PA. Tese (Doutorado em antropologia social) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2020, 322p.

ROSA, Marlise. Tecnologias de governo na gestão de uma população indígena em situação de deslocamento forçado: entre a proteção e o controle da infância Warao. Amazônica: Revista de Antropologia, v. 14, p. 302-324, 2022.

ROSA, Marlise; PEIXOTO, L. (Org.). Percepções Warao sobre trabalho: suas experiências, expectativas e potencialidades para inserção produtiva na região metropolitana de Belém (Pará). Belém: Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil; Agência da ONU para refugiados, 2022.

SAYAD, Abdelmalek. A pobreza exótica: a imigração argelina na França. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, n. 17, out. 1991.

SAYAD, Abdelmalek. A imigração ou os paradoxos da alteridade. São Paulo: Edusp, 1998.

TARRAGÓ, Eduardo; SANTOS, Marcio; MOUTINHO, Pedro. Parecer Técnico nº 776/2021– DPA/CNP/SPPEA. Boa Vista: Ministério Público Federal, 2021.

TEIXEIRA, Fabio; COSTA, Emily. Operação Acolhida? Venezuelanos sofrem abusos em programa federal. Thomson Reuters Foundation. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 20 jul. 2021. Disponível em: https://longreads.trust.org/item/Venezuela-Brasil-Abuso. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2023.

O documento completo pode ser baixado aqui

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The first group of women have been interviewed for the REGHID Central American survey on the sexual and reproductive health of women during forced displacement. This is an important milestone in the REGHID project and will allow us to understand the needs, barriers and gaps with respect to the sexual and reproductive health of women who are migrating from both Honduras and El Salvador. The survey is implemented by our partner, the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The survey is the first in Central America to interview women returning to their home country about their experiences of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) during their migratory journey. We know that there are more women who are migrating as a proportion of all migrants, but little is known about issues on their SRH. This survey will develop our understanding of the situations that women face and how these situations are managed.

In consultation with a range of stakeholders, including the UN Institute of Migration and UNFPA, a range of topics was agreed for the survey. These included understanding the migratory journey that the women had undertaken, including duration and the route, the reasons for leaving their host country and information about the individual women. In-depth questions were asked about menstruation, such as the products used, access to these products and menstrual pain, and also about sexual and contraceptive behaviour, including the relationships formed during the migratory journey. The survey will find out about the reproductive history of the women, including pregnancies that were ongoing at any point during the migratory journey. Information about care during and after pregnancy will be collected.

The survey will be asked to women who are returning, either forced or voluntary, to a reception centre in one of the two countries. In Honduras, three reception centres are taking part in San Pedro Sula, while one centre is involved from El Salvador in San Salvador. Women will be given a bag containing a range of hygiene items as thanks for taking part.

Furthermore, interviewers have been trained in psycho-emotional methods in order to ensure the survey does not cause harm to the respondents. Women are also given information about places to go to for further advice. Data collection will take place over 6 weeks, and we hope to have preliminary results soon after this.

The post REGHID Central American Survey – Implementation phase started appeared first on REGHID.

I have worked on issues of inclusive development and governance for development for two decades. Most of my fieldwork has been in contexts of deprivations of all sorts. I have focused on political economy of the right to health -and human rights and development more broadly. I developed an interest on gendered injustices and dignity as an approach to inclusive and sustainable development. Now, working in the context of ReGHID with displaced women and girls I had the opportunity to learn about the complexities of inequalities, inclusion and governance. During fieldwork in Manaus, Boa Vista and Pacaraima, where most Venezuelan migrants settle, even if temporarily, taught me a few extra things. First, that location matters for how displaced women and girls experience belonging, hope, care and survival. Displaced people’s social, historical and political location is very different from other populations in poverty and vulnerable situations. History, location and social belonging define identities and standing in society. For many displaced people the social, historical and political location is distorted, fuzzy and changing. Their needs in constant fluctuation, redefined by why they travel and how, conditions during the journey, the many risks and harms they experience in the transit and arrival in a new place, who receives them and how they are perceived in host societies – themselves shaped by poverty and inequalities. So doing research with people on the move is challenging but needed. Most of the women and adolescent girls I met with are very poor and live in the margins of society – that in itself creates distinctive vulnerabilities and challenges for respect and acceptance in health systems too. Second, respect and acceptance of migrants are tight to arbitrary understandings of responsibility. Who should care for (irregular) migrants? Perceptions of responsibility are often affected by a sense that irregular, poor, needy migrants are not only population that are at risk but also that create many risks to societies where they arrive at. Violence and discrimination are consequence of that. I have seen a person (a local) pointing an accusative finger at a family of migrants who was sitting on the pavement with their bags, waiting for shelter perhaps. Have also heard discriminatory claims about the amount of children these migrant women have, the amount of alcohol they consume (and how there must be something genetically different in some of them, particularly the indigenous people, given the effects of alcohol in them). Being migrant for many women and girls is being judged. Finally, protection is contested and conflicted in its meaning and practice. Many agencies and even health systems gatekeep rather than protect or impose their own views on what health needs and urgencies should be for these women and girls. There is a clear tension between humanitarianism and control defined by who established what is urgent and needed, what is risk and at risk, creating power relations that undermine autonomy and agency of migrants whose voice, and many of their health needs, tend to be ignored.

Finally, while some of these issues preoccupied researchers for decades and resulted in their awareness of hierarchies, particularly in fieldwork, there are fundamental issue of power relations in migration research– but not only– that raises serious questions about researchers’ positionality in fieldwork, field relations and knowledge production. Our identities, motivations and experiences as researchers are important and define the choices we make when we engage in social and political spaces. It is important to ground research and researcher in the field and through fieldwork. But that engagement needs to examine the power relationships between the researcher and participants/subjects of research.

Researchers committed to change and redress injustices and inequalities will try to break barriers and modify the context and conditions that reproduce injustices experienced by migrant women and girls. But in the process, there are serious risks of overlooking what migrants need, want and experience over what researchers think is urgent and needed. Who defines what is urgent and needed engender power imbalances and hierarchies in knowledge. If not careful, well-intentioned, committed researchers can reproduce, through positions of privilege, more harm than good. Researchers are no heroes in the story, nor are saviours or social services.  Yet, we have an important social, political and ethical role to play in making visible and giving voice to what and whoever  otherwise would remain at the margins of knowledge, politics and society.

Research in humanitarian crises: What (and whose) sadness matters?

By Natalia Cintra (Senior Researcher, ReGHID, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton)

I have been working with and for refugee and migrant individuals and communities for over 8 years, either as a lawyer, an activist or researcher. In most cases, I dismissed my own emotions and feelings towards my practice, advocacy and research and centred those of people on the move instead. Indeed, while talking with forced migrants and studying about displacement, our own emotions pale in comparison to forced migrants’ own experiences and emotional traumas. When doing fieldwork, for instance, no matter how difficult or helpless it is for the researcher to witness and hear about the various injustices forced migrants go through, one’s own feelings towards this should not be the centre of reflexivity, especially considering forced migrants’ emotions and traumas are hardly ever the object of scholarly and methodological work. Some necessary questions are hardly ever addressed, for instance: Are migrants emotionally fit for interviews? How do migrants feel when researchers observe their work?

This felt especially strong for me when recently going to do fieldwork in the Amazon region of Brazil, where Venezuelan migrants are mostly concentrated. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ReGHID qualitative research team conducted most interviews with displaced women and girls virtually, without having the opportunity to see and interact in the same spaces those women inhabited and survived, which could impact the depth of the upcoming analysis. As such, in May 2022, we took the opportunity to go to and observe those spaces, as well as speak to as many displaced women and girls as we could, in order to better understand their stories, and their feelings. We visited Manaus, Boa Vista and Pacaraima, and shelters in each city. One thing that became evident is that positionality matters in research, even more in situations of crisis. How we positioned ourselves in these brief encounters could affect migrants’ expectations, hopes and even feelings of being abandoned. Their feelings should be at the centre of how we behaved towards them – they are not (exotic) objects of study – as subjects of rights and dignity in the spaces they inhabit.

In one case, for instance, we visited a couple of shelters accompanied by the Brazilian Armed Forces, who coordinate and has decision over who visits those shelters, or not. How were we being perceived as we entered accompanied by men and women in military uniforms? How did that make migrants feel? I was particularly worried of not making them feel like aliens, distant objects of scrutiny due to racial belonging, their culture, and their situation of poverty.

Shelters are highly controlled environments that add a new layer of complexity to how our presence there could be perceived by migrants – after all we were allowed by the gatekeepers to come in; so there must be a reason and we must be important in that system of protection/control. We must be wary of migrants’ perceptions and feelings. Disregarding and ignoring that risks dehumanising research.

How we dress, what we carry with us, who we speak to, how we address displaced communities, if and how, and who we take pictures of, in those spaces created for both the protection and the control of incoming migrants, have enormous ethical challenges and trigger a range of emotional responses that we should consider before going in and once inside the shelters.  This is ethical as much as sensitive to the displaced communities’ feelings, observing the principle of do no harm.

What about the researchers’ feelings? Emotional sensitivity can be key for a continued observation (and change) of the researchers own positionality during and after fieldwork, of their effects on others, and for creating trusting environments. An emotionally sensitive researcher can do important, respectful research that does no harm and that seeks to produce impact in the everyday lives of the research participants. Contexts where research participants are in very vulnerable positions and situations can cause the sort of helplessness on researchers that has however to be watched – although sensitivity is welcomed, the researcher has to pay attention not to centre their own feelings over that of the participants; if their emotions impede the flow of interviews, for instance. At the same time, this should not create emotional detachment, considering it can produce the type of violent interactions with participants that the researchers should avoid. Processing one’s own responses to the emotional weight that normally comes during fieldwork is therefore important to learn one’s own limits, triggers, and how to address them in order to place the participants’ feelings at the centre of research, not their own. It can also be an interesting tool to revisit these feelings in the analysis stage of the research. A safe space for processing these feelings, especially amongst researchers, should be nourished throughout the many stages of research. Luckily, in ReGHID, we have one another.

The post Reflections on fieldwork conducted in Manaus, Boa Vista and Pacaraima, Brazil, in the context of the project Redressing Gendered Health Inequalities of Displaced Women and Girls in Contexts of Protracted Crisis in Central and South America (ReGHID). May 2022 appeared first on REGHID.

Tweet 1

Del 15 al 19 de noviembre de 2021, el equipo de @FLACSOES realizó entrevistas y visitas en Tapachula, Chiapas, con prestadores de servicios de #SSR (sector salud), albergues, instituciones estatales y organizaciones internacionales respecto a la atención brindada a mujeres y adolescentes migrantes centroamericanas.

Tweet 2 – Foto 1

El equipo de @FLACSOES con personal de la Coordinación de atención a personas migrantes y en situación de desastres, de la Jurisdicción Sanitaria VII, quienes explicaron la labor que realiza esta unidad respecto a la articulación del sistema de salud local para la atención de las mujeres y adolescentes migrantes.

Tweet 3 – Foto 2

Como parte de ello, existen esfuerzos articulados entre el sistema de salud pública, asociaciones civiles, grupos religiosos y organizaciones humanitarias para que la población migrante tenga acceso a atención médica y sea atendida en los centros de salud. No obstante, se enfrentan al desafío de la saturación en el sistema de salud.

Tweet 4 – Foto 3 

El aumento de los flujos migratorios en los últimos años ha generado saturación en el sistema de salud de Tapachula. Esto dificulta a las mujeres y adolescentes migrantes acceder a la atención, especialmente de #SSR debido a la alta demanda de estos servicios.

Tweet 5 – Foto 4

Los recursos asignados al sistema de salud pública se basan en los datos sociodemográficos de la población local. Estos no incluyen a las personas migrantes que han llegado en los últimos años, lo cual afecta la cobertura de salud en estas áreas, al no contar con un reajuste de los recursos necesarios para atender a toda la población.

Tweet 6 – Foto 5

Ante las limitantes de infraestructura, y recursos humanos y materiales de los centros de salud, el personal de estos establecimientos ha tomado medidas como: realizar un triage para priorizar la urgencia de atención, establecer cuotas diarias y limitar la atención a una persona por familia al día.

Tweet 7 – Fotos 6 y 7

Si bien las mujeres migrantes son atendidas, debido a su condición de tránsito, éstas tienen que suspender sus controles médicos para avanzar en su ruta, perdiendo el seguimiento, con el riesgo de empeorar su salud. En la foto, personas migrantes en un albergue reciben información sobre #SSR de parte una asociación civil.

The post Párrafos / Tweets del viaje de campo del equipo de FLACSO El Salvador a Tapachula, 15-19 de noviembre de 2021 appeared first on REGHID.

Arts-based methodologies are becoming increasingly popular within migration research, valued for their potential to traverse and transcend cultural, linguistic and academic borders; to facilitate more egalitarian research; and to provide richer and multi-layered data regarding the lived experiences of people on the move (O’Neill, 2011; Oliveira, 2019; Jeffery et al, 2019). Keen to involve migrant women and adolescent girls in Brazil and Mexico in co-producing research carried out within ReGHID in a meaningful and appropriate way, we have chosen to use the arts-based methodology of photovoice as part of our study. Photovoice was developed as a way to promote a social justice perspective within health research, especially with marginalised groups (Hergenrather et al, 2009; Evans-Agnew and Rosemberg, 2016). In the context of ReGHID, participants will take photographs in response to the theme of sexual and reproductive health, then share and discuss them in a focus group; the photographs taken by participants will be collated in a photobook to be shared with NGOs, policymakers and other interested parties.

In May 2021, we began working on Photovoice with women from the Warao indigenous community sheltered in Tarumã Açu II, in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Here, we share some very early reflections on conceptualising sexual and reproductive health, and some theoretical considerations on Photovoice as a methodology with the Warao women.

Researching sexual and reproductive health: challenges and motivations

Discussing sexual and reproductive health can be challenging. Sexual and reproductive health is so deeply personal. Our experiences of periods, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and abortion, violence and so on are things which we have learned are ‘private’ matters and, because of societal taboos or indeed legal context, there can be shame or unwillingness around talking about these issues. They might also trigger traumatic memories, which we do not want or are not able to talk about freely. Furthermore, across cultures and communities, there are vastly different understandings of what sexual and reproductive health comprises, leading to differences in identifying issues and challenges related to sexual and reproductive health. This was particularly the case of Warao women in Manaus, as will be better described below.

Despite the difficulties in talking about and conceptualising sexual and reproductive health, receiving information, access and attention relating to all elements of sexual and reproductive health is a human right, including during the migration journey. Having dignity and autonomy over our bodies is the starting point to living empowered lives and reaching our full potential. Even if lip service is paid to this by governments and policymakers, unfortunately, in practice, girls’ and women’s sexual and reproductive health needs are repeatedly ignored, denied, and in the worst cases, policies are created which actively disadvantage particular groups of girls and women. This is amplified in the case of women and girls experiencing axes of discrimination because of their intersectional characteristics including migrant status, race or ethnicity, age, dis/ability and poverty.

Photovoice as a decolonising methodology

For many indigenous peoples, ‘research’ is probably one of the dirtiest words’ in their  vocabulary (Smith, 1999: 1). The term conjures up centuries of invasive, dangerous, racist and colonialist practices, ‘in which knowledge about indigenous peoples was collected, classified and then represented in various ways back to the West, through the eyes of the West’ (ibid). For years, research has had negative impact within indigenous communities – both when it informs policy, or when it resoundingly fails to:

‘The greater danger, however, was in the creeping policies that intruded into every aspect of our lives, legitimated by research, informed more often by ideology….Taking apart the story, revealing underlying texts,and giving voice to things that are often known intuitively does not help people to improve their current conditions. It provides words, perhaps, an insight that explains certain experiences – but it does not prevent someone from dying.’ (Smith, 1999: 3).

We can see, then, that research is powerful, especially research with implications for health or medical policy with indigenous communities. Using participatory or emancipatory methodologies is seen as a way of decolonising research because it creates more equal power relations within the research process, aiming to empower rather than exploit research participants. Photovoice is one such methodology and indeed, arguably, given that the relationship between photography and indigenous peoples is also fraught with racist and colonialist history and practices, it is potentially a particularly powerful method when working with indigenous peoples. Photography has been used historically as a form of framing, telling a story about the ‘Other’, and constructing a narrative through the violence of imperialism, which takes agency away from the photographed and gives it only to the photographer (Sealy, 2018. See also Halba, 2009). In photovoice, the agency is returned to the (indigenous) research participant and photographer.

Early reflections

So far, our early work in Tarumã Açu II has provided several points for reflection. First, the fundamental differences in conceptions of health, medicine and healthcare held between the Warao women and us as researcher and photographer are crucial to keep in mind. Understandings of health and illness are informed by beliefs in witchcraft and shamanism among the Warao people (ACNUR, 2021; REGHID interviews). In contrast, we grew up in societies where health and illness are based on Western, scientific medicine. Added to this is different access to – and inclusion within or exclusion from – institutions and resources which inform how we understand sexual and reproductive health, and the language we use to discuss it. These institutions include formal education, public health services, and organisations which use rights-based terminology to describe sexual and reproductive health.

To address these differences, we have taken more time and care in a way that would allow a deeper, more intimate connection with the Warao women. More technical concepts involving photography, as well as sexual and reproductive health needed a different approach and more time, both for the Warao women involved – some of which who had never even seen a professional camera before – and the researchers. In order to discuss this with Warao women, we spoke more generally about women’s health, rather than sexual and reproductive health as a pre-defined notion. Furthermore, the parameters for discussion on women’s health are led at this early stage by the Warao women. For instance, the challenges to mothering that some have experienced as a result of poverty do not necessarily align with our preconceived ideas of sexual and reproductive health, and for this reason, it is crucial to allow ample space and time for discussion, as both Warao women are able to better understand the methodology and communicate through photography, as well as researchers can better understand the Warao women’s own cosmology.

Secondly, we are motivated by the emancipatory potential of photovoice, but we must be cognisant about some of the unavoidable limitations of its decolonising potential. While the participants will take photographs that reflect their own interpretations of challenges to sexual and reproductive health, and in this sense they are using their voice and expressing their own priorities, the need to adhere to the overall theme could be seen as limiting. The core output of the photovoice project will be the photobook to be shared with policymakers and other interested parties; to ensure impact in influencing policymaking, it will be necessary to align it with the concepts, language and parameters of health policymaking.

It is too early to reach conclusions about how to mitigate practices which could be seen as colonialist, albeit obviously unintentional. However, it is something we must continue to be aware of as the project develops and when we come to write up the results of the research. So far, in her sessions with the Warao women, Bruna has encouraged participants to get used to the cameras and the potential for creative expression through photography – for many of the women, it is the first time they have used cameras. While taking pictures of their grandchildren or the nature around them is not necessarily related to the theme of sexual and reproductive health, it is an important part of the process of developing confidence and therefore finding a voice as a photographer. Again, we feel it is important to allow the space and time for this, if we are to be able to lock into the decolonising potential of the methodology.

We continue to work on Photovoice with the Warao and other groups of Venezuelan women and adolescents on the move, and are looking forward to seeing the results of all the group projects together.

Update : Our Photovoice activities and photos have been showcased on the ‘Narrativas Visuales’ webpage

References:

ACNUR (2021). Os Warao No Brasil. [Online] Available at: https://www.acnur.org/portugues/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/WEB-Os-Warao-no-Brasil.pdf [Accessed 1 July 2021]

Evans-Agnew, R.A. and Rosemberg, M.S. (2016). Questioning Photovoice Research: Whose Voice?Qualitative Health Research 26 (8) pp. 1019–1030

Halba, H. (2009). Creating image and telling stories: decolonising performing arts and image-based research in Aotearoa/New Zealand. About Performance 9 pp. 193-211.

Hergenrather, K.C. et al (2009). Photovoice as Community-Based Participatory Research: A Qualitative Review American Journal of Health Behaviour 33 (6) pp.686-698

Jeffery, L et al (2019). Creative engagement with migration. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 10 (1) pp. 3-17.

Oliveira, E. (2019) The personal is political: a feminist reflection on a journey into participatory arts-based research with sex worker migrants in South Africa. Gender & Development 27 (3) pp. 523-540

O’Neill, M. (2011). Participatory methods and critical models: Arts, migration and diaspora.  Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 2 (1), pp. 13–37.

Sealy, M. (2018). Decolonising the Camera: photography in racial time. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Smith, L.T. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies. London: Zed Books.

The post Photovoice with displaced Venezuelan women in Brazil: first thoughts on fieldwork activities appeared first on REGHID.

The police killed Victoria Salazar in Tulum, Mexico, on 27 March 2021, in a very brutal and very public way. Victoria, like many other Central American migrant and refugee women, fled her home country El Salvador precisely because of violence. This just adds to the tragic nature of her killing. The case has made headlines across the world, although these headlines are not always accurate: many claim that Victoria died, implying passivity or accident, rather than explicitly state the truth that she was killed by excessive use of police force. Her killing was emblematic in a country which minimises and invisibilises the killing of women, and which is at best complicit in, and at worst encouraging of, police brutality, especially against the most marginalised members of society. The way we represent the deaths of women – especially marginalised women – reveals a lot about our perspective and our intentions. So how should we best honour and remember Victoria, in a way which respects her humanity and dignity, but does not shy away from telling the truth about the violence she experienced? Visual methods are a powerful and important way of doing this, though they are often also controversial, even among artists and activists themselves. 

Gender-based violence is a major reason why Central American women leave their homes 

Victoria was a single mother to two daughters, who came from an impoverished and marginalised community in El Salvador. Determined to provide a better and safer future for her daughters, she made the difficult decision to leave El Salvador and travel with them to Mexico, where she sought asylum, and worked as a cleaner in a hotel in the hipster town of Tulum in the Riviera Maya. 

According to her application for asylum, Victoria left El Salvador because the violence there caused her to fear for her life. This is an all too common story among Central American women on the move. El Salvador in particular has occupied the top or close to top spots for femicide in the world in recent years; it also consistenly ranks highly for gang violence and murder. Added to this is structural and economic violence which leaves women like Victoria from marginalised communities with few opportunities to find dignified work – this was another reason why Victoria left El Salvador. 

Women on the move experience persistent violence – especially in Mexico 

Unfortunately, when people on the move leave their home countries and begin their journeys north, they remain at great risk of violence, especially as they pass through Mexico. This violence comes from many sources, and the lethal violence Victoria suffered at the hands of police is not an isolated incident. For years, Mexico has become increasingly hostile towards migrants; in 2019, the threat of trade-related sanctions from the USA was the impetus for increased militarisation of the Mexican border and growing state-endorsed hostility towards migrants. That year, of the 599 complaints of abuses against migrants received by Mexico’s Commission for Human Rights, the majority were against the federal police. This violence committed against people on the move in Mexico continues today: they are consistently ‘exposed to rape, kidnapping, extortion, assault, and psychological trauma’, perpetuated by state actors like the police and immigration officials, as well as by non-state criminal groups, though migrants have commented that the violence they experience is so ubiquitous it is hard to tell the difference between law enforcement and criminal groups. 

Women are at risk of all of the violence above, as well as facing particular threats because of their gender. Between 60% and 80% of girls and women are raped or experience sexual assault while migrating north from Central America. In fact, the risks are so high that many are told by their coyotes (people smugglers) to take contraceptives before migrating to avoid pregnancy; obviously, this does not reduce their risk of rape, assault, or contracting STIs. They are also at high risk of being trafficked into prostitution. 

The risks for people on the move – especially women – have increased exponentially during the pandemic. For example, rates of people trafficking in Quintana Roo – the state where Tulum is, incidentally – increased by 265% in 2020. Migrant women were already known to be at high risk of xenophobia, often invisibilised, discriminated against or stigmatised in the countries they migrate to: in the context of Covid-19, this has increased. Many migrant women in Mexico have also found themselves in even more vulnerable positions because Covid-19 policy responses have restricted movement, stopped them being allowed to enter shelters, and cut off already limited access to sexual and reproductive health services and supplies. 

For Victoria’s daughters, both minors and now left alone in Tulum, the violence they have experienced and the threat of violence they continue to experience has not ended with the killing of their mother: days after Victoria was killed, her partner was arrested on charges on sexually abusing one of Victoria’s daughters, and Victoria’s other daughter went missing, apparently in hiding for fear she would be deported.

How can feminist activists and artists truthfully honour Victoria’s memory?

When the news of Victoria’s killing broke, feminist artists were enraged, frustrated, upset and deeply sad. They immediately began to create artwork and upload it to social media – an important site for contemporary feminist activism in Mexico. Many feminist illustrators based their artwork on a widely circulated image of Victoria’s last moments, in which she is, effectively, being killed.  The image is certainly shocking: Victoria is on the ground being brutally restrained by a police officer. It perfectly captures the violence and repression of the police, which is so often invisibilised or normalised. The image evokes anger, shock, horror and elicits a deep empathy for Victoria. It is in many ways a very important image. However, almost as soon as feminist illustrators circulated their interpretations of this image, they began to question themselves: was sharing this image continuing to enact violence on Victoria, and continuing to degrade and humiliate her, even after her death? Several artists removed the illustrations they had created, though some continue to believe it is an important image to share, and it was painted onto the wall of Cancun’s town hall during protests there.

The range of visual methods used by local feminist collectives in Tulum during the protests immediately following Victoria’s killing strikes a good balance between exposing the violence and anger of the case, and honouring the humanity of Victoria. Thanks to these methods now, two weeks later, Tulum looks very different, and there is no hope of invisibilising what happened to Victoria.

The town’s main street, monuments and town hall are completely covered with feminist and anti-police graffitti. The sheer quantity of graffiti is very impressive. This serves to expose both the reality of Victoria’s death, and the definitive presence of the feminist movement, embodying the much-repeated feminist slogan ‘nunca jamás tendrán la comodidad de nuestro silencio’ (never again will you have the comfort of our silence). 

The spot where Victoria was killed is an eerie and ominous place now. The words ‘aquí mataron a Victoria’ (they killed Victoria here) are painted in blood-red on the concrete, framed by red hand prints, and flanked by more graffiti demanding justice and asserting that the police killed Victoria. Activists have placed flowers and candles at the spot.

Finally, on the wall of the town hall, which faces the main street, is a 2x3m painting of Victoria.  Victoria looks glamorous, in large silver earrings and pale pink glossy lipstick. She engages the viewer, with large dark eyes, lightly smiling. The image is adapted from an illustration by Tijuana-based artist @sirakiry, though the colours are warmer, and Victoria is framed by marigolds and candles, staple elements of Mexican day of the dead shrines. The words ‘Justicia para Victoria Salazar’ (justice for Victoria Salazar), and ‘Los derechos humanos NO tienen fronteras’ (human rights don’t have borders), are written on either side of the portrait. We originally painted this mural in an hour and a half during the 29 March protests, protected by other activists who formed a crowd around us to shield us from police. 

Painting the mural created an impact during the protest, and continues to have longer term impact. The mural was vandalised with political graffitti just days after we painted it, like other feminist murals in Quintana Roo. We returned to repaint and improve it, committed to keeping the case of Victoria in the public eye.

The graffiti in Tulum’s town centre and at the spot where Victoria was killed highlight the violence and brutality of Victoria’s killing, which is deeply important, since violence in many forms is an inescapable reality in the lives of Central American women forced to flee their homes and migrate through Mexico, and it should not be invisibilised or normalised. We chose to combine this with a bright, vibrant and warm mural, using an image which showed Victoria in a way we imagine she would like to be remembered. We hope that this combination represents Victoria’s life and her death with the respect and dignity she deserves.

Written by Tallulah Lines.

Tallulah Lines is a PhD candidate in politics at the University of York and a research associate at the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre, currently working with the ReGHID project.

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In November 2020, members of the Quintana Roo Feminist Network (RFQ) walked into the State Congress building in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, and began what would become a peaceful 94-day sit-in to demand a vote on the legalisation of abortion (since abortion law is decided at state rather than national level in Mexico).

For 93 nights, they slept in tents or on thin mattresses spread across the hard, tiled floor of the building, its doors padlocked shut. Always foremost in their minds were the safety protocols that they had drawn up to deal with the very real possibility of intrusion by state or non-state actors. Most of those days and nights went by without electricity or running water after the state illegally cut the utilities. They juggled working remotely with homeschooling, childcare, and activism. They faced smear campaigns, defamation, provocation from anti-rights groups and worse. In December, the home of a prominent RFQ member was vandalised and even had a firebomb thrown at it.

Despite these challenges, the RFQ sustained their protest at the State Congress through legal, digital, and artistic activism until 2 March 2021. On that day, members of congress at last held a debate on whether to put the motion to legalise abortion to a plenary vote, with the vote itself then coming just hours later. Though the Congress ultimately voted 13 to 7 against legalisation, the very act of forcing a vote constituted a major victory. The RFQ has emerged stronger and more organised for the battle ahead as they join feminists from across Latin America in fighting for abortion rights.

Sexual and reproductive rights in Quintana Roo

Deciding how, when, and if we want children is a human right that should be guaranteed for all women and adolescents. Yet most girls and women in Latin America do not have access to safe, legal, and free abortion. Neither do they enjoy equal access to contraception or comprehensive sexual education. In the most extreme cases in Mexico – and elsewhere in the Americas – women face imprisonment for having miscarriages, and girls as young as nine can be forced to give birth even though abortion is legal for cases of rape across most of Mexico.

In Quintana Roo, the situation is especially worrying. The state has had the highest level of teenage pregnancy in the country for the last 11 years, and rates have only been increasing. In 2020, more cases of rape and human trafficking were reported in Quintana Roo than in any other Mexican state. During the first six months of 2020, cases of human trafficking in Quintana Roo increased by 265%, pushing it up from seventh to first place in this inglorious ranking.

Mexican feminism and the conservative backlash

The RFQ protest took place in the context of a feminist movement that is going from strength to strength in Mexico. So much so, in fact, that feminist activism has even been described as the country’s principal opposition movement. Within this movement, important gains are being made for women’s reproductive rights. Crucially, abortion was decriminalised in Oaxaca in 2019, making it the second state (after Mexico City in 2007) to allow abortion under any circumstance within the first trimester. Elsewhere in Latin America, Argentina finally legalised abortion in December 2020, although this is only the beginning of the fight to guarantee women’s reproductive rights in that country.

But as feminist movements gain rights for women, anti-rights actors are determined to cut them back. In August 2020, for example, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by feminist collectives and human rights organisations in Veracruz which would have forced the state legislature to legalise abortion, with major repercussions for the rest of the country. In 2016, the then governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, ordered that the state’s constitution be changed to protect life from the moment of conception.

In Puebla, a sit-in that began three days before the Quintana Roo protest had to be abandoned after just 25 days due to threats against a member of the feminist collectives involved (Siempre Viva and Coordinadora Feminista). As a result of the feminists’ action, however, the state legislature has committed to a vote on decriminalising abortion in April 2021, though only time will tell if they make good on their promise.

There are indications that attempts could be made to restrict rather than improve women’s reproductive rights in Quintana Roo as well. Congress originally agreed to debate the motion for legalisation on 24 February, but this was abandoned due to congress members’ repeated attempts to stall the discussion. Some even tried to edit the proposal in order dilute women’s rights even further: one legislator suggested that a woman should be legally obliged to continue a pregnancy if the potential father was opposed to its termination, but thankfully this proposal was rejected.

From Quintana Roo to the Supreme Court

In the end, RFQ agreed that they would terminate their sit-in once the motion to legalise abortion had been debated by the state legislature. And so at 9pm on 2 March, following a frenzied dash to remove their belongings, dozens of feminists gathered outside on mattresses and blankets to watch a livestream of the vote projected on to the walls of the State Congress.

Despite the negative outcome of the vote, RFQ members were jubilant. They reminded the crowd that for five years Congress had refused to even debate the motion of legalising abortion. The goal of the sit-in was primarily to ensure that this debate happened, because the negative vote in the plenary session has a positive consequence: RFQ can and will file an appeal arguing that the Quintana Roo State Congress acted unconstitutionally by denying women’s rights, and so the motion will move up to Mexico’s Supreme Court.

Far from being over, the campaign to guarantee the rights of Mexico’s women and girls through free, safe, and legal abortion is only just beginning.

This article was originally published on the LSE blog.

Written by Tallulah Lines.

Tallulah Lines is a PhD candidate in politics at the University of York and a research associate at the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre, currently working with the ReGHID project.

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Central and South American countries have experienced an unprecedented flow of refugees and migrants with an estimated 5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants and half a million from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras fleeing to neighbouring countries since 2015 (1,2). Forced migration in these countries is associated with high levels of violence, ‘femicide’, political persecution, severe human rights violation and poverty (3). This situation raises important questions about crisis-stricken societies and calls upon governments in the region, as well as regional and multilateral organisations, to examine relevant policiesto protect refugees and migrants. This is even more pressing in the context of COVID-19. COVID19 is an era-defining challenge to inclusive global health governance. A government’s preparedness and response to health emergencies has the power to redress or reproduce vulnerabilities and inequalities. Governments should adopt policies that safeguard the right to health of migrants and refugees regardless of their legal status, as per Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In order to do so, they should be guided by international agreements that protect the rights of the most vulnerable and should not engage in populist politics that demonise or scapegoat specific groups such as migrants. The international community has a role to play in encouraging states to behave responsibly and uphold their global commitments to ‘leave no one behind’.

According to the World Health Organisation, Latin America is now the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic (4). As of 18th June, more than 3.8 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the Americas, out of a total of 8,400,000 cases reported worldwide, and 1,600,000 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded in Latin America, where more than 80,000 people have died from COVID-19, surpassing Europe and the USA in the daily number of reported COVID-19 infections according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard (5). Those affected are overwhelmingly from the most vulnerable groups, including migrant and displaced populations. However, instead of fulfilling their obligation to extend protection and healthcare to the most at risk communities in the region, some governments are taking advantage of the crisis to carry out forced evictions and deportations. The pandemic highlights an aspect of reverse migration forced upon people who fled crisis-stricken countries in recent years and found themselves forced to return either by the loss of their livelihoods, health and social protection as a result of the lockdown, or because governments are returning ‘irregular’ migrants despite international advice against this (6), including the Lancet Migration global statement (7), or due to a lack of health and social protection for those.

MIGRATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a denial of migrants’ rights that raises concerns about the region’s commitment to upholding human rights in general, and – in some countries such as Brazil – the deployment of nationalist rhetoric designed to punish those who are considered ‘different’. However, it is also the case that protecting and responding to the most vulnerable costs money, and governments are forming their responses to COVID-19 in the context of austerity, fragile economies and already overburdened and underfunded public healthcare systems. Together these factors result in a high risk that individuals and social groups who are seen as ‘outsiders’ could be demonised, scapegoated and their health and social needs ignored. The obligations to ensure the right to seek asylum and to protect migrants and refugees’ livelihood and wellbeing have not been considered sufficiently in government responses to the pandemic. Many Latin American governments introduced restriction of movement measures to reduce the spread and impact of COVID-19. Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia decreed mandatory quarantine for all people living there (8). Ecuador and Peru introduced curfews and, like Chile and El Salvador, declared a state of emergency, leaving internal security and the custody of health services in the hands of the armed forces. These measures have made it difficult for migrants in those countries to work and most are excluded from being able to access any benefits offered to citizens. Mexico, which has large numbers of displaced and migrant workers, with over one million migrants residing in the country in 2019, has prevented new migrants from accessing shelters as well as increasing border controls and deportations (10). Most countries in the region have closed their borders to foreigners and non-residents. While these measures are attempts to curb the spread of the virus, they undermine the limited social protection migrant groups can access and strengthen anti-migration policies and attitudes. Lockdowns and border closure have created a situation where migrants lose support and networks, employment and social security options, and ultimately the possibility of dignified living, and are forced to reverse the direction of migration flows and return o their countries of origin; despite the potential for abuse and violence and increased risk of COVID-19 infectiond during transit, as stressed by the International Organisation for Migration (11).

This is particularly the case in two major migration corridors involving Central American migrants from the northern triangle of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to Mexico; and from Venezuela to Colombia and Brazil. In both cases, the economic consequences of lockdown and the inhospitable climate for migrants that it has engendered have forced hundreds of Venezuelan and Central American refugees and migrants to go back along the same route they took to flee and to return to the dangerous, deprived, violent conditions that they were trying to escape in the first place. This new cycle of COVIDcatalysed reversal in migration flows is problematic for three key reasons:

First, forced migratory return will extend situations of protracted displacement in which migrants become trapped in a cycle of forced displacement even within their country of origin; many people are likely to leave again in the future, and, at the same time, this period of protracted displacement exacerbates the risk factors associated with it, including mental and physical violence (assault, sexual violence, etc), as well as limiting access to health and support services.

Second, reverse migration will increase the financial vulnerability of displaced people and migrants, as they are more likely to live in poverty, at risk of exploitation and abuse.

Finally, those returning to their country of origin may face anti-immigration sentiment and stigmatisation and can find themselves regarded as ‘outsiders’, and as ‘not belonging’ in their country of birth, seen as a drain on the limited economic resources and sometimes feared as a source of disease (12).

THE RISK OF PROTRACTED CRISES: CENTRAL AMERICA AND VENEZUELA

With a growing COVID–19 crisis across the Americas as a whole, the US government is increasingly framing migrants from Mexico and Central and South America as an economic and health burden. Since Donald Trump took office in 2017, the US administration has consistently cast migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as a security and health threat and sharply reduced the numbers admitted to the country (13). Since 21^st March 2020, the decision to close the border with Mexico to all non-essential traffic, ostensibly introduced as a health policy, has served as a warning to would-be migrants and a threat to those already inside the country. This has been accompanied by programmes of forced return of Central Americans. Although most Central American countries have halted incoming charter flights containing  people  deported from the US, land deportations to Mexico are still taking place, putting enormous pressure on Mexico, itself in the midst of a COVID-19 crisis – to process and manage an increased number of asylum cases and to provide emergency protection for asylum seekers and for new arrivals (14). More than ever, Mexico has become the de facto wall Trump promised to deliver during his presidency. Already under immense pressure from Washington to increase border security, Mexico has returned so many migrants held in immigration detention centres since the coronavirus outbreak, that they are now almost empty. By the end of April, 9,745 Guatemalans had been forcibly repatriated through Mexico, with nearly 800 in that month alone. It is estimated that both the US and Mexico returned  at least 6,500 Guatemalans, 5,000 Hondurans and 1,600 Salvadorans between March and mid-April (15,16), sometimes in direct violation of the international principle of non-refoulement and the right to seek and being granted asylum, as well as with little regard to the individual health conditions.

By the beginning of 2020, more than 4.5 million Venezuelans had fled the country, escaping an unprecedented economic depression, political turmoil, violence, and severe humanitarian crisis. Approximately 2 million went to Colombia and to Brazil. The Colombian government has made efforts to include Venezuelans in their pandemic response (17) but between the health crisis and the economic impact of quarantine, most Venezuelan migrants – almost half dependent on work in the informal sector – are struggling to survive economically in Colombia (18). Many have even been subject to enforced evictions from their homes, which have been occurring, despite OHCHR’s recommendations that these should be suspended during the COVID-19 outbreak (19). Without financial support or access to public funds and faced with becoming homeless and destitute in a foreign country, hundredsreturn to Venezuela (20), even if not officially deported,  because they have no alternative. Their return places them and their families at risk. The loss of remittances means that the families of migrants now face hunger, and possibly stigmabringing the virus with them’ (21). At the same time the conditions that led to them migrating in the first place, namely economic collapse, political uncertainty and violence, and lack of healthcare, remain unchanged. Health policy neglect is particularly worrying amongst Venezuelan indigenous Warao refugees and migrants, who are part of the thousands of Venezuelans that have fled to neighbouring Boa Vista, in Roraima, Brazil. The UNHCR has reported that only 3 out of 13 shelters are currently considered low risk in terms of spreading the coronavirus (22).

SCAPEGOATING AND STIGMA

In places of transit, destination and origin, migrants are being blamed for problems that governments have failed to address, such as insecurity, economic informality, and decades of under-funding in health and education services (23). As well as threatening livelihoods and survival, forced returns increase the stigma migrants face. Made invisible and discriminated against in host countries, returnees, both in Venezuela and in Central America, encounter prejudice, profiling and xenophobia when they re-enter their countries of origin, as a result of discriminating and lack of specific policies directed at returnees. More than one hundred Guatemalans deported from the USA and returned to Guatemala in March and April 2020 have now tested positive for COVID-19 (24). One fifth of all the recorded cases in Guatemala are of migrants deported from the USA, creating rumours that returnees are ‘natural’ carriers of the disease. Yet the fact that so many returned migrants have been infected with COVID-19 is hardly surprising given that it is a disease that affects, above all, the poor, marginalised and vulnerable people. Many migrants are held in very crowded and unhygienic conditions both in deportation centres, and upon return in quarantine centres, with little access to regular testing, isolation, and treatment, leaving migrants very susceptible to COVID-19 (25).

Upon their return, their vulnerabilities are made even worse by stigma, and due to this some face forced internal displacement. With few public policies designed to support re-integration, returnees encounter difficulties re-entering the formal labour market. The prospect of homelessness, destitution, violence and recruitment into criminal gangs is real. In this context, after the worst of the COVID-19 crisis is over, new waves of international migration are almost inevitable along with an increased threat of forced recruitment by criminal gangs. This should not be the case, as international agreements and domestic law and policies that protect migrants and citizens should be consistently upheld. Countering stigma and the marginalisation of returned migrants as well as their fundamental right to health care, shelter, freedom from discrimination should be a core responsibilities of all states, even in the midst of a health crisis, yet many governments in Latin America, either because of a lack of political will or lack of preparedness, are ignoring their legal obligations to migrants.

THE RIGHT TO HEALTH FOR ALL

The right to health is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, article 12), and in the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (articles 10 and 11), which states that every person, regardless of their legal status, has a right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.  Article 12 of the ICESCR establishes the responsibility of states to go beyond basic provision and to take ‘deliberate, concrete and targeted’ steps ‘towards the full realization of the right to health.’ Furthermore, its specific legal obligation establishes that ‘States are under the obligation to respect the right to health by, inter alia, refraining from denying or limiting access for all persons, including (…) asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, to preventive, curative and palliative health services; (…) and abstaining from imposing discriminatory practices…’. State parties to these agreements should ensure the health needs to all are met, regardless of legal or citizenship status. El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela are all signatories of international and regional treaties that safeguard the right to health to migrants and refugees, which should mean ensuring equal access to health services, including prevention, testing and treatment for COVID-19. Yet these states, and others in the Americas are not upholding these treaties, have little to gain electorally if they actively protect migrants’ and returnees’ rights. Some policies are difficult to implement in countries whose health systems are underfunded. Health spending in Latin America is just under USD 1,000 per capita, only a quarter of that spent in OECD countries (28). At the same time, health systems’ capacity and the ability to provide access to good quality services to the most vulnerable groups is significantly lower. While the region is struggling to respond to the major challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, discriminatory treatment is also purposefully affecting access to healthcare of migrants. For example, Colombia grants full access to healthcare only to documented migrants, excluding those irregular or undocumented, who represent 57 per cent of the migrant population (29). In Brazil, although the right to health is a Constitutional obligation, NGOs filed judicial cases against the government in Boa Vista to revert restrictions affecting access of Venezuelan migrants to public hospitals and health clinics in the city. In Central America and Mexico, migrants faced barriers to access to COVID-19 testing and treatment (31). As such, better coordination of national and regional programmes in support of public health preparedeness, including well-funded programmes for the provision of quality healthcare, housing and social protection for everyone, regardless of legal status, are urgently needed.

Authors: Pia Riggirozzi, Jean Grugel and Natalia Cintra

Originally published by Lancet Migration on June 26th 2020

Organisations and acknowledgements

This situational brief was authored by Pia Riggirozzi, Jean Grugel and Natalia Cintra^[1] and expert reviewed by Michael Knipper[2]. Overall direction and review on behalf of the Lancet Migration global collaboration was provided by Miriam Orcutt and editorial review by Sophie McCann. This brief represents the views of the authors. This series of situational and policy briefs summarises key aspects of the COVID-19 response in relation to migrants and refugees at country or regional level. They include public health and policy recommendations and perspectives and build on the Lancet Migration Global Statement recommendations to ensure migrants and refugees: have access to healthcare; are included in prevention, preparedness and response; and are part of responsible and transparent public information strategies, during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are intended to be short briefs providing key information on particular migrant and refugee contexts and thematics, rather than fully comprehensive country or regional overviews. Situational briefs have been authored by experts working in academia, operational, or clinical areas of migration and COVID-19, and are hosted on the Lancet Migration website (www.migrationandhealth.org). They are up to date at the time of writing. Lancet Migration is a global collaboration between The Lancet and researchers, implementers, and others in the field of migration and health that aims to address evidence gaps and drive policy change building on the recommendations of the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health published in December 2018.

[1] Pia Riggirozzi is Professor of Global Politics at the University of Southampton (UK) and principal investigator in the ESRC-GCRF funded project Redressing Gendered Health Inequalities of Displaced Women and Girls in Contexts of Protracted Crises in Central and South America (ReGHID). Jean Grugel is Professor of Global Development and Director of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC) at the University of York (UK), and Co-investigator on the ReGHID project.  Natalia Cintra is Research Fellow for the ReGHID project in the University of Southampton

[2] Institute of the History of Medicine, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany

REFERENCES

1. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees- UNHCR (2019) ‘Expanding Operations in Central America’. Retrieved from http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR Expanding Operations in Central America – February 2019.pdf
2. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights/ Organisation of American States (2018) ‘Forced Migration of Venezuelans’. Retrieved from https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/pdf/Resolution-2-18-en.pdf
3. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean- ECLAC/Gender Equality Observatory. ‘Femicide or Feminicide’. Retrieved from https://oig.cepal.org/en/indicators/femicide-or-feminicide
4. Panamerican Health Organisation. PAHO (2020) ‘Director Says Fight Against COVID-19 Pandemic Must Include Chronic Disease Care’. Retrieved from https://www.paho.org/en/news/26-5-2020-paho-director-says-fight-against-covid-19-pandemic-must-include-chronic-disease-care
5. Johns Hopkins online dashboard. Retrieved from https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
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7. Lancet Migration Global Statement: Leaving No One Behind in the Covid-19 Pandemic: a Call for Urgent Global Action to Include Migrants & Refugees in the COVID-19 Response. Retrieved from https://1bec58c3-8dcb-46b0-bb2a-fd4addf0b29a.filesusr.com/ugd/188e74_b87afbfe45e44eecb13a45a5cea61209.pdf
8. Council of the Americas (2020) ‘Where is the Coronavirus in Latin America’. Retrieved from https://www.as-coa.org/articles/where-coronavirus-latin-america
9. Arevalo Amaral and Wenham Clare (2020) ‘Covid-19 in El Salvador Public Health or Restricting Human Rights’. LSE Blog. Retrieved from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2020/04/13/covid-19-in-el-salvador-safeguarding-public-health-or-restricting-human-rights/
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11. Guadano Lorenzo (2020) Migrants and the COVID-19 pandemic: An initial analysis. IOM. Retrieved from https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mrs-60.pdf
12. International Organization for Migration (2020) ‘COVID-19 Analytical Snapshot #6: Stigmatization & Discrimination’. Retrieved from https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/our_work/ICP/MPR/covid-19_analytical_snapshot_6_-_stigmatization_and_discrimination.pdf
13. Medicines Sans Frontieres (2017) ‘United States: Suspension of US Refugee Resettlement Endengers People Fleeing War Zones’. Retrieved from https://www.msf.org/united-states-suspension-us-refugee-resettlement-endangers-people-fleeing-war-zones
14. Amnesty International (2018) ‘USA: You Don’t Have any Rights Here’. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/10/usa-treatment-of-asylum-seekers-southern-border/
15. Montoya-Galvez, Camilo (2020) ‘Exporting the Virus: Migrants Deported by US Make up for 20% of the Cases’. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deported-migrants-guatemala-coronavirus-cases/
16. International Crisis Group (2020) ‘Deportation and disease: Central America’s Covid Dilemmas’. Retrieved from https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/central-america/guatemala/deportation-and-disease-central-americas-covid-19-dilemmas
17. Lancet Migration: Report on Venezuelan Migrants in Colombia and the Covid Pandemic. Retrieved from https://1bec58c3-8dcb-46b0-bb2a-fd4addf0b29a.filesusr.com/ugd/188e74_6137c5c0bacb41cab07619821eb62c13.pdf
18. Bahar, Dany; Meagan Dooley, and Cindy Huang (2018) ‘Integrating Venezuelans into the Colombian Labor Market’, Global Economy and Development at Brookings, Policy Brief. Retreived from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Venezuelan-Migrants_English.pdf
19. United Nations Human Rights Guidance Notes. Retrived from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Housing/SR_housing_COVID-19_guidance_evictions.pdf
20. The Guardian (2020) ‘Venezuelans Return Home as Coronavirus Piles more Misery on Migrants’. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/venezuelans-return-home-coronavirus-migrants
21. International Organization for Migration (2020) ‘COVID-19 Analytical Snapshot #6: Stigmatization & Discrimination’. Retrieved from https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/our_work/ICP/MPR/covid-19_analytical_snapshot_6_-_stigmatization_and_discrimination.pdf
22. UNHCR (2020) ‘Operacao Acolhida’. Retrieved from https://data2.unhcr.org/es/documents/download/74962
23. Reliefweb (2020) ‘Covid-19 Update. Response for Venezuelans’. Retrieved from https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/75767.pdf
24. Dickerson, Caitlin and Kirk Semple (2020) ‘U.S. Deported Thousands Amid Covid-19 Outbreak. Some Proved to Be Sick’, The New York Times, 18 April. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/deportations-coronavirus-guatemala.html
25. Grattan, Steven (2020) ‘Returning Venezuelans in Squalid Quarantine Face Uncertain Future’, The Guardan, 16 April. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/16/venezuelans-returning-squalid-quarantine-migrants
26. Nicholls, Michelle (2020) ‘U.S. Returns Migrant Children Despite Risks Worsened by Coronavirus – UNICEF’, Reuters, 29 May. Retrieved from https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-usa-mexico/u-s-returns-migrant-children-despite-risks-worsened-by-coronavirus-unicef-idUKKBN22X1RR
27. Panamerican Health Organization (2019) ‘Documento de Orientación sobre Migración y Salud’, Retrieved from https://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_docman&view=download&alias=48291-documento-de-orientacio-n-sobre-migracio-n-y-salud&category_slug=migracion&Itemid=270&lang=es
28. The World Bank (2020) ‘Latin America & the Caribbean Countries Need to Spend More and Better on Health to be Better Able to Face a Major Health Emergency Like COVID-19 Effectively’. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/06/16/latin-america-caribbean-health-emergency-covid-19
29. Asociacion Profamilia/ USAID (2020) ‘Desigualdades en Salud de la Población Migrante y Refugiada Venezolana en Colombia’. Retrieved from https://www.profamilia.org.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Desigualdades-en-salud-de-la-poblacion-migrante-y-refugiada-venezolana-en-Colombia-Como-manejar-la-respuesta-local-dentro-de-la-emergencia-humanitaria.pdf
30. Concetas (2020) ‘Court Bans Boa Vista from Restricting Hospital Treatment for Migrants’. Retrieved from  https://www.conectas.org/en/news/court-bans-boa-vista-from-restricting-hospital-treatment-for-migrants
31. UNICEF (2020) ‘COVID-19: Dangers Mount for Migrant Children Forcibly Returned to Northern Central America and Mexico During Pandemic’. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/covid-19-dangers-mount-migrant-children-forcibly-returned-northern-central-america

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