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Mobile Populations

Peoples of the Caribbean have always been highly mobile with movement within the region as well as to metropolitan centres and back. The mobile populations who are of greatest concern for our community of practitioners are refugees, undocumented migrants, displaced persons and deportees. Members of these groups who are women, young or living with HIV or AIDS are especially vulnerable in these circumstances. Added to that, the human rights abuses that they encounter are palpable. In some cases refugees have been tested for HIV without their consent, and deportees have been sent home without any provision for their ARV treatment regime often after having their treatment interrupted during their trial and detention. HIV positive undocumented persons find it close to impossible to access ARVs and other services because they cannot produce documentation giving them permission to remain in their host country.

Deportees have emerged as one of the largest groups of mobile populations in the region with the United States of America, Canada and Europe sending home persons who were born in the region but many of whom have no relatives or friends left here, and who left the region as small children or babies.

While they do not often get media attention, the reality is that in many Caribbean territories there are displaced persons from the Caribbean living on the margins of society. In many cases, they come from countries such as Haiti, where the state has failed, or from countries such as the Dominican Republic, where poverty and lack of opportunity have driven them to seek a livelihood elsewhere. They may become farm workers, as in Belize or the French territories, household help, or other low level workers eking out a living. The worst instances of this are the human traffickers who buy and sell women and children for a range of purposes, including sexual exploitation.