PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — An official of the European Delegation in Trinidad and Tobago says the Caribbean continues to attract large number of illegal immigrants from poorer countries.

Addressing the opening of a one-week international workshop on international migration here on Monday, Charge d’Affaires at the European Delegation in Trinidad and Tobago Stelios Christopoulos, also indicated that analysis of the Caribbean migration pattern is hampered by the lack of timely and reliable data.

“Very little data are available on the in and outflow of people from and to Caribbean countries. From what we do know however, the Caribbean has one of the largest diasporic communities in the world, in proportion to the population,” he said.

Christopoulos told the ACP Observatory on Migration Project workshop that Caribbean countries are source, transit and final destination of migrants and that emigration from the region occurred in two waves, during the post-World War II economic boom and in the late 1970s and 1990s as a result of increased in the demand for service workers and professionals in North America.

He said the top labour-exporting countries from the Caribbean are Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Guyana, while migration from the Caribbean happens largely to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The weeklong conference, dubbed ‘Capacity Building Workshop on International Migration Data Collection’, is a collaboration between the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Secretariat, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), the European Union, the Government of Switzerland and the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Christopoulos said the Caribbean also suffers from the brain drain aspect of migration, noting “many countries suffer tremendous constraints in their capacities to provide equal, qualitative and affordable social services to their populations.

“They also suffer from a big gap between wealth and development. It is estimated that around 70 per cent of the migrants from the Caribbean to the Organisation of Economic Development countries are tertiary education graduates”.

The EU official said that in addition to the illegal immigrants, the Caribbean also has to deal with deportees who constitute a group of migrants that are of special concern to the region.

He said that the continuous rise of the murder rates and outbursts of violent crime over the last 10 years are perhaps and among others related to the deportees.

Christopoulos said the basis of Caribbean integration is the Caribbean Community Single Market and Economy that allows for the free movement of goods, skills, services and labour across the region.

“In that respect, until today only free movement of skilled labour, such as university graduates, artists, musicians, media workers and sports persons has been implemented by most member states,” he said, adding “today, everybody understands the need for managed migration.

He said this is reflected in the growing number of meetings as well as the increasing time allocation in international and intra-regional meetings to discuss strategies to respond to the challenges of migration.

The ACP Observatory on Migration Project which was officially launched in Brussels, as an initiative of the ACP Group of States, aims at strengthening data collection and analysis capacity for policy development, with a focus on South-South migration flows between and among countries from within six regions of the ACP grouping.

The organisers said that this objective is expected to be met through consultations amongst various government ministries, civil society organisations, universities, independent researchers and diaspora associations in the 12 pilot countries.

The pilot countries are Angola, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Tanzania, Timor-Leste and Trinidad and Tobago.

In her address to the workshop, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security here in Jamaica, Jennifer Boucad-Blake said that data collected through proper migration management, can reveal the positive and negative contribution of migration.

“Migrants have the ability to make economies grow and can contribute to human development in both home and host countries. They can enrich societies through the promotion of cultural diversity, the fostering of understanding and respect among peoples.

“On the other hand, migrant data can also reveal the extent to which, migration, irregular or otherwise impacts on society. Migrants can place unnecessary pressure on key services such as schools, health and transport.”

But she warned that a lack of information on the migrants who enter various countries whether legally or illegally can pose a challenge to security.