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UNHCR staff build a temporary medical ward outside the Erasmo Meoz Hospital, in Ccuta, Colombia, as part of the stepped up response to COVID-19. The facility has the capacity to attend to 72 patients. UNHCR

With the coronavirus pandemic testing health care systems around the world, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the International Organization for Migration, are calling attention to the challenges facing refugees and migrants from Venezuela.

At a time when the worlds attention is focused on COVID-19, and as governments and populations, particularly health workers, heroically come together to combat this virus, we should not lose sight of the needs of the millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants, said Eduardo Stein, joint UNHCR-IOM Special Representative for refugees and migrants from Venezuela.

COVID-19 has brought many aspects of life to a standstill but the humanitarian implications of this crisis have not ceased and our concerted action remains more necessary than ever. We are urging the international community to boost its support for humanitarian, protection and integration programmes, on which the lives and welfare of millions of people depend, including host communities.

The current global public health emergency has compounded an already desperate situation for many refugees and migrants from Venezuela, and their hosts. Funding to support them is urgently needed.

Many depend on insufficient daily wages to cover basic needs such as shelter, food and health care; others have no roof over their heads. With growing fear and social unrest, Venezuelan refugees and migrants are also at risk of being stigmatized.

Governments in the region have been leading and coordinating the response to ensure those leaving Venezuela can access rights and documentation. But as national capacities become stretched to a breaking point, the wellbeing and safety of Venezuelans and their host communities is at risk.

Millions of refugees and migrants, and the communities hosting them, continue to need urgent support, particularly as the economic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic begins to be felt across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The coordination of the humanitarian response for refugees and migrants from Venezuela is conducted through a Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform (Response for Venezuelans-R4V), complemented by eight national or sub-regional platforms. Platforms are operating through a sector approach with the participation of 137 partners. In addition, WHO-PAHO leads the health-related aspects of the COVID-19 response.

The Regional Platform has activated a critical revision of all operations in the region to prioritize essential protection and life-saving actions and promote the inclusion of refugees and migrants in national programmes. In close coordination with WHO-PAHO, the R4V is also collaborating with national and local authorities to address the new challenges and deliver basic support to Venezuelan refugees and migrants, as well as to host communities.

While maintaining physical distancing measures, partners are implementing a number of prevention and response activities in the main locations where refugees and migrants from Venezuela are hosted. These activities ensure people can adequately access information, clean water, soap and appropriate waste disposal. Organizations are working around the clock to find innovative ways to continue supporting the most vulnerable individuals in the current context while also supporting national authorities to set up observation and isolation spaces for potential positive COVID-19 cases.

So far, the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) launched in November 2019 to respond to the most urgent needs of refugees and migrants from Venezuela in 17 countries, as well as the local communities hosting them, has received only three per cent of the requested funds, which could put at stake the continuity of lifesaving programmes throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

For more information on this topic, please contact:

In Geneva:

In Panama:

For background information please consult the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform website: R4V.info

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Refugees and migrants from Venezuela during COVID-19 crisis: as needs soar more inclusive measures and aid are essential - UNHCR

A young Warao indigenous refugee from Venezuela washes her hands after an educational session on preventing the spread of the coronavirus, given by UNHCR and a partner NGO, Fraternidade, at a shelter in Boa Vista, in northern Brazil. UNHCR/Allana Ferreira

In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, we are all vulnerable. The virus has shown that it does not discriminate but many refugees, those forcibly displaced, the stateless and migrants are at heightened risk.

Three-quarters of the worlds refugees and many migrants are hosted in developing regions where health systems are already overwhelmed and under-capacitated. Many live in overcrowded camps, settlements, makeshift shelters or reception centres, where they lack adequate access to health services, clean water and sanitation.

The situation for refugees and migrants held in formal and informal places of detention, in cramped and unsanitary conditions, is particularly worrying. Considering the lethal consequences a COVID-19 outbreak would have, they should be released without delay. Migrant children and their families and those detained without a sufficient legal basis should be immediately released.

This disease can be controlled only if there is an inclusive approach which protects every individuals rights to life and health. Migrants and refugees are disproportionately vulnerable to exclusion, stigma and discrimination, particularly when undocumented. To avert a catastrophe, governments must do all they can to protect the rights and the health of everyone. Protecting the rights and the health of all people will in fact help control the spread of the virus.

It is vital that everyone, including all migrants and refugees, are ensured equal access to health services and are effectively included in national responses to COVID-19, including prevention, testing and treatment. Inclusion will help not only to protect the rights of refugees and migrants, but will also serve to protect public health and stem the global spread of COVID-19. While many nations protect and host refugee and migrant populations, they are often not equipped to respond to crises such as COVID-19. To ensure refugees and migrants have adequate access to national health services, States may need additional financial support. This is where the worlds financial institutions can play a leading role in making funds available.

While countries are closing their borders and limiting cross-border movements, there are ways to manage border restrictions in a manner which respects international human rights and refugee protection standards, including the principle of non-refoulement, through quarantine and health checks.

More than ever, as COVID-19 poses a global threat to our collective humanity, our primary focus should be on the preservation of life, regardless of status. This crisis demands a coherent, effective international approach that leaves no-one behind. At this crucial moment we all need to rally around a common objective, fighting this deadly virus. Many refugees, displaced, stateless people and migrants have skills and resources that can also be part of the solution.

We cannot allow fear or intolerance to undermine rights or compromise the effectiveness of responses to the global pandemic. We are all in this together. We can only defeat this virus when each and every one of us is protected.

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The rights and health of refugees, migrants and stateless must be protected in COVID-19 response - UNHCR

Over the past decade or so, the European Union has weathered the global financial crisis, a migrant crisis, and the rise of populist nationalism. Sure, it's taken its fair share of bumps and bruises along the way, but the idea of a largely borderless Europe united by common democratic values has survived more or less intact.

Then came the coronavirus. The global pandemic, in which Europe is now one of the two main epicentres, is a still-spiralling nightmare that could make those previous crises look benign by comparison. Here are a few different ways that COVID-19 is severely testing the 27-member bloc:

The economic crisis: Lockdowns intended to stop the virus' spread have brought economic activity to a screeching halt, and national governments are going to need to spend a lot of money to offset the impact. But some EU members can borrow those funds more easily than others. Huge debt loads and deficits in southern European countries like Italy and Spain, which have been hardest hit by the outbreak so far, make it costlier for them to borrow than more fiscally conservative Germany and other northern member states. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, this imbalance nearly led the bloc's common currency, the Euro, to unravel.

Today, Europe has already unleashed some serious financial firepower to fight the current crisis, mainly through its central bank. But some of the other steps that may be necessary to prevent an economic collapse, like an EU bailout fund or crisis bonds, have reignited long-standing disagreements between North and South. A meeting of Eurozone finance ministers next Tuesday will be an important sign of whether Europe can pull together on the financial front.

The border crisis: In a bid to stop the spread of the virus, countries across the union have imposed border controls, some banning all entry to non-nationals. Although measures like this are technically allowed during emergencies like pandemics, they've caused huge traffic jams and disruptions to the flow of important goods. Relatedly, some member states have restricted shipping critical medical supplies with fellow EU-members, for fear that they will be needed at home.

When and under what circumstances these borders are relaxed again will be a very thorny political question, which raises concerns about whether one of the EU's great achievements the vaunted Schengen area allowing unhindered, passport-free travel across the EU will survive the crisis intact.

A crisis of democracy: Hungary's lurch towards "illiberal democracy" was the subject of serious hand wringing in Brussels well before the pandemic hit, but member states never took sufficient action to deter it. Now that the strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used the crisis to grab nearly unlimited executive powers, Hungary has become an existential test of the EU's commitment to democracy and the rule of law. Other illiberal forces in Europe and beyond will be watching to see how Brussels and the other member states respond.

Bottom line: For now, the EU is holding together amid the biggest crisis in the continent's post-war history. But it's still early days. As the death toll and economic destruction mount, tougher tests of the EU's ability to function as a bloc, rather than a collection of states with competing interests, may be yet to come.

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A COVID-19 test for the European Union - GZERO Media

BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Leaders of nine EU countries urged the bloc on Wednesday to issue a common debt instrument to cushion their economies from the shock of the coronavirus crisis, challenging Germany and others adamantly opposed to pooling risk across the continent.

FILE PHOTO: European Union flags fly near the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, October 4, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

European Union finance ministers broadly agreed the previous day on an idea that governments grappling for funds might apply for a credit line worth some 2% of their GDP from a joint bailout fund called the European Stabilisation Mechanism (ESM).

But there was no agreement on joint debt issuance across the 19 member states that share the euro single currency - long a goal for the Club Med group of mostly southern member states, most prominently Italy, and just as much a red line for a group of wealthier northern countries known as the Frugals.

That left it to the leaders, who will meet in a videoconference summit on Thursday, to thrash out the issue.

Germany was one of the founders of the euro zone, in which the European Central Bank sets monetary policy for all the 19 countries that share the EUs single currency, the euro.

But the ECB, to its regret, has no power over budgets.

ECB chief Christine Lagarde asked the ministers at their meeting on Tuesday to give serious consideration to a joint issue of corona bonds as a one-off, four officials said.

One official said her proposal had run into opposition from Germany, the Netherlands and other northern European countries, but also a lot of support beyond Club Med. Germany and others could block the proposal at Thursdays meeting.

Sources said the German position, as it was in the 2010-2012 euro zone sovereign debt crisis, is that taking part in a mutual bond issue or corona bond is still a step too far, and would be resisted by its parliament and constitutional court.

There is also public opposition to putting German taxpayers money on the line to help countries seen as more spendthrift than Germany, which, alone among euro zone members, runs a balanced budget.

The push-back from northern countries - which sources said included the Netherlands, Finland and Austria - in the face of Europes most serious crisis since World War Two highlights a lack of solidarity that has been undermining the EUs principle of shared values ever since the debt crisis and the migrant crisis of 2015.

Some member states were initially reluctant to share medical equipment with Italy, which has suffered the deadliest outbreak, and several countries have reintroduced border controls - recalling the migrant crisis - inside what is normally the open-frontier Schengen Zone.

In a joint letter ahead of Thursdays virtual summit, nine countries, led by economic heavyweights France, Italy and Spain, called for a common debt instrument issued by a European institution to raise funds on the market.

By givingaclear message thatwearefacingthis unique shockall together, we would strengthen the EU and the Economic and Monetary Union and ... provide the strongest message to our citizens about European determined cooperation and resolve to provide an effective and united response, they said.

The letter was also signed by the leaders of Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Belgium and Greece.

Officials say the need for a decision on a bailout plan has been reduced by the ECBs announcement of a coronavirus emergency bond-buying program worth 750 billion euros.

Still, the ECB has long sought a euro zone-wide safe asset, arguing that a Euro Bond would be key to crisis-proofing a currency bloc that came close to collapse in the debt crisis only a few years ago.

A German government spokesman, responding to the letter, said it was normal for leaders to put forward proposals ahead of EU summits, but in the end the matter would be decided by all member states. No comment was immediately available from the Netherlands or Austria.

Such an instrument would give Brussels a fiscal lever that could be moved quickly and in tandem with the ECB, which has for years complained that budget policy is out of sync with monetary policy, hindering its economic stimulus efforts.

It would also let commercial banks cut holdings of their home countrys debt, breaking the so-called doom loop between banks and their host country in which any regional debt crisis can quickly morph into a banking crisis as well.

Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Frankfurt, Andrey Khalip in Madrid, Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels and Andreas Rinke in Berlin; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Kevin Liffey

Link:
Club Med takes on the Frugals in EU 'corona bond' bailout battle - Reuters

On March 24, prime minister Narendra Modi announced a complete lockdown of the country for 21 days to contain the spread of novel coronavirus. All transport operations were grounded and non-essential services shut overnight. This sudden nationwide lockdown brought the nation of over a billion people to its knees but one particular group has clearly been most severely hit: Indias internal migrants.

Soon after the announcement, distressing reports emerged that many migrants were stranded in cities without income and food.

Many started to head home on foot, with some arduously walking hundreds of kilometres to return to their native places without adequate food and water along the way; some even faced police brutalities for no fault of their own.

The panic surrounding the spread of the coronavirus had already set in before the nationwide lockdown. States such as Maharashtra and Kerala, which are worst affected by the virus and also attract a large number of migrants, had already implemented strict lockdown measures. As livelihoods dwindled, migrants crowded trains to return home.

There are nearly 100 million internal migrants in India, and not all had the choice to return home.

Most rural-urban migrants work in the unorganised sector; they have precarious lives and livelihoods, and they subsist in cities and support their families in villages from savings their meagre everyday earnings allow.

Also read: As Migrants Trudge Out of Indias Cities, the Stark Realities of Migration Stand Exposed

Many had the information but chose to stay for another day of wage as they faced the cruel choice of dying from hunger before coronavirus could get them.

As news spread on the plight of stranded migrants, the Central government and several state governments have initiated actions to provide them with basic necessities such as food, shelter, sanitation. Many civil society groups, such as Aajeevika, are also working on the ground to help the migrants in crisis. These are welcome steps indeed.

Yet, there is also another group of citizens in potentially more severe crisis that needs urgent help but is conspicuously absent in current discussions on lockdown-induced migration crisis.

A family of a migrant worker sits along a highway as they wait for a bus to return to their village, during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to limit the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, March 29, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi

It is the left-behind wives of migrants, who stay behind in villages and who depend on their husbands remittances to run their families. My field research in high labour outmigration state of Bihar shows the important role migrants remittances play in sustaining rural families headed by women.

These are de facto women-headed households where women assume the role of household heads in the absence of men. With their men stranded and livelihoods disrupted, these women need support in these troubling times as much migrants.

Bihar is not alone and this crisis looms large across rural India. In large parts of rural India, labour migration is predominantly undertaken by single men while the women stay behind to manage their families and farms.

As important research by Chinmay Tumbe of IIM-Ahmedabad shows, male migration is prevalent in regions covering over 200 million people, including places as diverse as coastal Maharashtra to mountainous Uttarakhand. Strikingly, this migration pattern has persisted for over 100 years.

There are two key reasons for this male-only pattern of migration. First, socio-cultural norms restrict the mobility of women to distant urban areas. As dutiful wives, mothers, daughter-in-laws, they are expected to stay in the village and manage their rural households.

Also read: 22 Migrant Workers, Kin Have Died Trying to Return Home Since the Lockdown Started

Second, where social norms allow migrants to bring their wives to cities, financial constraints preclude realistic opportunities. Most migrants in urban informal sector earn low wages and share cheap accommodation with fellow workers; they cannot afford to have separate accommodation to live with families. Besides, high costs of healthcare and childrens education in cities also prohibit family migration, especially among communities where women face cultural restrictions on wage work.

Enduring prolonged physical and emotional separation from their men, women also suffer from several gender-based vulnerabilities in villages.

My primary research in rural Bihar on migration and food security documented that women-headed households where men were absent due to migration were more vulnerable to food insecurity than the households headed by men.

This is despite the fact that women prioritised food and used household cash and other resources on food security more judiciously than men. This disadvantage arose largely because of the entrenched gender inequalities women-headed households faced.

One important reason for this is that women often face greater difficulties in accessing government-run social protection services such as PDS food rations, important source of food security in rural India. My field research shows that migration and gender coalesce to produce disadvantage for women-headed migrant households.

This occurs through two ways.

First, absence of men and social norms often restricting the participation of women in the affairs outside the household result in women who stay behind finding it hard to register their claims over their social protection entitlements; those who try are often unheard and manipulated.

Second, the local authorities in-charge of administering the safety nets often regard households with migrant members as having steady income streams, and thus, consider them ineligible for social protection benefits.

It is under such circumstances of added gender-based vulnerabilities that remittances come to their rescue. However, with migration-based livelihoods in disarray for uncertain time, women-headed households will be particularly pressed to fend for themselves.

Also read: Coronavirus Has Revealed Just How Much Our Cities Exclude the Poor

At the global level, there are concerns that COVID-19 poses intensified risks for women and girls, including gender-based violence. The women who stay back in rural India already straddle an added burden of productive and reproductive responsibilities. This crisis will likely intensify their care work, and financial stress will further aggravate their situation.

At the time of writing, media reports showed that states such as Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh are arranging transport for stranded migrants to return home. But given the risk of coronavirus spread, it is likely that these migrants will be kept in temporary shelters before they are allowed to return home.

Some states, such as Gujarat, have already put in place strict restrictions on migrants return travel to their villages, and arranged free food and accommodation. This is a wise move, not least because it will reduce the risk of women getting infected. But all this also means it will be a while before women in villages can expect help from their men. They need social protection to help them avert this crisis.

Rise in food insecurity is a key immediate concern. One immediate measure that state governments can and should take is to provide free food rations to all such women-headed households to prevent hunger among them. In particular, poor states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh that have high labour outmigration prevalence, much of which involves male migration, should immediately implement this. Vast PDS infrastructure already exists to serve this goal.

Local gram panchayat leaders should be roped in. These leaders possess knowledge on livelihood profiles of all households in their areas and know the migrant households headed by women. Moreover, state governments should also provide cash payments to such households. Many of these households will likely have NREGS job cards and that information should be used to provide them cash support. These steps can provide immediate relief and reduce the gender-based vulnerabilities of such women-headed migrant households.

Indian cities and towns generate over 70% of countrys GDP, and migrant labour plays a key constructive role in this. Indias rural migrants build our cities and sustain our urban lives. We must protect them.

But it is the women left-behind who sustain migration by supporting their men. We must not ignore them, and help them in this time of crisis. We owe it to them.

Chetan Choithani is a postdoctoral research associate at the Urban Studies Institute, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta.

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What Happens to the Wives of Male Migrant Workers, Who Run Entire Households in Villages? - The Wire