Kids join their mothers to plead for food… 

HARDSHIP STALKS THE LAND 

THREE children were at her feet in the light drizzle, as she held a tiny cardboard poster at a street corner pleading for money to feed her family. 

In her halting English, the Venezuelan told me about hardship in bringing up the two girls and a boy, all of school age but not attending classes, and about affording to buy food. 

There was some rough explanation about the children’s dad being in prison and about her fleeing to Trinidad and Tobago for a better life. 

The innocent children, in frayed clothes, giggled and danced around their mother, who, in sharp contrast, looked flustered and a bit embarrassed. 

She is one of many Vene refugees begging at busy spots or being exploited at low-end jobs, mostly in South Trinidad within near miles of common illegal entry ports. 

Four years after starving Venezuelans began bolting from Nicholas Maduro’s oppression, they are still arriving in ramshackle pirogues, blending in and yearning for a better life. 

There are only token attempts to restrict their unlawful entry. 

There is also still no official processing with respect to medical condition, language, and education skills for legal immigrants, as is done by progressive countries.  

They are all facing adversity. 

Exactly three years ago, I wrote that “the untamed flood of Venezuelan refugees is already impacting the job market, national security, housing, public transportation, and would soon influence education, medical care, and social services”. 

The authorities offer no reports, an indication that it is disinterested in the humanitarian crisis. 

But joblessness is skyrocketing – especially in fenceline communities of the sagging energy sector – and desperate Venes are joining the army of impacted Trinis hunting employment. 

On the other side of town, near to a commercial bank and a block of fast-food outlets, a forlorn Trini woman stands most days adjacent to a wall, against which she leans for minimal shelter from sun and rain. 

A few weeks earlier, when I stopped to give her “a change”, I had “bouffed” her for having her two children out of school and begging alms. 

“Mister, they does study dey books from home,” she had said. 

There is no one at her apartment to supervise while mommy hits the road to plead for a few dollars to buy life’s essentials 

The agonised mother relates her sob stories with the tagline “t’ings real hard”. 

With her minimal skills, she cannot even seek an end in a small business, those that weathered the Covid-19 pandemic, even as big operations expanded and banks reported climbing profits. 

At a business place I visit, the Jamaican-born security guard, whom I befriended sometime ago, talks in hushed tones about being burdened with duties, including cleaning washrooms, on 12-hour shifts, six days a week. 

“Mia fed up mi waah tuh return yaad,” she tells me. 

There are literally thousands of such hard-luck cases throughout the land: People who lost their jobs in the informal and other sectors, victims of the closures of small businesses, and even school graduates. 

A chemical engineer, who hit the breadline when a Point Lisas plant was mothballed, is selling ground provisions in the market and trying to save his home from the bank and send his children to school. 

There is also much anecdotal evidence of child suffering. 

As a traffic light turns red, two boys, no older than 10, rush toward vehicles, hawking vegetables and fruits, appealing for a sale from motorists, most of whom keep their windows rolled up. 

At another intersection, young squeegees cleaning windscreens are faring better.  

Official figures of poverty are not available. 

The PNM admitted in 2015 that the Central Statistical Office was “not reliable nor timely”, and promised an “independent institution” because of “the critical importance of data-driven decision-making”. 

That has not taken place. 

Maybe that explains why some people aloof from the harsh facts of life were stunned by the massive number of frantic displaced workers who rushed for cruise ship jobs. 

“Signs of a desperate job market”, the Express newspaper editorialised. 

“What the country has witnessed … is the stark evidence of the growing level of unemployment and under-employment that has been building since the economy went into decline in 2016 and was further walloped by the Covid-19 pandemic.” 

And yet, there is no concerted effort at poverty eradication, no move toward job creation, no effort to lure big businesses to invest their laid-up billions, and insufficient incentives to manufacturers, farmers, and agro-processors. 

Social security offerings go only so far – and to a limited number of anguished families. 

Food and pharmaceutical prices are going up. 

Small businesses remain on the ropes, while a bank just revealed a 17 percent increase in second-quarter earnings. 

More Caricom nationals would soon hit the T&T job market, through just-passed legislation that permits easy entry for a wide number of applicants, under CSME arrangements. 

All of that could lead to more single mothers shoplifting baby milk, hungry children skipping school, and frustrated families uprooting for greener pastures.  

Hardship has evolved into desperation. 

Three meals a day is a luxury for many. 

The economic inequity and plight of the small man are symbolised in a taxes and customs duties break of more than $1 million on a government minister’s extravagant vehicle. 

The luxury auto itself is valued at $2.1 million. 

The struggling Vene, meanwhile, simply wants to provide for her hungry children and to get a fighting chance at life. 

“Please help my family,” her placard reads.