The US$3m ($615m) United States project, which aims to provide tailored assistance to deportees returning to Guyana as part of a pilot project to support their reintegration into the society, has begun operations and is inviting remigrants experiencing difficulties to contact it.
According to an advertisement in the newspapers yesterday the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which signed an agreement with the government in June of last year, is asking persons who know someone who has been deported to Guyana or those who would have found it difficult to resettle in Guyana to dial telephone number 226-4732. Those who find it difficult to secure a job or are considering opening their own businesses can also dial the number.
It was revealed last year at the signing that the project has budgeted for some 250 returnees here. Funds were also earmarked for a similar regional programme in The Bahamas. The US had previously implemented the project in Haiti.
Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee at the signing had said that deportees can expect tangible support from government in light of the agreement being inked with the United States to contribute to the long-term reintegration of returnees into the society.
The cooperation paved the way for the US to implement programmes here in various areas including capacity building, advisory services and technical cooperation on migration issues beginning sometime in July or early August.
In yesterday’s advertisement it was stated that the IOM is an intergovernmental organisation (established in 1951) that is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society. It said its presence in Guyana is to support the resettlement of deportees from the US to this country.
At the signing Minister Rohee had revealed that some 2939 Guyanese nationals convicted for criminal offences were deported during the period 1996-2007 at an average of 245 criminal deportees a year. He had added that the figure excluded persons deported for immigration offences. During that same period 1528 criminal deportees were returned from the US, at an average of 127 persons per year.
Further, he had said that the deviant behaviour of most deportees is a product of the environment in which they have resided and that those countries therefore have the moral responsibility for their rehabilitation.
He said too that many deportees are without relatives here, and that they face severe difficulties reintegrating into the society.
Rohee continued that they become a social burden on the state as well as prime targets for recruitment by organized criminal gangs. He added that many deportees here have no roots in the country or have been ostracized by relatives. “It is therefore incumbent on the government to find appropriate living facilities for deportees and provide them with basic needs while working to reintegrate them into the society”, he had stressed.
