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Mental Health Repercussions of Migration in the Am ...
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Bienvenidos. We're going with part two of Mental Health Repercussions of Migration in the Americas. I am Bernardo Eng. I'm a member of the board of the World Psychiatric Association and also a member of the Council of International Psychiatry of the American Psychiatric Association. And I'm very, very pleased to present today with my colleagues and friends from Latin America. For those that didn't come to the earlier presentation, we had part one at eight o'clock and it's understandable that most people didn't show up, but actually we had a very good crowd. And we were touching topics like the reality that the 21st century has been a century of migration. And the fact that growing numbers of migrants keep coming across the border into the U.S. and not so many to Canada. We learned today, this morning, that it may be better to go to Canada than to keep trying to get into the United States. At least they're more welcoming. But today we're also going to talk about the fact that the movement is not only up north to the United States, but a lot of things are happening in South America. And we're going to be hearing about that today. This is only a list of the different measures that the U.S. government has used in order to decrease or disincentivize or the migrating movements into this country. Asylum, number four over there, I want to bring your attention to it, has been one of the more interesting ones where asylum seekers from these three countries, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, should go to a third country, which is supposed to be a friendly country, and from there initiate their application. One of those countries, inadvertently, was Mexico, where a lot of people got stuck because of Title 42. Title 42, we talked about it in the first part. I'm only going to mention it briefly here. It's something that was invoked by President Trump in March of 2020. It's a law that comes from 1944 in order to curb or prevent illnesses, infectious illnesses that can be contagious. And then if you identify anybody like that coming through the border, you could immediately deport them or prevent their entrance into the country. However, this Title 44 allowed the administration to quickly expel migrants trying to cross the southern border. And the feeling was very much that Trump overused it. President Trump used it just as an excuse. And President Biden, before winning the election, was promising that that was going to go away. And of course, it was supposed to be concluded in December of 2022, and it did continue until just a few days ago. And I'm going to finish my intervention today with this article that I found very inspiring as a doctor, as a physician, that a group of doctors decided to put together and publish this article in the American Journal of Public Health, claiming or advocating for migrants, stating that using Title 42 to expel migrants or those seeking asylum was a disingenuous use of public health, using science for politics, right? So I'm very pleased, therefore, to present today. Our speakers are going to be Santiago Levin. He is from Argentina. He is the president-elect for the Latin American Psychiatric Association. He's going to talk about exile, migration, and mental health, the case of South America in the 1970s. He was not able to be in person, so he sent us his presentation on video. He's going to be the last presenter. And then Rodrigo Córdoba, who we're fortunate to have him in person. He's the representative for Zone 4 for the World Psychiatric Association. And he's going to talk about South American countries as migrant recipients. And we're going to begin the presentation today with Telma Sanchez, who is going to be talking about determinants of mental health associated to youth migration. And Dr. Sanchez is the representative for Zone 3 to the World Psychiatric Association. So let me put her slides and... Well, thank you very much for having me today. And I will talk about some determinants of mental health in migrant youth population. Okay. Migration is universal and a permanent phenomenon of humanity. The human flow with the consequent movements of ideologies, knowledge, and customs among others has represented prosperity and development for mankind. Unfortunately, this aspect of migration in recent times has been overshadowed by the problem that it entails. Every day, a greater number of migrants move illegally and are victims of criminal groups that trafficking mistreat and eventually kill them. And if they survive, they reach communities where they are often discriminated against. Two months ago, 40 Central American people burned to death in a jail in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and that is one of the many stories that are revealed these days. Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean contribute a large number of migrants who wish to reach the American dream. They flee their countries looking for better living conditions, and they are almost 25% of all migrants in the world. From the 1970s to date, the problem has seriously worsened. And we know that today there are millions of Mexican migrants living in the USA. The corridor, the pathway from Mexico to the US, in the US border, it's a common place to try to pass, and sometimes it's a fatal place to pass. In the world, 7% of migrants are women, girls, and boys. The number of children who migrate is very high. Eighty percent of Afghan migrants are children and women displaced. But you know the displacement is an especially cruel form of migration. Sixty percent of migrants from Central America are children, and many of them travel alone, even by sea. The data on numbers of migrant children and youth are unreliable. Many of them disappear along the way. They are a highly vulnerable population, and around 12% of migrants are children, and 11% are young people. They flee war, violence, and poor living conditions that do not guarantee their survival. If we notice, there is about 61 active wars in the world now. Imagine that number. And a lot of young people cannot find job to get the possibility to survive in their countries. The highest percentages are of African children and youth, followed by the Latino population, and in third place, the Asian population. In recent years, the number of accompanying migrant children has increased fivefold, and the number of migrant children under four years of age has almost doubled. Four years of age, imagine that. Those children and young people travel sometimes accompanied by an adult, sometimes alone, and sometimes they lose their companion on the way. Relatives travel together until they must separate and take different routes based on their physical abilities. They hardly meet after that. And of course, alone children and youth are vulnerable to forced labor, bonded labor, sexual exploitation, and organ trafficking. Boys are often recruited for military and paramilitary activities in Mexico by the cartels, and girls are victims of forced marriage and prostitution. Once they leave their home countries, their destination is unknown, and their families often do not hear from them again. Traumatic events are common in the migrant's life. Up to 90% of them have suffered one or more traumas, sometimes before migrating, and those events are the cause of their departure, such as war, slavery, exploitation, and famine. Other times, the trauma occurs when the person must face the immigration experience itself, where there is no respect for law or life. They may also suffer traumatic experiences when they arrive at the destination, and they are persecuted and live in deplorable conditions. These experiences are related to depression, anxiety, and PTSD. The younger the migrant, the greater the associated risk of mental illness. Children and young people who migrate are left alone, separated from their families, from their support networks, and they break significant affective ties and leave behind their entire known world. And it takes a generation for them to take root again, to assimilate it into the community. First and second generations of immigrant youth suffer far more mental illness compared to the third generation, and this is due to all the difficult situations that the family has to pass. Despite the mental health conditions, migrants seek and receive less health care. Their disorders are not diagnosed, or the diagnoses are delayed. They have limitations to express themselves in the new language. And of course, there are also cultural differences to understand the world, and that includes to understand health and illness. They do not trust the institutions, and they are afraid of being deported. They suffer racial discrimination, and they don't have money to pay even basic services. With the move, the adolescent must deal with multiple groups in addition to those typical of their age related to the body, social status, and parental roles. When he or she migrates, loses family, friends, and language. They don't know the way of dressing, the social codes, and the gender roles. Even the landscape, the smells, and the light are different. Sometimes they find a sense of belonging in gangs that become family and rescue and confirm their fragile identity. Two basic factors that favor young people, young people's resilience are family and school. A meaningful relationship with their peers and teachers make a big difference in integrating them into the new world. The feeling of belonging to the group decreases the risk of suffering from anxiety and depression. The school may have more impact than parental psychopathology or economic difficulties. The big problem is that many migrant children and youth do not attend the school. Another matter to consider in immigration of youth people is what and who they leave behind in the country that they abandon. The family often expresses grief and concern. In Mexico, there are places that seem like ghost towns where only the elderly live and the children desperately await the chance to leave. The heavy responsibility of supporting the families falls on the son or daughter who migrate. Women often express the emotional pain with somatic symptoms and sadness. Those who stay behind may be harassed in the native community for being abandoned. Those are some aspects that I think that we have to keep in mind. And to conclude, I would like to say that immigration is complex, even under favorable conditions. When it happens illegally or forced by serious social situations, it is even far more complicated. Children are the ones who suffer the most and have greater repercussions. It is a priority to care for migrant children, and when they arrive at their home, efforts should be made to facilitate their adaptation, to make new bonds without steering the previous ones. They must have access to health services appropriate to their condition and needs. They must have warranties, certain basic securities, so the level of stress is manageable. Language is very important for assimilation, to communicate, understand in a literal sense their new reality. The role played by schools is critical, and children and young people must consistently attend. At the end, we have to think that we must realize that in the long term, migration means plurality, enrichment, and growth. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Dr. Sanchez. So, we're going to leave time at the end for questions. So, our next speaker now is Rodrigo, and he asked me if he could do this. So, this is going to be a bilingual presentation, okay? He asked me if he could do it in Spanish, and I'll be jumping in to translate a little bit. So, in the room, who does not understand any Spanish? Just, okay, all right, okay, well, yeah, so we're going to do this for you. And then, the other thing is going to be a little fast, because as much as we prepared with the time, Rodrigo came prepared for about an hour talk, so we're going to go through it very quickly, and so, I'll be sitting here trying to do the bilingual part, okay? You ready, Rodrigo? Thank you, President. Thank you very much, Bernardo, to all of the friends here, dear friends, and I'm grateful to be able to speak in my mother tongue on this topic. Okay, for the time being, I think we have very clear definitions of the etymology of immigration, that is, the possibility of changing places, and in that sense, there would be intro situations, which would be immigration and emigration, leaving the place of reference, and I think that for these studies, we should have in mind the theme of the second generation, the children of the people who have emigrated. I feel that within the phenomena of the study of immigration, there would be three fundamental moments. One, the disembarkation of the Spanish caravels in America on October 14, 1492, the industrial revolution that moved the rural populations towards the cities, and without a doubt, the American dream that has brought very important expectations for our countries that we represent on this table. Well, there are some aspects that we should consider why people emigrate, mainly for economic reasons, in the expectation of better incomes, in the possibility of job offers that would improve those incomes, and without a doubt, the particularity related to security. And some aspects related to the phenomena of violence that hit our countries from the Rio Bravo down, and this has brought migratory phenomena within the cities and to other countries. I think it is necessary to highlight, so that Bernardo, surely for Ranuca and the Doctor, can say, the report of the International Migration Organization of 2022, which takes data from 2019. We have increased the migration of people by 272 million, including women and children, men, migrant workers, and perhaps what we have managed to control is all these human rights organizations that have contained the missing migrants. The second is that there has been an internal displacement that has generated health policies as such, and political movements, an increase in refugees, the number of asylum applications has decreased, and without a doubt, a phenomenon in our region, which is the displacement of our Venezuelan brothers to other countries. I'll stop here. This is an impressive slide about the movements. As I said with my own intervention, this century has been the century of migration. Oh, God, we've got the CEO of APA visiting us. Thank you, Dr. Levin, very much for coming. Wow, nice. This slide shows information about displaced people, along with international migrants, and Rodrigo was speaking about the non-governmental organizations, the NGOs that have been instrumental in those migrants that have disappeared. Very good. The countries that have had the most migration, unfortunately, in our country, Colombia is in the third position. As you can see, there have been migration phenomena in previous years associated with violence. Regarding 2020, we have three significant countries. Mexico, which Bernardo has explained what the migratory phenomenon has been in relation to Mexico. Without a doubt, Venezuela, with a percentage of those who have left the country and remained. And Colombia, which has fundamentally had internal mobilization processes. And against that, we have had two measures related to contain migration in relation to COVID. One, which was the impact of the trips, which had a great peak in the beginning of 2020 with a decline. And also the health measures that have been growing progressively and have stabilized in the last time. Okay, thank you. Let me make a pause here. So they came from the next room, but apparently we were too loud. But can you hear us well? Okay, perfect. Yeah. Okay, so about the migratory movements that were affected obviously by the pandemic. Because Colombia took very strict measures. They closed the airport for months and months. And this was between 2020 and 2021. All of America is closed. Okay. And it is a very interesting fact, the figures of the refugee countries that sought asylum, that requested asylum and are now refugees. Without a doubt, Venezuela is still the most marked country. Colombia and, strikingly, Peru, after the phenomenon of the child, had a very interesting internal migration process, speaking of the countries of the region that I represent. Okay, so these are all internal migration? Okay, so Venezuela, Peru and Colombia have been the top countries with internal movements. So, is Colombia also people leaving from Colombia to other countries? And internal processes. Okay. And Peru, a process of internal migration. And in that sense, the processes of internal displacement, Central America, very important, and Colombia with a striking phenomenon in this sense, both for the two reasons that it migrates, for the disasters and for the situations of the armed conflicts. Colombia, although it has decreased, there are particular data in this sense. Okay, so the top two reasons are climate change and violence. And so Colombia has not ceased to have people emigrate or migrate out. With the respect of all of you, I will make a reference in relation to Colombia specifically. How do we measure migration in Colombia? We have seven fundamental indicators. The flows, the quantity, the number of population and the stock of migrant population. How they live, where they go, if they have public services. Health and education. How they link to the labor market. Social integration. If they receive discrimination and justice processes. Okay, so these are seven indicators of migration in the country of Colombia. Shelter and housing, movements, health, education, discrimination, social integration, and if they are treated justly. Colombia has two slides. The slide on the left shows the people who have arrived in the country, that is, who are the people who have arrived the most. Strikingly, or not strikingly, we all know, are the Venezuelans. And I am struck by a peak of American citizens who have arrived after the peace process. After the peace process, they have arrived, but again have begun to descend. North American citizens to establish their place of residence. And we have migrated, mainly to North America. Subsequently, a migration for labor offers in Ecuador and Spain. Okay, so the immigrants into Colombia are by far the Venezuelans. And everybody knows that. But the second line is Americans. After the peace process in Colombia, that was sort of the second country of origin of immigrants to Colombia. And people leaving Colombia, they usually go to the United States, Spain, and Ecuador. And inside our country, the large areas, the Valle del Cauca, Antioquia and Bogotá, are the areas that have suffered the most displacement. I'm not going to know those names. Antioquia, Bogotá, Cauca. Valle del Cauca. Valle del Cauca. The three areas with more displacement. Five minutes for psychopathological issues. Without a doubt, this is a job where Dr. Renato Alarcón was, which is very interesting, where he shows what are the factors associated with the difficulties for mental health diseases in migratory phenomena. Income, language comprehension difficulties. I think it would have a high risk factor. Employment, social support and isolation, home and discrimination. So these are the six factors associated with mental illness in migrants. Income, language, employment, social support, discrimination and housing. Well, I guess you can read those. That's very similar in English. And this is a job carried out with the support of the Ministry of Science of Colombia and a Swiss foundation. They are migrants who have been exposed to armed conflict. A systematic review, and if you see, the possibility of having major depression, anxiety disorders, and without a doubt, comorbidity with other anxious disorders, is remarkably high. This is the work of Professor Cristina Mezabeira. Here, and in relation to suicide, UMass presents these recent data, which is suicidal ideation, which varies according to age, migration, gender and suicide. And if you see, compared later with the Asian population, you see that the risk of suicide in the migrant population, both in young people, but also in adolescents and children, is remarkably significant. And you also see that in the Latin population, the risk of suicide is much higher in this sense. The other big piece of data is the impact that children have, the parents who come to the country, but who have stayed in their countries of origin. And if you see in this data, it is very striking that all the frames, both depression, anxiety, conduct disorder and suicidal ideation, are remarkably higher among those who stay there and have not been able to come with their families. Well, this is interesting. It's an argument for reunification of families, right? So, these are the data on the children left behind. And for all these conditions, conduct disorder, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, it's an increased risk. Okay. In psychosis, there is the work of Europeans. Here I had the opportunity to see some of the Spanish friends. Without a doubt, migration now, with the war in Ukraine, in the first episodes, is much higher and as a risk factor. Okay. Well, in the first episodes, it's higher. And in Colombia, fundamentally, the process of migration, here is the professor, Dr. Camargo, from the University of Rosario, where he shows the risk factors in displacement. How do Colombians organize and live this process? There are some factors of displacement, and we value the vulnerability, the risk of threats, we value the event, and we have a series, a list of activities that we measure. Okay, so this is psychiatrists? Yes. Okay, so there are some… All displaced, but with a focus on psychiatry. Okay, so there are some guidelines for the psychiatrists when they get to treat displaced people, and they're along these three lines. So the attention is in two stages, one directed to the person and the other one to the community that the person belongs to. And this is what has happened in our country, I'm going to make five slides, in our country with the phenomenon of Venezuelans. We have evaluated Venezuelan migration in 13 departments that are there with different colors, and we have seen that their needs are fundamentally mental health care, housing, access to services, and support networks. Okay, so these are the four main needs of the Venezuelans that have migrated to Colombia, which is seeking mental health care, housing, access to services, and a support system. What services are you talking about? Health services, okay. And access to basic services, as such. Other situations as such that have been a cause for concern, increased violence, sexual exploitation, sexual violence, gender violence, xenophobia, actions of discrimination, and labor abuse. Discrimination, xenophobia, gender violence, and work abuse. For the newspapers. Excuse me for the Spanish. Okay. So our next speaker is Santiago Levin, and he is both the current representative for Zone 5, but also the... Hello, good day, everyone. Thank you very much. I can hear them now. And also the president of APAL, president-elect. He sent us his talk on a video, so let me play it for you. If I can. I tested this earlier. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Hello, good day, everyone. Thank you very much for having me here for this invitation. In the first place, to the American Psychiatric Association, and to Dr. Saul Levin. It's not loud enough, right? And in the second place, to all my friends in this session, Bernardo NG, the chairman, and my colleagues and friends, Thelma Sanchez, Eddie Peralta, and Rodrigo Corto. Let me share the screen, please. As you all know, this is a session about mental health and migration in our region. My participation here is called Exile, Migration, and Mental Health, a vision from Argentina, a country from which I am speaking and recording now. I could have chosen different periods in Argentinian history to address the important issue of migration, because this is a country made out of migrants from the very beginning. In this case, I'm going to speak very briefly about some aspects of migration in the contemporary times. First of all, some initial data that I want to share with all of you. There are 280 million migrants around the world, according to the United Nations. This is a little bit less than 4% of the world's total population. It's a very large number. About 29 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean live nowadays outside of their countries of origin. That is around 4% of the regional total population, which is a little bit above the mentioned percentage. 40% of this universe comes from Mexico, and the United States is the main destination. Some other colleagues in this session are surely going to speak about this particular problem in the Mexican-American border and all its repercussions in the people trying to go and to come back and the mental health and social suffering. I would like to concentrate in my country, Argentina, in the southern end of South America. We have here, we have a population of a little less than 50 million people, about 47 million here now. And within this population, we have 2.5 million migrants. It's about 5% of the population. It's a large number. The main origins are Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. And I think I forgot to type also Uruguay, Uruguay, our immediate neighbor to the east. If we mention Buenos Aires City, 10% of the population in this city where I was born, 10% of the population was born in another country. Why am I going to speak about the recent Venezuelan migrants? This is not the main migration here in Argentina, but it is the most recent and it causes a special sensitivity. According to the UN, there are around 5 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela in Latin America and Caribbean. This is a very, very large, unusual number that has no precedent in the recent regional history. Most of them are in Colombia that shares a large border with Venezuela. Colombia has nowadays about 1.7 million Venezuelans. Peru, in the second place, has 1 million. Chile, 460,000, that's about half a million. Then Ecuador, Brazil, and finally, Argentina. There are some other destinations for the Venezuelan migrants and refugees that I'm not mentioning here. For a country like Argentina, with 180,000 recent migrants, it's a large number. We can all see our Venezuelan brothers and sisters among us and this is a very recent phenomenon. It's only the past two or three years. This exodus is the largest in the recent history of the region and one of the largest refugee crises around the world. This is not a place nor the time, but it's very important to take into account the current political and social situation in Venezuela and also the blockade that this country is suffering and a very, very deep political and representative crisis. 80% of these migrants stay in Latin American region and a little portion are living nowadays in the United States and even a smaller portion in Europe. But the big, big percentage, the big majority are staying in some countries nearby. As we saw in the other image before, Colombia is the biggest country with a big border. So this 1.7 million Venezuelans went to Colombia by bus or some of them just walking in kilometers and kilometers. If the current trend is maintained, some studies say that this figure could reach 7 million by the end of this year, 2020. That's a very, very large proportion of the Venezuelan total population that's around 30, 32, 33 million people. We can see very sad and extreme situations like sexual exploitation, labor exploitation, human trafficking, violence, discrimination that put all these people, women, children and men from Venezuela in different kinds of danger, risks and suffering. Why Argentina? Argentina, it's a country far away from Venezuela. In the map, it may seem near, but we are from Buenos Aires to Caracas about 8,000 kilometers away. It's impossible to walk that distance. So we are receiving here the migrants that can afford an airplane ticket. Because we have a population made out of migrants, especially with contributions in the 19th and 20th century. There is a good general reception by local population. It's very easy to get a certificate of residency down here. We have also good public systems in education and health. We have an old migratory tradition that makes things easier for migrants. And also the 1994 reform of our constitution added with constitutional level all human rights international treaties. So migrants here have all the warranties and all the human rights respected. We also have a migratory act which was approved in 2003 that promotes social integration in various forms. Of course, it sounds very beautiful on the blackboard, but reality is always a little bit further, a little bit different than words. Let me close this very brief communication hoping that this data and these comments are useful for the discussion that I am not going to join because I will not be present online at the moment for all of you. Some conclusions are the migration crisis is a world crisis, a generalized crisis. That doesn't receive the attention that it should receive. Of course, there are several mental health problems around forced migration and forced refugees like Ulysses syndrome, trauma, depression, and everything you can name. But, and I think this is a very important topic to talk about, it's impossible to isolate mental health from the hard conditions of a forced migration. Forced migrants are very often subject of extreme risks, often psychic ones of diverse severity. Unfortunately, this kind of humanitarian crisis do not arouse the general interest of the media. They constitute a silent tragedy, often unnoticed. All of our countries are countries struggling with poverty, with very unequal populations, with little portions of very rich people and very large portions of people in the borders of the system. In impoverished countries such as ours, with sanitary systems on the brink of collapse, a correct and friendly reception of migrants is not always easy or even possible, especially when numbers are so big, so large, so difficult to metabolize. Argentina has a large public sanitary system, but not always is enough to receive this kind of demand. So, Argentina, even though its geographic position at the end of the continent, the southern end of the continent, is receiving migrants from distant countries in the region, especially in these past two or three or four years from Venezuela, a very suffered country. Okay. Well, then after that he says goodbye and stuff, so I'm going to stop. Thank you, Santiago. So, yes, we have time for questions and comments or participation from the audience. Anybody, I just request that you get to the microphone because this session is being recorded. Listening to Santiago, it looks like further you move away from the equator, the better reception is there for the immigrations. Okay. Yeah, it seems like, right? Good observation. So, well, yeah, what he shared with us is exactly that, that Argentina, which is a country of migrants, has been more receptive or keep that in mind so that they have this system to receive migrants. You know, I didn't put it together until you say it now that the farther you are from the equator, maybe the countries are more benevolent or more friendly with the migrants. I had never thought about it that way. Esperanza is saying so-so. Why is that, Esperanza? Please state your name. I'm Esperanza Diaz. I work in New Haven, Connecticut. Not the north. We're very far away from the equator. Well, but we just heard in the previous talk about Canada, which is much friendlier than the United States. Oh, well, yeah. I'm sorry I came late. I have a question. Go ahead. What kind of support do they have, for example, in Colombia, 1.7 million? What do they have there? Do they have any kind of support for these immigrants, any kind of policies about that in the other countries? Argentina seems to be very well put together for that, but I'm not sure about Colombia. Yes, so I'm going to pass on that question to Rodrigo. He told us it's a complex and well-established system, especially with the demands of all these Venezuelan people coming in. So, do you want to tell Esperanza a little bit about that? So, International Organization of Migrants? Oh, that's the name of the organization. Organización Internacional de Migrantes? Okay, so there is an organization, actually, just for that. Yeah, Migrant International Organization. Go ahead, go ahead, Jennifer. Yeah, get in line, and we'll be taking your questions. I'm from Haiti, so I think when we look at migration, also you're looking at what is the group that's actually migrating, in a way that when you're looking at people from African descent, maybe they may not be as well received as people who may be from a different descent. Like, for instance, with Argentina, Haitians are having a hard time, actually, immigrating there. And I think it all depends on the ethnic group you're looking at, and the receiving country may feel more friendly, depending on who is migrating. And that's also reflected in the health care. That's also reflected in all the services that people may benefit from when they migrate, when they're immigrating somewhere. And, I mean, Haiti and Dominican Republic, we have a very tense relationship. I live in Dominican Republic. I work there and have many friends there. But there is some obvious reality when you go to a certain country as an immigrant, your race and ethnicity, even your skin color to begin with, can be the barrier to being well accepted. So, wow, very provocative statement. So saying that it doesn't matter what country you're coming from, documented or undocumented, the color of your skin makes a difference of how welcome you are. And pretty much you're dividing between African descent and, let's say, European descent, and that makes a difference. Any opinions on that here from the podium? No? OK. There was another question, sir. Go ahead. Please, on the microphone, so it can stay recorded. Yes. Hi. Thanks for the presentation. I'm Mark, basically from Kentucky. I apologize if this is too incidental and as obvious as the eye on the Cyclops. But the last slide referred to Ulysses Syndrome. I was just kind of curious, since I was trying to figure that out, regarding the association with migration. Oh, gosh, I wouldn't have Santiago to answer that question. So sorry, the only question you had, and we cannot answer it. Sorry about that. OK. Any other comments or questions? OK. So, well, then that gives us a few minutes for the presenters to give us a closing statement about the topic, your presentation. Well, thank you very much. Well, thank you very much for being here today. I don't know. Thank you for being here today, I think that it could be very innocent to try to convince you that migration is just prosperity, innovation and growth. Of course, we have problems because there is specific budgets, there are just a few numbers of houses, organizations who help and it could be a really problem when we try to solve this huge, this enormous situation. But we have to keep in mind that we have a lot of things when the people move and I think that we should care that the migrant people receive a good treatment, receive to live in good conditions and could continue their lives because as all humans has the right to live with dignity. So at the end, I insist, we have to take, we have to highlight the benefits that we receive from migration. Thank you. Okay, well, thank you very much guys, thank you for sticking around. See you next time.
Video Summary
The presentation focused on the mental health repercussions of migration in the Americas, highlighting various aspects associated with this extensive and complex issue. Bernardo Eng, representing psychiatric associations, along with colleagues from Latin America, discussed the increasing numbers of migrants, particularly from Central America, and touched upon the U.S.'s asylum policies, which have seen controversy with measures like Title 42.<br /><br />Dr. Telma Sanchez highlighted the significant challenges faced by migrant youth, pointing at the high vulnerability to trafficking, violence, and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. The school environment was underscored as a critical factor in aiding resilience and integration for young migrants.<br /><br />Rodrigo Córdoba emphasized internal and external migration trends within Latin America, noting the significant movement of Venezuelans across the continent, and underscored the influential factors on migrant mental health, including economic conditions, social support, and discrimination.<br /><br />Santiago Levin, via pre-recorded video, discussed Argentina's response to Venezuelan migrants, detailing how the country’s policies reflect its long-standing tradition of immigration and constitutional statutes favoring human rights, despite the systemic challenges faced. <br /><br />Audience comments underscored that migration experiences can differ significantly based on ethic or racial backgrounds, influencing reception and integration. The overall takeaway emphasized a concerted need to address and support migrants' health, welfare, and integration, while acknowledging the positive contributions of migration to society.
Keywords
migration
mental health
Americas
asylum policies
migrant youth
Venezuelan migration
Argentina
integration
discrimination
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