ST. JOHN’S, Antigua - Many years from now, Caribbean people will recall where they were, on Friday, October 4, 2013, when the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that Jamaican national Shannique Myrie should be compensated for the embarrassment, pain and hardship she suffered at the hands of Barbados immigration officials when she was deported from that country.
The only portion of the saga to which all of the parties agree was that on March 14 2011 Myrie arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados and was denied entry. She was detained overnight in a cell in the airport and deported back to her birthplace the following day.
The rest of the story, as told by her namely: being held in an unsanitary detention cell, undergoing a painful, humiliating body cavity search, and other treatment, amounted to a serious breach of her right to free movement and a violation of her fundamental human rights and freedom.