Tuesday 11 November 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:
Prejudice Against
Haitians Boils Over -
Again
By Valeria Vilardo
SANTO DOMINGO (IPS)
- "A group of Dominicans
armed with pistols,
machetes and knives came
to take revenge on us. I
broke my leg trying to
escape from my house,
which was on fire. It's
not fair that all
Haitians should have to
pay for the crime of
one," Elena Piti, a
Haitian mother of seven
who lives in the
Dominican Republic, told
IPS.
"I'm thinking of going
back to Haiti, because
I'm afraid that
something might happen
to me. Besides, I have
nothing left here. I
lost everything: my
house, my money and my
job," said Franklin
Jean, who IPS found
hiding out in a
precarious shelter in
the surrounding fields.
Jean and Piti lived in
the "batey" (a
shantytown of sugar
workers) of El Cerro,
near the town of Juan
Gómez in the
northwestern province of
Montecristi, close to
the border with Haiti.
They were fleeing a
violent reprisal on Oct.
29 by a mob of
Dominicans infuriated by
the murder of an elderly
local farmer, Alcibíades
Jiménez, supposedly
committed by a young
Haitian man who was
working for him.
Twenty-five homes in El
Cerro were set on fire,
and eight were
completely burnt down.
The roughly 200 Haitians
living there fled the
shantytown.
In an unrelated incident
in the town of Neyba in
the southwestern
province of Bahoruco, a
mob of young men killed
two Haitian immigrants
and injured nine others
on Oct. 28. The violence
was triggered by the
death of a Dominican
man, allegedly killed by
a Haitian who tried to
steal his motorcycle.
Human rights violations
against Haitians and
their descendants,
including lynchings, and
mass deportations of
migrants are
longstanding problems in
the Dominican Republic,
which shares the island
of Hispaniola and a
380-km border with
Haiti, the poorest
country in the western
hemisphere.
The president of Haiti's
lower house of
parliament, Pierre Eric
Jean-Jacques, announced
early this month that he
would suggest to his
Dominican opposite
number Julio Cesar
Valentín the creation of
a bilateral legislative
committee to investigate
the latest violent
incidents.
Poverty affects both
Dominicans and Haitians
in the two provinces
where the violence
occurred. According to
the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP),
19 percent of people
over 15 in Montecristi
are illiterate, four
percent of children
under the age of four
are malnourished, and 51
percent of the
population of the
province lacks access to
clean water.
In Bahoruco, in the
south, people stand a 14
percent chance of dying
before the age of 40,
and adult illiteracy
stands at 30 percent --
the highest rate in any
Dominican province.
Furthermore, nearly 30
percent of people do not
have steady water
supplies, and 10 percent
of children under five
suffer from
malnutrition, says the
UNDP Human Development
Report 2007-2008.
"Thugs took advantage of
the situation to sack
the homes of Haitians
and flout their racist,
xenophobic attitudes,"
activist Sonia Pierre,
founder and director of
the Movement of
Dominican-Haitian Women
(MUDHA), told IPS. "The
authorities should
control these groups of
ruffians and uphold
public safety."
Pierre, who has
advocated for the human
rights of Haitians for
21 years, has herself
experienced
discrimination and even
death threats for
speaking out about
abuses.
The activist said the
media in the Dominican
Republic have the duty
to provide balanced,
accurate reporting on
violence and
discrimination against
Haitians and to avoid
encouraging acts of
discrimination against
Haitians or people of
Haitian descent.
According to unofficial
data, there are more
than 800,000 Haitians
living in this country
of nine million people.
Haiti, which occupies
the smaller western
portion of the island,
has a population of 8.6
million, 80 percent of
whom live in poverty,
compared to the
Dominican Republic's
official poverty rate of
25 percent.
In Haiti, the huge
majority of the
population is black,
while a small
lighter-skinned
mixed-race minority
dominates the economy.
In the Dominican
Republic, meanwhile,
although only a small
proportion of the
population is white
while the rest are of
mixed-race origin, most
people do not identify
themselves as black.
Skin colour prejudice is
one of the motives for
discrimination,
according to a
nationwide survey on
Haitian migrants in the
Dominican Republic, "Encuesta
sobre Inmigrantes
Haitianos en República
Dominicana", published
in 2004 by the
International
Organisation for
Migration (IOM) and the
Latin American Faculty
of Social Sciences (FLACSO).
In the survey, 71
percent of Haitians
interviewed said they
had been verbally abused
by Dominicans because of
their country of origin
and skin colour, in
their neighbourhoods as
well as at their places
of work. "Haitian
devil," "Negro"
(considered a derogatory
term in the Dominican
Republic), "sorcerer"
and "get out of the
country" were the most
frequently mentioned
insults.
Unlike in the 1980s,
when immigration from
Haiti was regulated by
inter-governmental
agreements to meet
demand for cheap labour
on the sugar
plantations, today there
is a large steady influx
of undocumented Haitian
migrants.
According to the IOM, 41
percent of Haitians work
in agriculture, 38
percent in the
construction industry,
eight percent as
vendors, and six percent
in domestic service in
Dominican homes.
The authorities have
lost control over the
influx of migrants,
Bridget Wooding, an
associate researcher on
migration at FLACSO,
told IPS.
She also said that
despite the regular
waves of deportations of
Haitian migrants, there
are no reliable figures
on the number and
location of Haitians
living in the country.
The fact that there is
no pathway for Haitian
immigrants and their
descendants to
regularise their
immigration status is a
serious obstacle for
access to education and
health services. Without
documents, it is very
difficult for Haitians
to have their labour
rights respected,
Wooding added.
Discrimination and mass
expulsion of Haitians
were the main concerns
expressed by Amnesty
International in its
2007 report on human
rights in the Dominican
Republic.
During the mass
expulsions, which the
London-based rights
watchdog described as
illegal, there were
frequent complaints of
mistreatment by
migration officials and
border guards, according
to the report.
Deportations appear to
be intensifying after
the violence in Neyba
and Juan Gómez.
The Dominican Republic's
migration office said
that 406 undocumented
Haitians were
repatriated in the last
week of October.
According to official
figures, between 20,000
and 30,000 Haitians are
deported each year.
"The deportation
strategy is
unjustified," Wooding
maintained. "It is
essential for the
Dominican government to
create an atmosphere of
public safety, and to
ensure that immigrants
have the right to remain
in the country."
Haitians often work in
exploitative conditions
in agriculture, the
construction industry,
and domestic service,
according to human
rights groups.
On Jan. 11, 2006, the
bodies of 24 people were
found near the northern
border town of Dajabón.
They had apparently
suffocated in an attempt
to smuggle them into the
Dominican Republic in a
sealed truck. According
to the reports, the
bodies were thrown out
of the back of the
vehicle, which was
carrying over 60
Haitians.
On Nov. 2, migration
authorities announced
that fines are to be
imposed on plantation
owners and construction
sites that employ
undocumented Haitians,
pay exploitative wages
or mistreat them. |
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