A change to the Dominican Republic's Constitution, which denies citizenship to children born to undocumented residents, has put into doubt the legal status of people of Haitian descent.
When Haitians cross into the Dominican Republic to work, they often lack official documents that can help protect them from abuse. That's where Johnny Rivas steps in.
Nuns open new doors for Dominican sex workers, offering entrepreneurship training and medical assistance.
The victims of shifting borders, politics, or the happenstance of birthplace, the world's 12 million stateless people and their need to become citizens are rising on the international human rights agenda.
Click on the image to view the article as it appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic - We did a lot of legwork for this reporting trip the last time we were in the Dominican Republic. We spent days following leads, meeting one person after another in an effort to find those who were actually being affected by this new constitution. By the time we left, we felt that we were only one or two steps removed from getting the story, rather than five or six. We also nailed down our two most important contacts for this trip: our driver, Carlos, and our translator, John.
Steve and I are back in the Dominican Republic for part two of our reporting here. On this trip we want to delve into the tumultuous relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti – the two nations that share the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola.
Signs of the earthquake in Haiti are everywhere in neighboring Dominican Republic. Hospitals are overflowing with the injured, aid workers fill the hotels, and signs asking people to send a text message and donate to the Haiti relief effort plaster the main thoroughfare through Santo Domingo.
Some of the most impoverished parts of the Dominican Republic are batayes - shantytowns that once housed sugar industry workers. For years, Haitian labor fueled the Dominican's large sugar industry. When the sector collapsed, many of these people had nowhere else to go – some had been in the country for decades and no longer had homes in Haiti; others were born in the Dominican Republic. Unemployment in the bateyes today is sky high; the HIV rate is also far higher than the national average.
Mondays and Fridays are market days in Dajabon, the small frontier town in the northwest of the Dominican Republic on the border with Haiti.
HIV is one of the big problems facing Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. To start to get a better sense of this epidemic in the country overall we stopped by a gathering of groups that work with marginalized Dominicans, whose members were meeting with UNAIDS and government officials to talk about HIV and human rights.
Donate Now
