Meet Eddy Tejeda

Eddy Tejeda is a  jurist and specialist in legal sciences, a graduate of Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), holder of a master's degree in International Administration and a master's degree in European Community Law (University of Paris I), as well as an advanced diploma in Public International Law from the University of Paris II. He currently serves as Coordinator of the Migration Program at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Dominican Republic Program (FLACSO RD). He is an Associate Researcher at OBMICA, an Adjunct Professor in UNIBE's General Studies Cycle, and a lecturer in several courses at the National Migration Institute. He has been a consultant for several United Nations agencies such as UNDP, IOM, and UNICEF. He was First Secretary of the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Haiti in 1998.

1. Can you tell us about a project you are currently working on or have worked on recently?

My most recent work consisted of coordinating a qualitative research project for Participacion Ciudadana with Tahira Vargas and Ivrance Martine, published under the title Swimming Against the Tide: Study on Human Trafficking in Eleven Municipalities of the Dominican Republic, presented in the Chamber of Deputies in 2022 and in several of the municipalities in the east, north, and south of the country covered by the project.

1. What was most interesting about that project and how does it apply to your professional practice?

The study helped raise awareness among key actors in the fight against this problem, which was worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, and about the need to adopt a new law including greater resources to combat this scourge. Its presentation or feedback process in several of the municipalities and provinces involved was grounded in a research-action approach, as a way of contributing to the advancement and improvement of public policies on migration and, in this case, human trafficking.

1. Can you tell us about your experience as an associate researcher at OBMICA?

 

As an associate researcher at OBMICA, I have carried out several studies on migration, such as The Right to the Pension Not Received (a diagnostic on pensions owed to cane workers); Assessment of the PNRE; The Boomerang Effect of the Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic Case; The Turn Toward Spain (impact of the international economic crisis on Dominicans in Spain, with FLACSO); and the study on Unaccompanied Children and Adolescents between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with UNICEF technical support and European Union financial support, carried out in 2018. From the latter I never forget when I asked a child staying in a shelter in Dajabon what his greatest dream was and he told me: to go to school. My involvement with OBMICA actually goes back to 2011, when I participated in a training team for seventy new members of the Specialized Land Border Security Corps (CESFRONT) in Capotillo on the rights of migrants. We worked on the risk of trafficking in children and adolescents at the border, aggravated by the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake the year before. The initiative came from UNICEF, and the photo above shows the OBMICA team, together with the UNICEF representative and Colonel Adames of CESFRONT, alongside the young trainees who had just received instruction on the subject.