June 01, 2021

Deportation of Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women Alarms the Dominican Republic

Following the announcement, beginning in late September 2021, by the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Interior and Police regarding the implementation of restrictive measures against migrant women, limiting their access to the public health system to emergency cases and specifically prohibiting entry into the country for foreign women in irregular migration status from the sixth month of pregnancy onward, there has

The General Directorate of Migration itself has reported at least a hundred women detained in hospital settings, some of them even with children in their arms, which has shocked Dominican society and generated rejection from different sectors at the local and international levels.

Social media have been flooded with videos and testimonies showing how abusive the Migration incursions have been, as in the case of Nathalie Bolival, taken out of a hospital room where she had gone to seek medical assistance despite being in contractions and advanced dilation. She went into labor inside a vehicle of the Migration Directorate while being transferred for deportation. Her child was born without complications but she suffered heavy bleeding. Both were rescued by representatives of the National Council for Childhood and Adolescence (CONANI). Within hours, the image of Nathalie and her baby had gone around the world through social platforms. The implementing regulation of General Migration Law 285-04 and the memorandum of understanding signed between Haiti and the Dominican Republic establish that pregnant women, older adults, children and adolescents, and asylum seekers cannot be deported.

Civil society organizations in the border area of Haiti and the Dominican Republic have reported the arrival of buses full of pregnant women since November 11. According to statements made to the media by activist Pedro Cano of Fundacion Frontera Sur and publications of the Support Group for Repatriates and Refugees (GARR), which operates at the Belladere-Elias Pina border point, women are arriving with very few belongings, without prior investigation into their status or family situation, in violation of due process in deportation matters, which should include an inspection and screening phase giving the migrant an opportunity to contact relatives and acquaintances, seek legal assistance, and demonstrate roots in the country.

Operations against pregnant women constitute an unprecedented violation of the fundamental right to health, gender equity, the protection of maternity, and the rights of children and adolescents. They have been described as a hunt against women or large-scale acts of obstetric violence by Dominican gender specialists such as Sergia Galvan and journalist Edith Febles.

Protection of maternity and early childhood is guaranteed by the Dominican Constitution and forms part of the set of legal instruments under national jurisdiction and binding international agreements relating to women's rights and bodily integrity, gender equity, health, education, work, migration, anti-discrimination, development opportunities, and safeguarding the best interests of the child. Compliance with these constitutional standards is the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Health, CONANI, the Ministry of Women, and the Ministry of Interior and Police through the National Police and the Directorate General of Migration itself.

Regardless of national origin or documentary status, women have the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of maternity. The International Labour Organization's Maternity Protection Convention, to which the country is a signatory, establishes that pregnant women and nursing mothers require adequate services and prenatal checkups to avoid harm to their own health or that of their children; they need dignified conditions in which to give birth, as well as adequate time for recovery and for the care of their newborn children.

Representation of Haitian migrant women in the media: negative stereotypes about migrant women

The Dominican State has deployed, through various channels, overwhelming propaganda against migrant mothers, to whom it attributes - without consistent and sustainable evidence - an "imminent collapse of gyneco-obstetric services in the health system." Disproportionate or out-of-context figures are circulated, at times inflated by up to 300 percent, in order to shift onto women responsibility for the structural problems of the public system, which has clearly been affected by the blows of the still ongoing COVID-19 health emergency. These data were challenged by former National Health Service director Chanel Rosa Chupany. In the article "Dismantling the government's fake news against Haitian women", the Socialist Movement of Women and Men Workers of the Dominican Republic analyzes the false information sustained by government actors regarding the costs of investment in health services intended for migrant women.

Faced with this supposed overflow, Dominican users, according to the Minister of Public Health, Daniel Rivera, have had to move to the private sector. In this narrative, it is common to use disparaging terms such as "parturients" and degrading concepts such as "womb invasion" by public officials and radicalized political actors seeking to dehumanize pregnant women and present them as a danger to national security.

The campaign against pregnant migrants promotes xenophobia and makes Haitian women visible only in their reproductive capacity and not as workers who contribute to the economy. This is a topic that OBMICA has researched in depth in the case of workers in the sugar sector, providers of domestic services, and care work.

The debate has centered on the cost of using health services, conjectures about migrant-smuggling networks, and supposed "birth trips" from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. Many of the women appearing in photographs of overcrowded hospitals reside in the country and are using the health services they need. Migrants pay taxes through the purchase of goods, acquisition of services, and the sending of remittances. They also contribute through wage deductions applied to them for those purposes without those deductions being translated into labor rights or access to social security.

Stigmatization and hostile rhetoric toward pregnant women in the media are not limited to Haitian migrants. Teenagers with early pregnancies, Dominican descendants of migrants, multiparous women, and women from households below poverty levels all suffer the consequences of an unequal system and a discriminatory narrative.

The consequences of discriminatory measures in the health sector

The health system faces the challenge of providing quality services and the need to increase investment. Citizens concerned about this deficiency draw connections between current corruption, government indebtedness, and inadequate social investment. Scapegoating migrant women in the fragile childbirth context is a distraction technique.

Promoting rejection toward pregnant women in irregular migration status can trigger other violent actions and sends a confusing message that runs counter to multisectoral efforts to eradicate gender-based and domestic violence, a serious problem in the Dominican Republic that claims dozens of victims every year.

Fear of being deported in migration operations discourages women from seeking the medical assistance they need and from completing their prenatal checkup programs. Following the crackdown, government agencies such as the Directorate General of Migration and the Ministry of Public Health report as a success the reduced attendance of foreign women at medical services.

Maternal and child mortality remains at alarming levels in the country. In 2020, 208 women died from childbirth complications. The number shot up by 48% compared with 2019. According to UNICEF, 80% of these deaths were due to preventable causes.

In the last 10 years, there has been something of a crusade to strengthen the mechanisms of maternity protection and child care, with some progress and serious challenges ahead, for which strategic plans had been designed without racial biases, age bias, or discrimination by national origin - an approach that appears to have been abandoned by the current administration.

To improve the figures, the Ministry of Public Health seems to infer that the solution lies in excluding foreign women from the public system.

The untouchable networks of trafficking in persons and migrant smuggling

The Dominican Republic is a destination, a bridge, and a sending country for trafficked and smuggled persons. There is currently a draft law underway on trafficking and smuggling of persons in the country, awaiting approval to modify and strengthen legislation in this area.

Migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons are global phenomena. They require a comprehensive and respectful approach that protects victims, gender-sensitive migration policies, and the proper application of the law allowing the prosecution of the networks that foster these forms of violence.

Legal framework for maternity protection

Migration operations against pregnant women contradict paragraph 6 of article 55 of the Dominican Constitution, which states that "Maternity, whatever the woman's social condition or marital status, shall enjoy the protection of the public authorities and gives rise to the right to official assistance in cases of destitution." They also violate the established functions and ethical obligations of health personnel to care for all persons who need it.

Likewise, they violate the General Health Law in the Dominican Republic, which aims to promote, protect, and improve health for persons and communities and prevent disease. Medical services should not be limited by citizenship status, based on article 3 of Law 42-01.

According to the Implementing Regulation of the General Migration Law (2011) and the Protocol of Understanding between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (1999), pregnant women, children and adolescents, older persons, and asylum seekers cannot be subject to deportation.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is the most important international instrument for the promotion and defense of women's human rights; it presents periodic evaluations and offers recommendations to signatory states. The Dominican Republic became a signatory in 1982.

The Maternity Protection Convention is the most recent international legal instrument in this field, adopted by the International Labour Organization in 2000. It was ratified in the country in 2014.

The Dominican Republic is a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, committing itself to protect children from birth until adulthood.

Turning health centers, including maternity wards, into potential spaces of migration inspection and capture for deportation violates article 12 of CEDAW, which establishes that States must take "all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning."

Migration operations against pregnant women also contradict article 12, paragraph 2, of CEDAW, which declares that all "States Parties shall ensure to women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation."

These practices also contravene CEDAW general recommendation 26 on women migrant workers, which recognizes that "women migrant workers are often at higher risk of health inequalities" and that "discrimination may be particularly acute in relation to pregnancy."

While States have the right to control their borders and regulate migration, CEDAW observes that "they must do so in full compliance with their obligations as parties to the human rights treaties they have ratified or acceded to. This includes promoting safe migration procedures and the obligation to respect, protect and facilitate the exercise of women's rights at all stages of the migration cycle." This includes the right to health and especially sexual and reproductive health.

In its 2013 report, CEDAW recognizes the efforts made by the Dominican State in the area of gender equity but expresses concern about discrimination against women of Haitian origin in the health system and the expectation that health-service providers inform migration authorities of the migration status of those women.

The Committee likewise recommended that the Dominican State guarantee that migrant women and girls have effective access to health care, whatever their migration status. An essential measure to eliminate this type of discrimination is to free health centers from functions related to migration inspection and control so that all women in the Dominican Republic, regardless of migration or documentary status, can have free access to health services.

The country has been working on its migration-management system, and it should avoid falling back into gendered stigma that views migrant women as a kind of problem to control. The pending tasks of implementing the 2004 Migration Law, institutionalizing the National Migration Council, and enabling the border-resident card should be emphasized.

Haitian diplomacy seeks solutions to an unsustainable situation

At a press conference in Haiti on November 17, Haiti's diplomatic special envoy, Mr. Daniel Supplice, reported on his visit to the country to discuss several issues that create tensions between the two nations. He detailed the protests presented to Dominican authorities, within the framework of his week-long mission to the Dominican Republic, over the mistreatment of pregnant Haitian women. He clarified that the Haitian state respects the sovereignty of the country in matters of migration control, so long as it respects the international, binational, and national normative framework governing the rights of migrants. Finally, the NGO Group of Support for Repatriates and Refugees (GARR) reported having received 63 pregnant women on the Haitian side of the central border in just three days, November 10, 11, and 12.