Yean and Bosico Girls: 15 Years after the Historic International Judgment on the Rights of Stateless Persons and Their Right to Nationality

Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 9, 2020.- This week marks fifteen years since the Inter-American Court of Human Rights determined in the Yean and Bosico case that the Dominican state violated, among other things, the right to nationality of the Dominican girls Dilcia Yean and Violeta Bosico by failing to issue their birth certificates and thereby preventing access to their rights, including the right to attend school.

This ruling represented a before and after in the struggle for the rights of stateless persons and their right to nationality. For Dilcia Yean, the Courts decision saved the future of her descendants. Thinking that her children might one day live through what she lived through was traumatic. Her pride is that her case benefits not only them, but all Dominican people.

The judgment in that case was the first time an international court ruled on statelessness and its consequences for the lives of those who live without a nationality, establishing obligations that states must follow to prevent and reduce this phenomenon. In addition, the Inter-American Court ordered that, in order to repair the harm caused to the victims, among other measures, the Dominican state had to provide them with identity documents, carry out a public act recognizing responsibility, and make changes to Dominican regulations so that these events would not happen again.

Despite the fact that more than 20 years have passed since the human rights of Dilcia Yean and Violeta Bosico were violated, the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and the Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico Haitianas (MUDHA), representatives of the victims before the Inter-American Court, regret that the state still has not complied with its international obligations deriving from the judgment.

To this day, the Dominican Republic has not issued the requested public apology and acknowledgment of international responsibility for the harm caused to the victims by the violations committed against them, nor has it adopted internal measures to regulate the procedure and requirements for acquiring Dominican nationality through late birth registration, which would allow other children born in the country not to go through the same thing and to be registered without suffering discrimination because of their ancestry or for other reasons.

In 2019, the Inter-American Court reminded the Dominican state of the debt it owes to Dilcia and Violeta. In this regard, the organizations accompanying the victims hope that the Dominican state will honor its international obligations and comply with the aforementioned measures as soon as possible in order to advance the full reparation of the harm caused to Dilcia and Violeta and prevent the violations committed in this case from continuing to be repeated in the future.