Dominican@s for Rights Position Statement, September 2023

"In the face of the largest deprivation of nationality in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean, we, the undersigned organizations, call on the Dominican government to respect, promote, and protect the human rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent affected by Constitutional Court Judgment TC-169-13 of the Dominican Republic, and to take the necessary measures to guarantee their right to nationality and non-discrimination."

A decade ago, the Constitutional Court stripped thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic between 1929 and 2010 of their Dominican nationality. Subsequent measures adopted by the State, mainly through Law 169-14, which sought to provide a pathway to regularization and nationality for affected persons, have not been effective.

Throughout this decade, racism and racial discrimination have persisted, and those affected continue to suffer the negative effects of denationalization, while the mechanisms adopted by the State to remedy the effects of the Judgment have not been properly implemented.

In 2022 alone, numerous arbitrary detentions and mass deportations were carried out without due process. Between January and November 2022, more than 136,000 people were expelled to Haiti, including 1,800 unaccompanied children and 300 pregnant women. During this decade, local and international civil society, as well as various international human rights bodies, have condemned the racist practice of the Dominican State in denying the right to nationality to people of Haitian descent. Over the years, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and several UN Special Rapporteurs have denounced the multiple human rights violations committed by the Dominican Republic through racial discrimination, arbitrary detention, denial of access to health care, and expulsions of Dominicans of Haitian descent. Likewise, various networks and civil society organizations have not ceased denouncing these facts despite the risks they face.

On the tenth anniversary of Judgment TC-168-13, we reiterate our call to the Dominican State to eliminate the systematic practice of racism and racial discrimination, end the arbitrary detention and expulsion of Dominicans of Haitian descent, and instead implement an accessible and effective process to recover nationality and guarantee the full enjoyment of human rights."

[signatory organizations]: Center for Justice and International Law; Dominican@s for Rights; Jacques Viau Network; Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

Subsequently, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a statement on this same issue, to which the Dominican Foreign Ministry responded, noting at the end: "We reiterate our commitment to dialogue and cooperation with the IACHR to address the challenges related to nationality in the Dominican Republic."