We Present a Protocol for the Legal Accompaniment of the Children of Mixed Couples

October 8, 2018.- On Friday, October 5, the Centre for Migration Observation and Social Development in the Caribbean (OBMICA) presented the guide "Facilitating Access to the Dominican Civil Registry for Descendants of Mixed Couples: Protocol for Their Legal Accompaniment," a tool intended to help prevent cases of under-registration among sons and daughters of mixed couples.

The event was attended by personalities from the official sector and the diplomatic world, such as the Ambassador of the European Union in the Dominican Republic, Gianluca Grippa, as well as representatives of civil society in the country.

The protocol, framed within the Mixed Couples Project (PPM) that OBMICA and MUDHA have been implementing since 2015 with the support of the European Union (EU), gathers what has been learned over the years of the project so that it may serve as a practical reference for organizations and community leaders who often encounter mixed couples and their families, as well as other profiles of undocumented and therefore vulnerable persons who might benefit from this information.

OBMICA director Bridget Wooding and Ambassador Grippa offered the first words to those present. Wooding reviewed the progress of this project from 2015 to the present and highlighted that this guide guarantees that the initiative embraced by the project will endure over time.

"Through this guide, OBMICA hopes to raise awareness and motivate mixed families, governmental actors, institutions implementing identity documentation projects, and society in general to join efforts so that every birth of a son or daughter of a mixed couple is registered in a timely manner in the Dominican civil registry, which is the one that legally corresponds," said Wooding.

For his part, the legal officer of the Mixed Couples Project (PPM), Domingo Rincon, reviewed the main details of the guide and, at the same time, highlighted challenges for the birth registration of children of mixed couples and the recommendations toward which the project is working with a view to implementation.

"It is necessary to promote a cultural and legal change around paternal involvement in the care and development of children, which would also contribute to the resolution of birth registration cases of sons and daughters of mixed couples," said Domingo Rincon, who also added that the guide is an appropriate tool for "this change."

The protocol for legal accompaniment is the product of a process that began with profiles and the systematization of obstacles initially found in the communities covered by the project. Three regional exchanges were held with organizations outside the project area, demonstrating the occurrence of lack of documentation among children of mixed couples.

Bilateral consultations were also carried out with key references, including independent legal consultants and technical staff of other non-governmental organizations with experience in the subject. Finally, a meeting was held with lawyers who are members of the Jacques Viau and Dominican@s por Derecho networks, both with extensive experience in legal advice to immigrant and Haitian-descendant populations, with the aim of improving this guide.

At the presentation, which took place in the Leonardo Da Vinci room of the Sheraton Hotel, the short documentary "Libertad," by filmmaker Tatiana Fernandez Geara, was screened. It portrays the lives of persons affected by under-registration who receive support from PPM promoters and was produced with the support of American Jewish World Service.