OBMICA Newsletter, September 2019

OBMICA presents its institutional newsletter for the third quarter of 2019. We invite you to enjoy the content by following the links or download the PDF version HERE.

The September cover of our newsletter features a painting by Grand Bahama-based artist Laurie Tuchel titled Rest in Peace, Dear Child (2019). The piece is part of an ongoing body of work that Tuchel is creating to raise funds for the humanitarian response to Hurricane Dorian, specifically for the Grand Bahama Disaster Relief Foundation Bahamas.

Last July, on the occasion of the International Day Against Trafficking in Persons, government institutions and civil society organizations held reflection sessions on this scourge. We report on two of them in which OBMICA, represented by its director Bridget Wooding, took part in the debate.

OBMICA trains Ministry of Interior and Police officials on trafficking. We thank the Gender Equity and Development Office of the Ministry of Interior and Police for inviting us to present on "internal trafficking of women, boys, girls, and adolescents" to officials from that ministry. Participants learned about trafficking modalities such as arranged, servile, or forced marriage, identified the profile of traffickers, and examined the insertion of micro-drug-trafficking networks into these dynamics. Read more...

Regional Conference of the International Association of Women Judges The Dominican Republic hosted the regional conference of the International Association of Women Judges on trafficking in persons. Under the theme "Access to justice for victims of trafficking in persons: effective collaboration and victim-centered best practices," the conference provided a space for participants to share information about their respective approaches to confronting this problem. In one session, OBMICA addressed internal and cross-border trafficking of children between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, reflecting on the role of cultural beliefs and practices in this problem. Read more...

Profiles of the Haitian diaspora in the Caribbean #1: The Bahamas. Our associate researcher Charlotte Wiener describes the delicate situation of the Haitian community living in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian, amid new threats of deportation in the middle of a catastrophe in which many have lost everything, even when some migrants and their descendants have regular papers. Read more...

A look at the recent Haitian presence in Mexico. In this article Martha Luz Rojas Wiesner discusses the growth of Haitian migration to Mexico and the dangerous transcontinental route that takes people to Tapachula in the hope of reaching the United States. The author recounts the ordeal of travelling more than 15,000 kilometers by plane, bus, boat, and on foot through desert zones, jungles, mountains, traffickers, and detentions. Read more...

Also in this edition...
You can get to know social anthropologist Dana Muniz a bit better Her research interests for more than five years have focused on citizenship, identity, migration, and access to education for minority populations, which brought her to the Dominican Republic and gave OBMICA the opportunity to have her on the team.

New Resources
The Migration Policy Brief titled "Forced Migration: Overland Deportations from the Dominican Republic to the Republic of Haiti" would be available in both Spanish and French by late October 2019.