Exiled and Excluded in Haiti

After a court ruling in 2013 that retroactively stripped tens of thousands of people of Dominican citizenship as of November 3, 2016, almost 150,000 Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent have entered Haiti since mid-2015, according to the International Organization for Migration. Stripped of their Dominican citizenship before being pushed across the border into Haiti, many are living in deplorable conditions, Human Rights Watch said today. No government or agency has tracked where most of these people have settled in Haiti.

“Not only have many been deprived of their right to nationality, they are not getting the assistance they so desperately need,” said Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Neither the Haitian nor the Dominican government is helping some of the most vulnerable undocumented people.”

 Haitians have suffered earthquakes and hurricanes and man-made borders are just another tragedy they must suffer.