Fundación Comunidad Esperanza y Justicia Internacional

New York, 13 March 2012 – In an unprecedented turn out, Dominican civil society jointly presented its report before the United Nations Human Rights Committee at its 104th Session held in New York from March 12-13, 2012.  
 
The report, which had been initialed by 11 national human rights associations and coalitions, was greatly taken into account by the Committee during its examination of the situation in the Dominican Republic.
The Committee presented its concerns regarding the elevated number of extrajudicial executions (2,138 persons in five years), as well as the alarming retroactive application of the law in the process of denationalizing Dominicans of Haitian descent, condemning them to a «civil death». The high rate of violence against women also received special attention, with a recorded average of 190 femicides per year. The Committee also highlighted the high rate of maternal deaths, due in part to deficient medical assistance and clandestine abortions, in a country that remains one of the seven in the entire world to criminalize abortion in all circumstances.
Civil society also highlighted the conditions of exploitation of migrant workers in the farming industry and the lack of observation of due process in deportations. Discrimination against the LGBT community and against Afro-descendent persons was also widely discussed. 
 
The Human Rights Committee will issue its recommendations on Dominican Republic on the 24th of March.  They will be immediately published at the website of the Centre for Civil and Political Rights (CCPR Centre).   
 
The broadcast of the review of the Dominican Republic can also be seen at the CCPR Centre website. 
 *******
The report was presented by the Pedro Francisco Bonó Center, the Movement for a Civil Registry Free of Discrimination, the Collective of Women and Health (CWH), Committee of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Rights of Women (CLADEM), Caribbean Institute for the State of Rights (ICED), Community of Hope and International Justice Foundation (FUNCEJI), Integrated Ethnic Foundation (FEI), Movement of Dominican Haitian Women (MUDHA), Socio-cultural Movement for Haitian Workers (MOSCTHA). Trans Friends Forever (TRANSSA) and the Coalition of NGOs for Infancy.
These organizations will closely monitor the implementation of the recommendations at the national level.
 
For more information contact:
Patrick Mutzenberg, pmutzenberg@ccprcentre.org