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Haiti and Santo Domingo : slaves to the island

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are forced to cross the border to work in the Dominican Republic. Parked in plantations, they live without water, power, latrines, school and care.

This is one island, Hispaniola, but both countries, two different worlds, at sea Caribbean. Haiti and the Dominican Republic. poor country among the poorest in the world, Haiti pushes its inhabitants into exile, probably between 10 % and 15 % Population. Between 500 000 and a million Haitians live, illegal or not, Dominican Republic, who, beside, almost figure Eldorado. For one season or for life, they go to work in the Dominican fields, for 1 or 2 euros per day, more than they can hope to earn in their country devastated by years of economic and political crisis the ratio between the average income of a Haitian and that of a Dominican and 1 at 7.

At these prices, Haitian migrant workers have become "modern slaves", the title of the book by the photographer Céline Anaya Gautier (1). After crossing the border, mostly illegally, they find themselves in batey , makeshift barracks for laborers large sugar companies. They are "cuttable and bondsmen to thank you, without rights, no support, no future, in living conditions and catastrophic hygiene ", written in this book Geneviève Sevrin, President of Amnesty International France.

The book Céline Anaya Gautier is intended as a warning cry on this "modern slavery" (2) . The young woman has made two stays of several months, in total, in bateys, the Dominican-Haitian border region, and shared the lives of these men, women and children, these cane cutters and their families "reduced to the status of pack animals and intended to end their lives as such, without recourse ". She met the two Catholic fathers Pedro Ruquoy and Christopher Hartley. For years, the two "missionaries" fought to try to improve conditions in the bateyes and defending the rights of Haitian cane cutters. Regularly threatened with death, they finally had to give up and leave the country at the request of their hierarchy. They continue their fight today to denounce, from abroad, the situation in the plantations.

"The own batey, writes the Haitian scholar Jean-Marie Theodat, is to dehumanize man, to strip him of his political attributes that make a social being, responsible and free, into a zombie, a social ghost sentenced to hide or stay behind the bars of a makeshift camp erected in the middle of nowhere. […] The batey are not part of the territory, that are enclaves […] without water, or electricity, nor latrines, no school, or quality of care and where a worker cane works an average of ten to fifteen hours a day for a salary that is less than the rates charged on the rest of the country. "

A recent Amnesty report estimated four hundred the number of these enclaves have become a forever home for families of Haitian origin of first, second and sometimes third generation. The investigation of the association also returns on racism and xenophobia suffered by hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic. "Blacks are worthless, have no right, with identity card or without ID, with a birth or not ", demonstrates an original Haitian Dominican.

Often, notes the report, Haitian parents or even Haitian Dominicans but can register their children born there to Civil Status. The report denounces more "mass deportations without judicial review", or identity check. So much so that Dominicans of Haitian origin were expelled to Haiti, a country they did not know ... After the report, the Dominican government has denounced a "campaign to discredit a group of international organizations" and dismissed all charges of "racial discrimination" in the country.

Article in Release never 2007, So before the devastating earthquake in January 2010.

(1) Céline Anaya Gautier, Slaves in Paradise, accompanied by a CD that brings the songs of cane cutters recorded by Esteban Colomar. Ed. Winds elsewhere, 2007, 160 pp., 35 €.

(2) The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines "forced labor" as the obligation of an individual to work, without remuneration or almost, by the use of violence or threat, geographic isolation, confiscation of identity papers or demand repayment of unlawful debt.

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  1. Don Peter Jeanbaptiste
    Don Peter Jeanbaptiste says:

    Haiti and Santo Domingo : slaves to the island
    Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are forced to cross the border to work in the Dominican Republic. Parked in plantations, they live without water, power, latrines, school and care.

    This is one island, Hispaniola, but both countries, two different worlds, at sea Caribbean. Haiti and the Dominican Republic. poor country among the poorest in the world, Haiti pushes its inhabitants into exile, probably between 10 % and 15 % Population. Between 500 000 and a million Haitians live, illegal or not, Dominican Republic, who, beside, almost figure Eldorado. For one season or for life, they go to work in the Dominican fields, for 1 or 2 euros per day, more than they can hope to earn in their country devastated by years of economic and political crisis the ratio between the average income of a Haitian and that of a Dominican and 1 at 7.

    At these prices, Haitian migrant workers have become "modern slaves", the title of the book by the photographer Céline Anaya Gautier (1). After crossing the border, mostly illegally, they find themselves in batey , makeshift barracks for laborers large sugar companies. They are "cuttable and bondsmen to thank you, without rights, no support, no future, in living conditions and catastrophic hygiene ", written in this book Geneviève Sevrin, President of Amnesty International France.

    The book Céline Anaya Gautier is intended as a warning cry on this "modern slavery" (2) . The young woman has made two stays of several months, in total, in bateys, the Dominican-Haitian border region, and shared the lives of these men, women and children, these cane cutters and their families "reduced to the status of pack animals and intended to end their lives as such, without recourse ". She met the two Catholic fathers Pedro Ruquoy and Christopher Hartley. For years, the two "missionaries" fought to try to improve conditions in the bateyes and defending the rights of Haitian cane cutters. Regularly threatened with death, they finally had to give up and leave the country at the request of their hierarchy. They continue their fight today to denounce, from abroad, the situation in the plantations.

    "The own batey, writes the Haitian scholar Jean-Marie Theodat, is to dehumanize man, to strip him of his political attributes that make a social being, responsible and free, into a zombie, a social ghost sentenced to hide or stay behind the bars of a makeshift camp erected in the middle of nowhere. […] The batey are not part of the territory, that are enclaves […] without water, or electricity, nor latrines, no school, or quality of care and where a worker cane works an average of ten to fifteen hours a day for a salary that is less than the rates charged on the rest of the country. "

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