People trafficking takes many forms. It involves controlling and exploiting people – transporting them across the borders of their homeland to a place where they lack basic human rights. In Haiti, poor people are willing to pay a trafficker (or boucan in Haitian Creole) who promises to take them across the border to the Dominican Republic (DR) to a well-paid job. The Haitians then work in very bad conditions for very little money and with the constant threat of deportation.
Christian Aid partner, The Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons (GARR), runs a human rights monitoring programme along the Haitian border. It is one of the few organisations to work with the Haitians and Dominico-Haitians (Dominicans born of Haitian parents) who have been forcibly removed from the DR and left to fend for themselves at the border. GARR provides them with emotional support and practical help. GARR visits imprisoned migrants and offers them legal assistance, and informs their families of their situation. It also raises awareness about trafficking through radio broadcasts and public debates, to encourage people to pressure the Haitian authorities to reduce people trafficking.
topAbout the Country
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere:
80% of the people in the countryside live on less than US$2 a day
70% of adults are unemployed
only 30% of children go to school
There are few steady sources of income in Haiti and unemployment is very high. Large numbers of people migrate to the neighbouring DR in search of work. Some are invited to enter each year as a source of cheap labour, but are expelled, often without access to their savings, when they are no longer needed.
The journey to the Dominican Republic is arduous and with tightly controlled checkpoints along the border. Consequently Haitian men and women often pay a Haitian or Dominican trafficker to arrange their ‘safe’ passage across the border. These traffickers often promise attractive rates of pay working on sugarcane plantations or in the construction industry. Once the workers have signed contracts (which many are unable to read, either because they cannot read or because they are written in Spanish, rather than Creole or French their mother tongue), they are taken to the Dominican Republic where the contractors receive their fees. The middlemen or “buscones” (traffickers in Spanish) who contract the workers in Haiti are paid US$87 per head.
Conditions in the sugar cane plantations are poor and workers are tied into punishing work schedules by their contracts, unable to demand better conditions or pay. Despite these conditions many people do not want to return to Haiti as their alternative lifestyle and earnings in Haiti would not be any better.
Case Study
The reasons for trafficking are always complicated, and in Haiti and the DR they are tied particularly closely to the issues of poverty, politics and ethnicity. Many people who are transported to the DR forge a new life for themselves there and hope to make money, either to return home later or to build a secure and good life in the DR. David La Fortune of La Roye, Las Cahobas is one of these people. He had decided to leave Haiti to improve the quality of life for himself and his family
“Life was hard,” he said. “There was nothing for me to do. We were living in poverty. I couldn’t do anything here so I tried across the border. I took all the kids, I have 8 children, and my wife, and I took all of them and tried to see if we could make it work over there.”
David and his family settled in the DR, and lived there for two years .On July 17 2006 David was rounded up on the bateye where he lived and was forcibly returned.
“One day a big truck came into the bateye and they got all of us. We didn’t have a chance to get anything. We got some insignificant items but most important things we had to leave behind.”
Fortunately for him, he was with his family at the time so they were all repatriated together. Others are not so fortunate. They are rounded up off the street or at work and are not allowed to go back to get their families or even tell them what has happened to them.
David and his family walked over the mountains into Haiti as far as La Roye where the members of the human rights committee are now helping him and his family restart their life from scratch.
“This organisation and the human rights committee helped us,” he said. “They got together with a local organisation here and have made different things available to us, for example the kids club where they teach the kids different things like games, singing…“
It was hard in the past losing his livelihood It is even harder coming back with nothing.
topExplanation of the Project
Josef Wilkens Nelson works for GARR in a human rights committee in Fond Verettes, in the southwest of the country. He talks here about what they do:
‘We mainly work around the border area, so, for example, if someone is shot there, we bring back the body. We help people having problems getting justice and we raise awareness about the border situation. The committee welcomes and cares for people who have been deported from the DR and helps with their rehabilitation. People often travel a long way to get to the border, and victims of trafficking will often stay near the border and try to cross again.
‘Boucans are Haitians who organise people trafficking. They take money from Haitians, and once they’re in the DR, they’ll rob them and abandon them. The Haitian authorities make no attempt to stop or arrest them.
‘I don’t like to see the strong oppress the weak. There is a lot of injustice on both sides, by Haitians towards Dominicans and vice versa. In seeing someone suffer, I suffer myself. That’s why I joined the committee. The rich have more rights than the poor. I want the poor people to know their rights and get justice. Injustice brought me here. Everyone should have their rights respected and get the information they need.’
topHistory of the Project
The Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons (GARR) was established in 1991.
Colette Lespinasse, director of GARR:
‘In Fond Verettes the people came to us to ask for support because they were confronted with human rights abuses in the border area. There was a murder there and GARR sent in a lawyer and a suspect was arrested. We took advantage of that to start a reflection process on relations with Dominicans, inviting the community and people from various organisations. They set out the problem and analysed it and a programme was set up. Obviously we can’t tackle everything, like economic issues, so we limit ourselves to human rights. Human rights are the priority. The committee is made up of representatives of local organisations that have been identified as being involved in some way in the DR, and we give them training.’
Haitian migrant workers and their descendants have suffered huge levels of discrimination and abuse as a result of their move to the DR, in their search for work and to get a decent living for their families. GARR provides essential support to this group of vulnerable people. GARR is the leading organisation working on the issue of migration and migrants’ rights in Haiti. Their advocacy and communications work has been hugely successful in raising these issues with the public and decision-makers in Haiti. The human rights committees regularly gather information about victims of human rights violations and provide humanitarian aid to people who have been forcibly repatriated from the DR.
topAbout the organisation
To learn more about Christian Aid visit the website: www.christianaid.org.uk.
To read more about Haiti and Christian Aid's work there visit: www.christianaid.org.uk/world/where/lac/partners/0012garr.htm.
To read more about GARR visit: www.garr-haiti.org (Good for practising your French!)