
Dominican Republic deports pregnant women in ‘inhumane' migrant crackdown
Pregnant women and new mothers are being rounded up in hospitals in the Dominican Republic and deported back to Haiti as part of what observers say is an openly cruel, racist and misogynist government policy.
More than 130 Haitian women and children were removed on the first day of a new crackdown on undocumented migrants last week targeting the Caribbean country's main public hospitals. Dominican authorities said 48 were pregnant, 39 were new mothers and 48 were children. Local media reported that one woman was deported while in labour.
Pregnant women have been crossing the border in increasing numbers over the past few years, looking for a safer place to give birth after the almost complete collapse of Haiti's healthcare system.
The measure is one of a series announced by President Luis Abinader to reduce the number of undocumented migrants in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, where there is a dire humanitarian crisis.
'We're shocked by the government determination to fuel policies which are openly cruel, racist and misogynist,' said Guillermo Rodríguez, rights campaigner for the Americas at Amnesty International. 'Authorities allege that deportations are for the sake of the Dominican Republic, but no prosperity or good can be achieved if it is based on cruelty and human suffering.'
Targeting hospitals was 'outrageous', said Rodrígues. '[The government] is forcing people to choose between deportation or risking pregnancy complications which could eventually lead to maternal mortality, morbidity or neonatal death. It is a macabre and misogynist trap.'
In a statement, Dominican authorities said women and children were seen by medical staff and discharged from hospitals after it was confirmed there were no health risks. They were then deported in comfortable buses in accordance with 'international and national legal provisions', they said.
Reem Alsalem, a UN special rapporteur on violence against women, said the treatment of Haitians by the Dominican Republic was an 'area of concern'. Returning people to Haiti where their lives would be in danger was not safe, she said. 'Unfortunately the treatment of Haitians … is not in line with the Dominican Republic's international and regional obligations,' she said.
The Dominican Republic has been deporting pregnant women, raiding homes and stopping people in the street for the past four years. In October, the government announced a target of deporting 10,000 Haitian migrants a week.
Sign up to Global Dispatch
Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team
after newsletter promotion
In 2023, a UN group, including Alsalem, condemned the detention and deportation of pregnant and postpartum Haitian women from the Dominican Republic. A UN committee has also highlighted that some women have been forcibly separated from their children.
The worsening situation in Haiti has severely damaged health services. Cholera outbreaks are spreading. Gender-based violence is increasing and sexual violence against children has risen tenfold, according to the UN. At least 5,600 people were killed in gang violence last year. The kidnap and murder of workers has put about two-thirds of medical facilities out of use.
Roudy Joseph, a spokesperson for the community group Haitians in the Dominican Republic, said the crackdown 'put the health and lives of people, of women, at risk'.
'This is the consolidation of an apartheid regime that should be criticised or denounced by the international community,' he said.
Liliana Dolis, the director of Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitianas (Dominican-Haitian Women's Movement), said deporting vulnerable women and children back to Haiti was 'inhumane'.
She said there was an atmosphere of fear among Haitians in the Dominican Republic where women were reluctant to attend health checkups and endanger their lives as a result. 'It's an anti-women, anti-feminist attitude,' she said. 'It is an attitude of gender violence, and obstetric violence.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Metro
2 hours ago
- Metro
How long humanity would take to go extinct if we stopped having children
'Overpopulation' is a scary word, bringing to mind a dystopian Earth where people live in grimy cities and fight over what little food is left. But the reverse of this is just as terrifying – depopulation – if humans suddenly began having fewer and fewer babies. And if that were to happen, it wouldn't take long for humanity to go completely extinct. While some people live beyond the age of 100, the human race would only be around for a few decades at a push, Professor Michael Little, an anthropologist at Birmingham University, Writing in The Conversation, Professor Little said this is because society needs young people to care for elders and drive economic growth. He wrote: 'Eventually, civilisation would crumble. It's likely that there would not be many people left within 70 or 80 years, rather than 100, due to shortages of food, clean water, prescription drugs and everything else that you can easily buy today and need to survive.' After the final human is born, a countdown would begin as everyone simply grows older until everyone dies from old age. Professor Little said: 'Eventually, there would not be enough young people coming of age to do essential work, causing societies throughout the world to quickly fall apart. 'Some of these breakdowns would be in humanity's ability to produce food, provide health care and do everything else we all rely on. 'Food would become scarce even though there would be fewer people to feed.' There are many reasons why people could stop having children, Professor Little said, such as a disease making people infertile or a nuclear war. While a few viruses, like HIV, the Zika virus and a few STIs such as HPV, can lead to infertility, they very rarely do so or only have very mild effects. So a virus wiping out the world's ability to have children is, for now, just science fiction, though male fertility rates are a worry among scientists. But a rapidly ageing population and declining birth rate are very much real. Earth is home to 8,200,000,000 human beings, with the global population increasing since the end of the Black Death around 1350. And the number of humans will keep rising until about 2080, when the UN expects the size of humanity to peak at 10.3billion, before it drops slightly. One reason for this inevitable slowdown is that people are already having fewer babies in some parts of the world, such as Japan and South Korea. These countries are now facing a new issue, an ageing population, as they're under the 2.1 children per woman rate with their population stable. In China, for example, the fertility rate is just 1.18. This is also happening in the UK, where the fertility rate fell to just 1.44 children per woman last year, down from 2.47 in 1946. Ageing population is a problem, Professor Little said, because young people are the 'engines of society' who keep new ideas flowing and work jobs that elderly people would struggle to do. He likened it to how humans, otherwise called Homo sapiens, became the dominant species on Earth over the Neanderthal. Neanderthals were humans like us, but were a distinct species that were around for about 350,000 years. Dr Little said: 'Some scientists have found evidence that modern humans were more successful at reproducing our numbers than the Neanderthal people. 'This occurred when Homo sapiens became more successful at providing food for their families and also having more babies than the Neanderthals.' There would be, however, some perks to humanity going extinct, as some campaign groups have long dreamt of. Amid climate change, caused by humans pumping out planet-warming gases, wildlife populations have fallen by 70%. Professor Little said: 'If humans were to go extinct, it could open up opportunities for other animals to flourish on Earth. 'On the other hand, it would be sad for humans to go away because we would lose all of the great achievements people have made, including in the arts and science.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page.


The Independent
8 hours ago
- The Independent
Peanuts or almonds? Rice or millet? Planet-friendly grocery shopping choices go beyond cutting meat
It's one of the most impactful climate decisions we make, and we make it multiple times a day. The U.N. estimates about a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change, come from food. That pollution can come from several links in the food supply chain: how farmland is treated, how crops are grown, how food is processed and how it's ultimately transported. Maybe you've already heard the short answer to minimizing your diet's impact on the planet: eat more plants and fewer animals. The data backs up that suggestion. Emissions from meat-rich diets are four times higher than that of vegan diets. But so much focus on meats overshadows many other food choices that also impact the environment and can contribute to global warming. Here is a look at other important grocery store decisions: Proteins Swapping one serving of chicken per day for beef cuts a diet's emissions nearly in half. Ruminant animals such as cows, sheep and goats are the top drivers of emissions. Those animals "are associated not only with nitrous oxide emissions, but they're also related to direct methane emissions because they burp them up while they digest food,' said Marco Springmann, professorial research fellow in climate change, food systems and health at University College London. Springmann said processed animal products have a higher impact on the planet, too: 'You need 10 times the amount of milk to make one unit of cheese.' So — and this is true of most food groups — the less processed the food, the smaller the environmental impact. Plant-based proteins like legumes, beans and nuts all boast a much lower climate impact. Grains The standout here is rice, and not in a good way. ' Rice uses a ton of water. It uses gobs of fertilizer. There's flooded rice paddy fields, and that water actually breeds all kinds of bacteria, and those bacteria produce methane gas,' said eco-dietitian nutritionist Mary Purdy. Purdy said the most planet-friendly alternative is just eating a bunch of different grains. 'The wheat, corn and soy world is very, very familiar to us because we've been seeing it. It's been heavily marketed. When was the last time you saw a commercial for millet or buckwheat?" she asked. Diverse diets, Purdy said, incentivize biodiverse agriculture, which is more resilient to erratic weather — a hallmark of climate change — and makes healthier soil. Fruits and vegetables When it comes to produce, minimizing impact is less about choosing between foods and more about buying based on the way that food was grown. Conventionally grown produce 'very likely is using pesticides, fertilizer, and maybe more water because the soil isn't healthy,' said Purdy. Purdy said organic labels, such as Regenerative Organic Certified, indicate those foods had a smaller climate impact when they were grown. The tradeoff is that organic food has a lower yield, so it requires more land use and is often more expensive. Local and 'in season' foods also have a smaller climate impact, but not just for one of the reasons you may be thinking of: emissions from international shipping. Every day, thousands of large ships transport goods, including produce, around the world, and the fuel they use is heavily polluting. However, "it's mostly those local emissions on trucks that are actually impactful, not the international shipping emissions," Springmann said. Also, food grown nearby tends to be grown in a way that fits with the local climate and is less harmful to the environment. "We're not trying to grow oranges in some place in a greenhouse,' Purdy said. Butter and oil Plants win out over animals, again. Vegetable oils are less impactful than butter or lard. Springmann also said tropical oils are healthiest in moderation, such as those from coconuts or palms, because they have a higher fat content. Plus, palm oil is associated with deforestation. As for nut butters, almonds might be a great option for limiting carbon emissions, but they require a lot of water. One study out of Tulane University found that a serving of peanuts has an emissions footprint similar to almonds but 30% less impact on water use. Don't waste food Throwing less food away might sound obvious, but roughly a third of food grown in the U.S. is wasted. Meal planning, freezing leftovers and checking the fridge before heading to the grocery store all help cut waste. 'The climate impact, the embedded water use, all of the labor and different aspects that went into producing that food, that all gets wasted if we don't eat it,' Blackstone said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at


The Independent
8 hours ago
- The Independent
Israeli fire kills 41 in Gaza with many deaths near aid centre
At least 41 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza on Wednesday due to Israeli gunfire and airstrikes, according to local health officials. The majority of these casualties occurred at an aid site operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the centre of the coastal territory. Medical officials at Shifa and Al-Quds Hospitals reported that Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people as they approached the aid site near the former settlement of Netzarim, with dozens more wounded. The Israeli military stated that its forces fired warning shots overnight at suspects who posed a threat to troops in the area of the Netzarim Corridor. "This is despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone. The IDF is aware of reports regarding individuals injured; the details are under review," the military added. Later on Wednesday, health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, located in the southern Gaza Strip, reported that Israeli gunfire killed at least six people as they approached another GHF site in Rafah. This brought Wednesday's death toll to at least 41. According to Gaza's health ministry, a total of 163 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded while trying to reach the few aid sites operated by the foundation. The GHF began its work two weeks ago, following a three-month blockade. The United Nations has condemned the killings. It said the blockade brought the Palestinian enclave to the brink of famine and that food supplies remain critically low. The foundation said earlier it was unaware of Wednesday's incident but that it is working closely with Israeli authorities to ensure safe passage routes are maintained, and that it is essential for Palestinians to closely follow instructions. "Ultimately, the solution is more aid, which will create more certainty and less urgency among the population," it said by email in response to Reuters questions. "There is not yet enough food to feed everyone in need in Gaza. Our current focus is to feed as many people as is safely possible within the constraints of a highly volatile environment." The UN and other aid groups have refused to supply aid via the foundation, which uses private contractors with Israeli military backup in what they say is a breach of humanitarian standards. Gaza health officials said 10 other people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in the south of the enclave. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the reports. On Tuesday, when Gaza health officials said 17 people were killed near another GHF aid site in Rafah in southern Gaza, the army said it fired warning shots to distance "suspects" who were approaching the troops and posed a threat. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday there had been "significant progress" in efforts to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, but that it was "too soon" to raise hopes that a deal would be reached. Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal. Two Hamas sources told Reuters they did not know about any new ceasefire offers. The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in an 7 October 2023, attack, Israel's single deadliest day. Israel's military campaign has since killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people.