On May 9, Lourdia Jean-Pierre, a 32-year-old Haitian migrant woman, died after giving birth in her rural home in El Ceibo, Dominican Republic. The cause of death was a postpartum hemorrhage, according to a news report in The Haitian Times.
Despite needing medical attention, Jean-Pierre was reportedly afraid to go to the hospital. Why? She feared being deported.
Jean-Pierre was not wrong to be afraid. Soon after her death, paramedics arrived with police officers to check on the newborn and detain her husband, Ronald Jean. Jean left the newborn with a relative as he waited to be deported.
Between April 21 and the end of May this year, 900 lactating or pregnant women were deported from the Dominican to Haiti. They are part of the new, extreme tough-on-immigration policies in the Dominican Republic. In May alone, 22,778 Haitians were deported to Haiti.
A new wave of mass deportations
Last October, the Dominican government initiated a new wave of mass deportations as President Luis Abinader ordered a quota of 10,000 Haitians deported per week. On April 6, he announced new extraordinary measures to control immigration.
The rollout of this policy began on April 21. Migration officials were assigned to work in hospitals and required migrants to show their documents before receiving medical care or face deportation.
The new protocol does not specify pregnant and breastfeeding women. However, it effectively targets them in hospitals. Evidence of this is the fact that the policy was immediately implemented in the 33 hospitals “that report the largest number of pregnant migrant women — mainly those of Haitian origin.”
The targeting of pregnant women is not new
The targeting of pregnant migrants in the DR isn’t new. In September 2021, the Ministry of the Interior and Police announced a protocol to limit pregnant migrant women’s access to health care in the DR.
Dozens of deportation raids were carried out in maternity wards in the capital and other large urban centres. According to immigration officials, attendance at pre-natal appointments fell by 80 per cent by the end of 2021.
Deportation raids in maternity wards slowed down between 2022 and 2024, but women were still afraid to go for their check-up appointments. Pre-natal care is essential in preventing maternal deaths.
According to a media report, the Dominican’s National Health System estimates that Haitian women accounted for 56 per cent of maternal deaths in the first half of 2022.
No documents, no health care
There are almost no ways for Haitians in the Dominican Republic to apply for or renew visas. And Dominican consulates in Haiti have been closed since September 2022.
There is a long history of a lack of documentation among Dominicans of Haitian ancestry, exacerbated by the denationalization of up to 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry in 2013. That means Dominican-Haitians are also at risk of being deported when accessing health care.
This happened to Mirryam Ferdinad who, according to community reports, went to a hospital for a programmed Caesarean section and was instead detained in Haina, the country’s largest migrant detention centre. Ferdinad was released on May 31.
Deportations are expected to occur after people recover from their ailments. But human rights organizations report that deportations regularly take place in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, in trucks filled beyond capacity.
Structural racism
Elena Lorac, co-founder of Reconocido, an advocacy group of denationalized Dominicans of Haitian descent, said the situation is exacerbated by structural racism.
Anti-Black racism and anti-Haitianism runs through the politics of the Dominican Republic, whereby Blackness is associated with undesirable cultural and physical traits, and linked to neighbouring Haiti.
In contrast, DR’s nationalist groups, such as the Antigua Orden Dominicana, emphasize their colonial Spanish roots.
Reproductive health rights under attack
Haitian pregnant women are between a rock and a hard place. Hemorrhages and unsafe abortions are among the main causes of maternal mortality. Most of these cases are preventable if pregnant people have access to health services.
Haiti has the highest maternal mortality in the Western hemisphere.
Maternal mortality in the DR is lower. But its mistreatment of pregnant migrants, and its criminalization of abortion in all circumstances, pose significant risks for women.
Haiti: A country in humanitarian crisis
Deported migrants usually have no family or social networks in the locations they are deported at. And they have limited to no access to health services and social services.
Dominican-Haitians also get deported because they have no legal documents despite having lived there their whole lives. They often have never been to Haiti, and barely speak Haitian Creole.
In Haiti, about 40 per cent of primary health care was funded by the now almost completely defunded United States Agency for International development (USAID).
Though there are some groups supporting deportees, global cuts to humanitarian agencies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and International Organization for Migration are affecting personnel on the ground. The humanitarian conditions in Haiti are increasingly challenging.
Financial cuts worsen the extremely precarious living conditions. Nine per cent of the population is internally displaced. More than half the population is expected to experience acute food insecurity by June.
Protesting violence
On May 28, 13 organizations led a demonstration in front of the Dominican Republic Health Ministry. Peasant women, domestic workers, artists and feminists demanded an end to deportation raids in maternity wards and the removal of immigration officials from hospitals.
Sirana Dolis, co-founder of Movement of Dominican-Haitian Women MUDHA, said of the situation:
“Haitian women and women of Haitian descent are a people who love life, but under these circumstances, reproduction is like a death sentence.”
Masaya Llavaneras Blanco receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
