Haitian women in labor pay RD$15,000 to cross into the DR
The odyssey facing Haitian pregnant women seeking to enter Dominican territory to give birth in public and some private hospitals are depressing.
Many of them (the wealthiest) say they pay between 12 to 15 thousand pesos to “los poteas” (illegal traffickers), who operate on the Haitian border to help them cross the border.
But if they don’t have legal documentation, after they manage to enter the Dominican part, they have to have more money to get to the health centers where they want to give birth.
Some of the traffickers of undocumented people are closely linked to the bands that are dedicated in Haiti to kidnapping people for financial ransom, as well as assaulting, stealing, raping women, and girls, trafficking and human trafficking, smuggling drugs, merchandise, weapons, fire, and other crimes.
The poorest of the women give birth in the Matías Ramón Mella hospital in Dajabón and other towns located on the Dominican border.
However, those with better economic positions prefer to give birth in maternity hospitals in Santiago, and Mao, Haitian social worker Colette Baptiste told Listin Diario.
In this sense, he expressed that many Haitian women in a state of pregnancy begin the journey at seven and eight months, so the inconveniences are minor “because there are many controls.”
Haitian teacher Reinelda Jeune, who lives in Trou Du Nord, in the northeast of Haiti, said that when she arrived in the city of Ouanaminthe, located 600 meters from Dajabón, she paid 13,000 pesos to several “poteas” to help her cross the Dominican border.
“I was almost eight months pregnant, they sheltered me in a house in deplorable conditions in Ouanaminthe and at dawn, they (“los poteas”) crossed me along with three other pregnant women,” she emphasized.
Gangs operating in Haiti charge up to 15,000 pesos to Haitian pregnant women who want to give birth in Dominican hospitals.
Josephine Pierre, who sells food in Fort Liberté, revealed that she gave birth at the José Francisco Peña Gómez de Mao maternity hospital.