The dangers for the Dominican Republic

Tahira Vargas Garcia

Recently, a discourse of fear has been established regarding the supposed “danger” of our country being “invaded” and/or attacked by criminal gangs operating in Haiti, responsible for the climate of violence and kidnappings.

The declarations of the President of the Republic, Luis Abinader, announcing extreme measures with denial of rights (in addition to the wall under construction) towards groups of immigrants, Haitians, reinforce this climate of fear and phobia towards the Haitian population residing in the country.

With this, many of the dangers that afflict our country are made invisible, one of them being the operation of various organized crime networks, including transnational human trafficking networks. These operate with total and absolute impunity in our territory and are dedicated to recruiting, kidnapping, raping, and sexually exploiting children, adolescents, and women from locations in almost every part of the country.

In addition to sexual exploitation, there is also labor exploitation (agricultural, domestic servitude, street vending, begging), servile marriage (sale in marriage), and organ trafficking.

These organized crime networks are made up of Dominicans and foreigners of different nationalities from the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin American countries. They are large corporations with a lot of money and power to corrupt and go unnoticed (camouflaged). They get rich from the exploitation of human beings, especially children and women.

Dominican and foreign victims (Haitian, Venezuelan, Colombian, and from other countries) are treated as slaves for the profit and enrichment of these networks that rely on social networks and Internet platforms for their operations. In addition to these transnational trafficking networks, there are also drug trafficking networks, arms trafficking, and human smuggling to the Dominican Republic and from the Dominican Republic to other countries.

Another danger factor is ungovernability and the deterioration of social cohesion. The discourse of fear towards the population of Haitian origin that coexists daily with the Dominican population can become triggers for social violence, lynchings, and abuses, as has happened in the past.

Our country already has enough social and gender violence, delinquency, and organized crime operation with impunity and corruption. Therefore, to continue feeding these problems with speeches that point to the persecution of the migrant population has severe consequences for our climate of social harmony, besides we must remember that we have a Dominican population residing abroad (immigrants in many countries) that needs the same respect for their rights to health, education and peaceful coexistence as the immigrant population here.