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State Department applauds choice of Sonia Pierre for RFK memorial award

Washington -- The U.S. State Department has applauded a prominent human rights organization's naming of Sonia Pierre as the winner of its 2006 human rights award for working on behalf of people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic.

In a November 17 ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Memorial Center for Human Rights presented the award to Pierre in recognition of her long-time efforts to protect the rights of the Dominican Republic 's Haitian immigrants and their descendents who face deep-rooted discrimination and intolerance in the Caribbean nation. The center said many Haitian immigrants remain virtually stateless, giving the Dominican government a "rationale to deny them individual rights."

Gay McDougal, RFK human rights award judge and the U.N. independent expert on minority issues, said in a statement that "at a time when even second and third generation ethnic Haitians are targets of brutal human rights abuses, Sonia Pierre has risen as the most profound leader in the nation's movement for minority rights."

The award honors the legacy of the former U.S. attorney general, U.S. senator and brother of the late President John F. Kennedy who worked for social justice and a more peaceful world. The RFK Center was established in 1968, following Robert Kennedy's assassination. Pierre is the 23rd winner of the RFK award, first given in 1984 to ?CoMadres,? a group of women who exposed human rights abuses during El Salvador ?s civil war, a 12-year conflict that ended in 1992.

In a November 17 statement, Barry Lowenkron, the State Department?s assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, said his bureau is ?delighted? that the RFK Center has recognized Pierre for her ?selfless efforts to defend the rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent.? Lowenkron said Pierre is a ?courageous human rights defender who has devoted her life to ensuring justice for others. The United States stands firmly behind human rights defenders worldwide -- extraordinary men and women who, often at risk to themselves -- advance the cause of freedom.?

Lowenkron said the Dominican Republic is a ?dynamic democracy and we encourage the [Dominican] government to intensify its work to eliminate discrimination.?

Brian Nichols, the State Department's director of Caribbean Affairs, said after meeting Pierre at the department November 15 that the U.S. government "shares many of Ms. Pierre's objectives" and that the United States commends Pierre 's "great moral and physical courage."

Nichols added that the United States is "troubled by discrimination and complaints of statelessness from persons of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic . We continue to emphasize our concerns with Dominican officials, as well as in our annual human rights reports. We also support expanding efforts by Dominicans and Haitians to work together to confront problems in sustainable development."

Nichols said in a separate interview following his meeting with Pierre that "racial discrimination is a problem in many countries, including the United States " where it took "decades, perhaps centuries" to resolve similar human rights problems.

The official added that discrimination against Haitian immigrants is a "serious problem in the Dominican Republic, and I know that Dominican authorities have committed publicly and privately to address that problem and we hope they will do so in a serious way."

Speaking in Spanish, Pierre said at the November 15 meeting at the department that "for us, the right to a name and a nationality implies so much -- the right to education, health care, and the right to live. Without any kind of identity document, we can be expelled arbitrarily" at any point from the country.

"Basically, we are being left as invisible people" in the Dominican Republic , said Pierre .

The Washington-based RFK Center said Pierre, the director of the Movement for Dominican Women of Haitian Descent (MUDHA), began working on human rights issues in 1976 at age 13. Her work has involved such concerns as the lack of birth registration and nationality rights for women and children of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic .

The center, on presenting the award to Pierre , said that it was beginning a partnership with Pierre and MUDHA, "working with her movement to ensure that the human rights of Haitians in the Dominican Republic are realized."

The RFK Center said that Pierre , like many of the Dominican Republic 's 650,000 people of Haitian descent, grew up in one of the country's migrant worker camps, called a bateye. Her family left Haiti in search of economic opportunity, working in the Dominican Republic 's state-owned sugarcane fields.

The center said Pierre was a petitioner in a case, Yean and Bosico Children versus the Dominican Republic , before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which the center said for the first time upheld human rights laws prohibiting racial discrimination in access to nationality and citizenship.

One year after the 2005 decision by the court, a body of the Organization of American States, the Dominican Republic "has yet to implement the court's orders in direct violation of its own legal obligations," the center said.

The problem of statelessness is not confined to the people of Haitian extraction in the Dominican Republic . A report released in 2005 by a Washington-based nongovernment organization, Refugees International, said 11 million people worldwide have no citizenship or effective nationality. The report documents the human costs of the problem in more than 70 countries, with particular emphasis on groups in Bangladesh , Estonia and the United Arab Emirates .

The human rights situation in the Dominican Republic was documented in the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2005. The report, released March 8, said the Dominican human rights record "remained poor," citing in particular the "restricted movement and arbitrary expulsion of Haitian and Dominican-Haitian migrants" from the country.

The section of the report relating to the Dominican Republic is available on the State Department Web site.