Stateless in Santo Domingo Dec 16th 2011, 13:32 by D.R. | SANTO DOMINGO
LUISA FRANSUA sold clothes on the street to support her four children. Once they left home, she got a degree in educational psychology. But she has not been able to get a licence to practice her new profession, or renew her passport to visit her daughter in Germany. She was born in 1959 in the eastern Dominican Republic (DR), has never left her country, and her social-security card reads "Nationality: Dominican". But the government now says she is a foreigner because her parents were Haitian.
For 75 years, the Dominican constitution granted citizenship to almost everyone born in the country. But since 2007 the government has sought to undo this legacy and annul the citizenship of people born to parents lacking legal residency, who are overwhelmingly Haitian. In October the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) received 457 complaints from people who say they have been left stateless after being recognised as citizens for decades. Some 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian origin could be affected. The IACHR has already condemned the policy. But on December 1st the Supreme Court gave the new rule constitutional sanction by rejecting a Dominican-born man's request for a birth certificate so he could move to Florida after marrying an American.
Ever since Haiti, fresh off its slave rebellion, occupied the DR from 1821-44, Dominican leaders have stirred up anti-Haitian sentiment for political gain. In 1937 the dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered a mass murder of Haitians near the border. Joaquín Balaguer, his successor as strongman, famously warned of a "peaceful invasion" from the west. Relations improved when the Dominican government sent plentiful aid to Haiti following its 2010 earthquake. But the death on December 4th of Sonia Pierre (pictured), a renowned activist for Dominicans of Haitian descent, has refocused attention on the DR's citizenship policy.
The only exceptions to the DR's longstanding birthright-citizenship rule were for children
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"Ne doutez jamais qu'un petit nombre de citoyens volontaires et réfléchis peut changer le monde. En fait, cela se passe toujours ainsi" Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
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