TORN AT THE SEAM

TORN AT THE SEAM | 9
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, we would like to thank Professor
Ruth Wedgwood, Edward B. Burling Professor of
International Law and Diplomacy and Director of
the International Law and Organizations Program
at Johns Hopkins University – School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS) for her continued
support of the SAIS International Human Rights
Clinic. Moreover, we would like to thank Grace
Cineas, Andrea Martinez, Isabelle Talpain-Long and
Ronald Desir for their translation assistance with
our documents for the Johns Hopkins University
Homewood Institutional Review Board (HIRB)
application. We would also like to thank Irene Forzoni
for her work on the initial background research, as
well as Nicola Hil and Tobias Åkerlund for their kind
advice regarding this project.
We greatly appreciate all of our interview
partners in the Dominican Republic and Haiti,
including representatives of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) Dominican
Republic, International Organization for Migration
(IOM) Haiti, Embassy of the United States in Santo
Domingo, Office of the Organization of American
States (OAS) in the Dominican Republic, Movimiento
Social-Cultural de los Trabajadores Haitianos
(MOSCTHA), Batey Relief Alliance, UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA)
Haiti, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican
Republic – Department of Relations with Haiti,
Service Jesuite aux Migrants (SJM), Le Groupe
d’Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés (GARR), and
Institut du Bien Etre Social et de Recherches (IBESR).
We would also like to acknowledge
representatives of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Washington,
the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in the
United States, and the Embassy of Haiti in the United
States, as well as Michele Wucker who generously
took the time to meet with us in Washington,
DC regarding our research interests. Moreover,
we would like to acknowledge the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) Haiti,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) Haiti, Etant Dupain, as well as Arian Terrill
for taking the time to speak with us.
We would also like to thank Etant Dupain
and Bahare Khodabande for contributing several
pieces from their photojournalistic work to our
report. We offer a special thanks to Beneco Enecia,
from El Centro de Desarrollo Sostenible (CEDESO),
for his immense support during our fact-finding trip.
CEDESO is a non-profit organization that focuses
on rights in the southwest Dominican provinces,
along the border, working on promotion activity
in Haiti, most recently on the nationality claims of
Dominicans of Haitian descent and immigrants in
the Enriquillo region. CEDESO’s work enabled us to
travel to Anse-à-Pitres and to speak directly with
the affected population in Parc Cadeau 1 and 2, a
component that was vital to our research.
In that spirit, we would like to especially
thank the individuals living in the Parc Cadeau 1 and
2 camps in Anse-à-Pitres, Haiti for speaking with us.
We hope that their voices and concerns will be heard
and that there will be a sustainable humanitarian
solution to their current living conditions and to the
conditions of others similarly situated.
We commend all the individuals and
organizations who tirelessly work to promote
and protect the rights of Haitian migrants and
Dominicans of Haitian descent in the Dominican
Republic and Haiti, as well as those addressing
humanitarian concerns for those coming from the
Dominican Republic to Haiti.