43. Effective remedies for child victims of trafficking must be child-centred, non-discriminatory and
accessible, regardless of nationality or legal status. In practice, compensation and reparation
schemes frequently impose citizenship or residency requirements that exclude stateless children.
The lack of legal identity further limits access to courts and administrative remedies.
44. A significant gap also exists in the failure of States to establish the truth regarding alleged child
rights violations, particularly where violations are systemic, widespread or affect large
populations. In the absence of clear obligations to investigate, document and acknowledge such
violations, many cases involving loss of identity, family separation or denial of nationality are
ignored or left unresolved. This lack of effective investigation and truth-seeking mechanisms
contributes to impunity, obscures the scale of violations and perpetuates intergenerational harm,
ultimately undermining children’s and former children’s access to justice and effective
remedies.22
45. In the Dominican Republic, migration enforcement and deportation practices often affect children,
including minors who are detained or deported without proper due process or custody safeguards.
Stateless children, those at risk of statelessness, and children of Haitian descent born in the
Dominican Republic are particularly vulnerable. Unaccompanied minors and children traveling
with families are often processed in border and deportation operations without adequate
protections, leaving them exposed to traffickers and exploitative intermediaries who exploit gaps
in oversight and shelter provision.23
Recommendations
Based on the above information, we urge the Special Rapporteur to make the following
recommendations:
Prevention:
I.
Ensure that nationality laws guarantee access to nationality for children who would
otherwise be stateless, regardless of parents’ legal, residency or other status;
II.
Reform nationality laws that discriminate on the basis of gender without delay so that
women have the right to acquire, change, and retain, and confer their nationality on
children and spouses on an equal basis with men;
III.
Promote access to civil registration, including birth registration, in countries of refuge
with a view to providing pathways to regularise legal status and citizenship for those
experiencing intergenerational statelessness;
IV.
Implement non-discriminatory and automatic safeguards granting nationality to
foundlings and children who would otherwise be stateless;
22 Ibid.
23 OBMICA, ‘Trato digno: new challenges for due process in deportations from the Dominican Republic’, available at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WvdEThkjyNYjpatCHC2D1JlIrBAY3MrM/view.
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