146 | Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic the future “to close the gap with other Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as to address the difficulties involved in the building of societies characterized by a historical denial of their ethnic-racial diversity.” 335 359. The Commission is concerned about the accusations of discriminatory or offensive conduct against dark-skinned persons, whether Haitian or Dominican, and persons of Haitian descent by officials in various public offices. Likewise, the IACHR underscores the complaints received from persons who have been targeted as a result of judgment TC/0168/13 because they look “Haitian.” 360. The Commission takes note of what was established by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and urges the State to recognize that deprivation of citizenship on the basis of race or descent is a breach of States’ obligation to ensure non-discriminatory enjoyment of the right to nationality. 336 1. Structural discrimination against persons of Haitian descent 361. In the course of the visit, civil society organizations informed the Commission that “Haitian migrants, Dominicans of Haitian descent, and persons of African descent in general are not only victims of structural discrimination, inasmuch as they are the poorest of the poor and marginalized, but also that they are subjected to open hostility and aggression by individuals, without the State having adopted effective measures to prevent those actions, which are based on racial profiling and the gender, age, sexual orientation, or disability of the persons affected.” The organizations also told the IACHR that judgment TC/0168/13 had exposed Dominicans of Haitian descent to great risk and stigmatization since they had been segregated as “the group that has been stripped of its nationality and will be deported”. 337 362. The population of African descent has historically been in a vulnerable position in the Dominican Republic. The problem of racism and negrophobia in the country goes back to colonial times. To maintain productive relations with the European and North American countries, which had not yet abolished slavery, the first governors of the island negotiated racial paradigms, basing the idea of Dominican identity on the racial differentiation of Haitians and Africans and on a raceless awareness that excluded the development of an Afro-descendant identity. 338 335 336 337 338 See: Dominican Republic, National Statistics Office, La variable étnico racial en los censos de población en la República Dominicana [The ethnic-racial variable in population censuses in the Dominican Republic]. 2012, p. 22. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. General recommendation No. 34 adopted by the Committee: Racial discrimination against people of African descent, October 3, 2011, par. 48. Information provided by civil society at a meeting of the IACHR in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on December 2, 2013. See: Torres-Saillant, Silvio. The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 3, Race and National Identity in the Americas. (May, 1998), pp. 126-146; Moya Pons, Frank. Historia de la República Dominicana [History of the Dominican Republic], Volume 2. Editorial CSIC, January 1, 2010; Moya Pons, Frank. Antihaitianismo histórico y antihaitianismo de Estado. Lecturas: historia y memoria [Historical Anti-Haitianism and State Anti-Haitianism. Readings: History and Memory]. Diario Libre, Organization of American States | OAS