Dominican Republic: Latin & Caribbean Briefs, Miami Herald, March 27, 2007, at A7.
Two Dominican girls who were denied birth certificates and education because their parents are from Haiti have been paid $22,000 by the Dominican government, a year and a half after an international court ordered the payment.

Violeta Bosico and Dilcia Yean were denied birth certificates on the argument that children of migrants from neighboring Haiti are not Dominican citizens.

Their parents sued the government in the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights nearly a decade ago, and the girls were granted birth certificates in the late '90s.

A court ruling in September 2005 ordered the Dominican government to pay the girls $22,000 and reform the birth registration and education systems. The government fought the order, arguing the InterAmerican Court had no jurisdiction over the case. But it paid the money last week.

"They still have to reform their birth registration system, and we haven't seen any signs of that," said Roxana Altholz, a lawyer for the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, which represented the girls. "We congratulate the government on this step. They've done it late, but they've done it."
(4/9/07)