Frank Lendor, who is in charge of the Dirección Central del Estado Civil, the local department in charge of issuing birth certificates in the DR, said it is not true that the children of Haitians born here are being issued Dominican birth certificates. He said only those that are born to parents that can demonstrate legal residence in the DR can receive Dominican birth certificates, as per established in the Dominican Constitution. In an interview with Ultima Hora Dominical, he said up to 300,000 children could be in this situation. (This situation should also affect children born to foreigners of other nationalities that are not legal residents of the DR.) As is their custom in Haiti, most Haitians living in the DR do not have legal documents. This is creating social problems as they grow up and many begin to integrate into Dominican society, encountering the difficulties of not having any legal documentation. While local schools by law have to admit all, the Ministry of Education will not issue diplomas to those that do not have birth certificates. Some have been able to secure Haitian identification documents at the Haitian embassy to resolve their situation. The Haitian embassy says some 30,000 identity documents have been issued since 1995. Lendor explained that the situation of not being declared at birth in the past also affected low income Dominicans. To resolve this situation, the Dominican government, through the Junta Central Electoral, began a program to issue birth certificates at public hospitals starting October 1997. In its first year, the birth certificates were issued in five public hospitals. Today, there are 27 public hospitals issuing the birth certificates, including seven along the frontier with Haiti. These are the hospitals of Jaime Mota (Barahona), Federico Armando Aybar (Las Matas de Farfán), Rosa Duarte (Comendador), San Bartolomé (Neyba) and General Melenciano (Jimaní). All Dominican hospitals will issue the parents a written confirmation that the child (given name) was born at such hospital on such date. The birth is registered in the hospital’s books. The second step is to meet with the civil registry official who will issue the child’s birth certificate to parents that can present legal residence documents or proof of Dominican citizenship.
