Hoy newspaper focuses today on the increase in Haitian children begging on the streets of Santiago. The newspaper reports that the children are sent to main city intersections, primarily in Santiago, to carry out their work as beggars. The vehicles that transport them to these points later return to pick them up. The business of begging has been criticized in the press on several occasions, but it continues in leading Dominican cities. In addition to the child beggars, several women display babies at city intersections appealing to the sympathy of passers-by.
Former Haitian consul in the DR, Edwin Paraisson, formally denounced on 29 May that a gang of Dominican-Haitian merchants imports women who are hired to beg on Santo Domingo and Santiago city streets. No one has been arrested despite the constant complaints in the press.
Inocencio Garcia, in charge of relations with Haiti at the Foreign Ministry, said that the large numbers of Haitian illegal migrants coming into the country as a result of the worsening situation in Haiti makes it necessary for the government to maintain its effort to repatriate the Haitians. Garcia, as reported in Hoy newspaper, says that the government has just four surveillance points along the 392-km border.
Meanwhile, a news story in Diario Libre today focuses on how Haitian labor is displacing Dominican work force because Haitian workers are willing to accept less for the same work. The newspaper reports that in the Cibao region, Haitian farm laborers make up 75% of farm hands. It reports that Haitian workers are willing to work for RD$80-RD$100 a day while Dominicans need to be paid at least RD$150-RD$200. The minimum wage in the sector is RD$130, regardless of the laborer’s nationality. Meanwhile, in the construction sector in Santiago, an undocumented Haitian laborer will work for RD$200 per day, while the going rate for Dominicans is RD$350.