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OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #0441/01 0611113
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 021113Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7524
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4494
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 000441 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB DR
PGOV 
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: PART 2, SEVENTH ANNUAL 
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT 
 
REF: STATE 202745 
 
¶1.  The following is Part 2 of Embassy's response to the 
Trafficking in Persons (TIP) questions raised in reftel. 
 
¶2.  2006 Trafficking in Persons Report for the Dominican 
Republic, Part 2 
 
III. INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS 
 
The Dominican government made significant progress in the 
investigation and prosecution of cases involving trafficking. 
 
------------------ 
-- The Legal Basis 
------------------ 
 
Any of several laws may be applied to prosecute traffickers, 
depending on the elements of the crime and the identity of 
the victims.  Taken together, these laws are adequate to 
address the full scope of trafficking in persons, and they 
cover both domestic and international forms of trafficking. 
In 2003, the Dominican Congress passed a comprehensive 
Trafficking Law (Law 137-03), promulgated subsequently by the 
President.  However, many of that law's implementing 
regulations have yet to be finalized.  The definition of 
trafficking is based largely on the Protocol to Prevent, 
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women 
and Children, supplementing the Convention against 
Transnational Organized Crime.  It covers trafficking for 
sexual exploitation as well as for non-sexual purposes, 
including for forced labor.  A law against alien smuggling 
was already in force, but the Trafficking Law carries 
stricter penalties.  In addition, the Code for Minors (Law 
136-03), which came into effect in 2004, has penalties 
specifically for the sexual exploitation of children. 
 
The Code for Minors establishes penalties for sexual abuse of 
children of 20 to 30 years' imprisonment and fines from 100 
to 150 times the minimum wage.  The Code for Minors provides 
for a penalty of between 2 and 5 years' incarceration and a 
fine of 3 to 5 times the minimum wage for persons found 
guilty of abuse of a minor.  The penalty is doubled if the 
abuse is related to trafficking.  The Trafficking Law also 
covers sexual exploitation, but the Code for Minors 
established more severe penalties for this crime. 
 
The Trafficking Law provides penalties of 15 to 20 years' 
imprisonment and a fine of 175 times the minimum wage for 
traffickers, including traffickers of persons for labor 
exploitation.  The law includes provisions against alien 
smuggling, establishing a 10- to 15-year prison sentence and 
a fine of 150 to 250 times the minimum wage.  Penalties of 
10, 15, and 20 years imprisonment were administered in 
convictions obtained during the year. 
 
The Law Against Domestic Violence (Law 24-97) includes 
penalties for rape, incest, sexual aggression, and other 
forms of domestic violence that range from one to 30 years in 
prison and fines ranging from 5,000 to 500,000 pesos 
(approximately US$150 to US$15,000).  The penalties for 
committing rape are 10 to 15 years in prison (or 10 to 20 
years in case of rape against a vulnerable person or under 
other egregious circumstances) and a fine of from 100,000 to 
200,000 pesos (approximately US$3,000 to US$6,000). 
 
The law does not prohibit prostitution, although it is 
illegal for a third party to derive financial gain from 
prostitution.  The operation of brothels is illegal. The 
Government usually did not enforce prostitution laws, but 
there were several crackdowns when minors were discovered to 
be involved in prostitution. 
 
------------- 
-- The Actors 
------------- 
 
The National Police, the Migration Directorate, the Navy, the 
Office of the Attorney General and local District Attorneys 
share responsibility for investigating trafficking and alien 
smuggling cases and pursuing charges against offenders. 
 
In practice, it is the Office of the Attorney General that 
investigates and prosecutes most cases of this type.  That 
 
office's Department of Alien Smuggling and Trafficking in 
Persons has its own dedicated police contingent to 
investigate cases, and the Department has the authority to 
prosecute suspects throughout the country.  Their exemplary 
performance was perhaps the brightest spot in the country's 
trafficking record this year. 
 
The government has designated a prosecutor in every judicial 
district as a special prosecutor for TIP cases. 
 
The National Police has a dedicated unit to investigate cases 
involving alien smuggling and trafficking, but in practice 
the police do very little.  Their operations are hindered by 
frequent personnel rotations and a lack of funding -- for 
example, they have only one motorcycle and no vehicles 
assigned to their unit.  The current management of their 
trafficking section does not appear to appreciate the 
difference between trafficking and alien smuggling. 
Virtually all of their equipment is donated from foreign 
sources. 
 
The Migration Directorate has its own dedicated 
anti-trafficking unit, to which a special prosecutor is 
assigned.  However, in practice this unit also does very 
little.  They conduct no proactive investigations.  Their 
involvement in anti-trafficking efforts is limited to those 
cases in which they directly receive official complaints 
("denuncias"), but they do not investigate cases in which 
other offices, such as local police stations, receive 
denuncias.  The Directorate received only one denuncia during 
the year; in other words, they investigated only one case. 
 
Special prosecutors detailed to the Navy's intelligence unit 
(M-2) handle cases of alien smuggling by sea routes.  These 
prosecutors routinely investigate possible trafficking links 
when they interrogate illegal migrants. As of March 2006, the 
authorities had successfully prosecuted 5 captains and 
organizers of illegal migrant voyages. All 5 received 
sentences of 10 years for their roles in three separate cases 
of illegal migrant smuggling.  The Dominican Navy magistrate 
office, responsible for these prosecutions, has numerous 
migrant cases still awaiting trial. 
 
Although resources are limited, the authorities use active 
investigative techniques when possible, including the 
monitoring of Internet pornography sites.  The police are not 
prohibited from engaging in covert operations. 
 
-------------------- 
-- This Year's Cases 
-------------------- 
 
As of February, the Office of the Attorney General had 
submitted approximately 120 cases for prosecution under 
Trafficking Law 137-03.  During the year, they successfully 
obtained convictions in 11 of these cases. Some of these are 
mentioned below. 
 
In May 2006, a judge convicted and sentenced to 15 years' 
imprisonment Wilson Charles on charges of trafficking in 
persons and child sexual exploitation under Trafficking Law 
137-03. 
 
In July 2006, a judge convicted and sentenced to ten years' 
imprisonment Rafael Armando Nivar Diez under Trafficking Law 
137-03. 
 
In January 2006, 25 Haitian citizens died from asphyxiation 
in the back of a truck while being smuggled from Haiti to 
Santiago.  An investigation by the Office of the Attorney 
General resulted in criminal indictments against 10 civilians 
and seven military officials accused of accepting bribes in 
exchange for looking the other way.  In January 2007, Elvis 
Rodriguez Ortiz and Esteban Martinez Rosario, the driver and 
his assistant, respectively, were sentenced to 20 years' 
imprisonment under Trafficking Law 137-03.  Former military 
enlistees Santos Pena Reyes and Stalin Martinez Rosario were 
sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment under the same law for 
accepting money in exchange for facilitating the truck's 
passage. 
 
The Office of the Attorney General investigated and is 
actively pursuing charges in a number of other cases, some of 
which involve public officials.  A few of the most 
 
significant of these are mentioned below. 
 
On November 10, authorities rescued six trafficked 
Venezuelans in the "Hotel Kay" in Santo Domingo. The victims 
alleged that they had been contracted under false pretenses, 
but upon arrival were confined in the hotel and forced to 
prostitute themselves. Authorities arrested and confined in 
preventive custody two individuals in connection with the 
case. 
 
In August authorities dismissed police Major Rafael Elpidio 
Fernandez Garcia from his position and placed him and his 
wife in preventive detention on trafficking charges. The 
suspects were accused of operating a network trafficking 
individuals to Spain. 
 
At year's end 29 public officials, including a city mayor and 
an assistant director of immigration, were in prison on 
charges of conspiring to falsify official travel documents in 
order to smuggle large numbers of persons (mostly women) to 
several European countries. Authorities charged the 
officials, from a variety of government agencies, of 
involvement in a trafficking network that accumulated nearly 
$1.5 million (45 million pesos) over six months. The first 
arrests had been made in September 2005, but as further 
investigations revealed more extensive involvement, arrests 
continued to be made throughout 2006. 
 
Authorities arrested five suspects on trafficking charges 
related to a case in July involving 11 women promised work in 
Spain but defrauded of their possessions and left abandoned 
in Italy, Turkey, and Peru. The suspects remained in 
preventive detention in Najayo Prison and awaited trial as of 
February. 
 
In other cases, particularly in those involving politically 
well-connected suspects, authorities have been reluctant to 
prosecute offenders.  In June the Attorney General suspended 
from her duties and later fired Maria Asuncion Santos, 
district attorney for San Cristobal. The dismissal took place 
after one of her subordinates was accused of involvement in a 
trafficking scheme that lured citizens with false offers of 
employment in Spain.  There were allegations that Santo was 
involved, but to date no charges against her have been filed. 
 
 
Also in June, Colonel Juan Reyes Santana of the La Caleta 
firefighters was arrested on suspicion of involvement in 
alien smuggling. According to witness testimony, Reyes 
Santana collected $3,000 (90,000 pesos) each from eight 
individuals in exchange for fraudulently securing them visas 
to travel under the auspices of a firefighter training 
program. Although authorities dismissed Reyes Santana from 
his position, they declined to pursue criminal charges 
against him. 
 
Since 2004, the Venezuelan Embassy has received multiple 
complaints from trafficked Venezuelans victimized by a 
Dominican-Venezuelan company named "Literatura Universal." 
The Embassy repeatedly communicated its concerns over the 
case to the Dominican Foreign Ministry and others, but as of 
year's end had not received a satisfactory response. The 
company remained in operation and reportedly continued to 
traffic Venezuelans into conditions of forced labor. 
 
A series of delays and postponements plagued an early 2005 
case against a group of Colombian and Dominican traffickers, 
one of whom was a former leader of the Dominican Communist 
Party. The accused had reportedly been preiously employed by 
"Literatura Universal," the sme company mentioned in the 
case above. After a sries of delays, the accused were found 
guilty inFebruary of operating a criminal network that 
trfficked young Colombian girls into the country to ork as 
prostitutes. The accused were allowed to o free pending 
sentencing hearings, which were reeatedly postponed due to 
the failure of the accued to appear in court. The convicted 
traffickersremained free at year's end. 
 
------------------ 
-- The Traffickers 
------------------ 
 
According to COIN and IOM, trafficking organizations are 
typically small groups.  Smuggling rings in the Dominican 
 
Republic are loosely organized.  Usually there is a contact 
at the destination who works with recruiters in the Dominican 
Republic to locate the victims and provide them with travel 
documents.  There were no reports of trafficking profits 
being channeled to armed groups, terrorist organizations, 
judges, banks, or the like.  However, there were reports of 
linkages between rings involved in trafficking in persons, 
human smuggling, and drug trafficking.  There were reports 
that some travel agencies fronted for traffickers. 
 
There were reports of governmental involvement in 
trafficking.  NGOs alleged corruption among the military and 
migration officials stationed at border posts and noted that 
these officials sometimes facilitated the illegal transit of 
Haitian workers into the country. There were also elements 
within the Migration Directorate and the National Police that 
organized or facilitated the smuggling of aliens through the 
international airports. 
 
There were rumors from within the NGO community that other, 
more senior officials were involved in trafficking activities 
as well.  Those senior officials remain in their jobs and 
have not been investigated. 
 
Several of the specific cases mentioned above involved 
governmental officials, including some high-level ones. 
Under the leadership of Frank Soto, the Department of Alien 
Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons of the Office of the 
Attorney General has actively pursued criminal charges 
against a number of officials who were allegedly involved in 
trafficking.  This is a significant improvement over past 
years. 
 
It should be noted that at the time that this report was 
written, Dr. Frank Soto had been suspended from his job for 
nearly two months.  The suspension was related to the 
shooting death of a corrupt regional prosecutor, which 
occurred during a nighttime exchange of gunfire between the 
prosecutor and police officials attempting to apprehend him. 
Dr. Soto was leading the operation and was present at the 
scene.  The Justice Ministry investigation found that the 
regional prosecutor had opened fire and had wounded a 
policeman, provoking return fire from arresting officials. 
 
There were rumors in the NGO community that an internal 
government report had cleared Dr. Soto of wrongdoing, but 
that he remained suspended because some officials felt 
threatened by his investigations. 
 
---------------------------- 
-- International Cooperation 
---------------------------- 
 
The government has signed a cooperative agreement with the 
government of Colombia to share information on cases of 
trafficking.  The Presiding Justice of the Supreme Court has 
signed an agreement with his Latin American and Iberian 
counterparts for the Network of Ibero-American Judicial 
Cooperation (IberRed) to conduct studies and collaborate on 
trafficking projects.  The government is not currently 
engaged in any international trafficking investigations.  The 
Attorney General's office has worked in the past with 
Argentina and Colombia. 
 
Over the past several years the Venezuelan Embassy has 
complained repeatedly, at the highest levels, that a 
Dominican company called "Literatura Universal" is 
trafficking Venezuelan citizens into conditions of forced 
labor.  The company promises lucrative employment outside of 
Venezuela, but upon arrival in the Dominican Republic retains 
victims' identity documentation and confines and exploits 
them.  As of the writing of this report Dominican authorities 
had taken no action against the company. 
 
There are no known cases where the government has requested 
the extradition of persons charged in other countries with 
trafficking, nor has the government received any requests to 
extradite any of its citizens to another nation on charges of 
trafficking.  Extradition between the United States and the 
Dominican Republic is governed by the June 9, 1909 
Extradition Treaty.  The government has responded positively 
to United States extradition requests on other grounds. 
 
The laws on child sexual abuse laws do not provide 
 
extraterritorial coverage. Dominicans are not known to travel 
overseas to engage in child sex tourism. 
 
The Government has taken action on the following 
international instruments: 
 
-     ILO Convention 182 (ratified November 15, 2000) 
-     ILO Convention 29 (ratified December 5, 1956) 
-     ILO Convention 105 (ratified June 23, 1958) 
-     Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in 
Persons (ratified November 7, 2006) 
-     Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of 
the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution, and 
child pornography (submitted to the Senate for ratification 
on February 8, 2005) 
 
 
IV. PROTECTION AND ASSISTANCE TO VICTIMS 
 
Dominican authorities did little to support or expand 
programs providing protection and assistance to victims of 
trafficking. 
 
---------- 
-- The Law 
---------- 
 
Under the Trafficking Law, victims of trafficking are 
guaranteed adequate housing, medical attention, and access to 
education, training, and employment opportunities.  The law 
requires that victims receive legal assistance as well as 
psychological and other evaluations.  In practice, however, 
such assistance is not widely available. 
 
Victims can file civil suits against traffickers, but there 
is little incentive to do so and victims may be unwilling to 
face the social stigma.  In addition, many illegal migrants 
are reluctant to file charges against smugglers because the 
victims are considering attempting illegal migration again in 
the future.  Another problem is the cultural regard that 
Dominicans have for traffickers and alien smugglers.  Given 
the important role that emigration plays for many Dominicans, 
these criminals are regarded by some as heroes. 
 
------------------------ 
-- Assistance to Victims 
------------------------ 
 
The Dominican government invests virtually none of its own 
resources in efforts to assist or rehabilitate victims of 
trafficking.  Most programs of this nature are maintained and 
financed by private sources, such as NGOs and other 
international organizations. 
 
CONANI currently runs seven shelters that house children at 
risk or children who are victims of violence and sexual 
abuse. Children and adolescents who have been rescued from 
sexual exploitation, including some victims of trafficking, 
are sometimes housed in these shelters. 
Local NGO COIN operates an office in Bani where women 
returned from trafficking situations abroad can receive 
low-cost or free health services, psychological counseling, 
judicial assistance, and job training.  COIN also operates a 
reception center for returned women, offers counseling for 
potential victims, and conducts limited public service 
campaigns.  COIN provides tests for HIV/AIDS and other 
sexually transmitted diseases.  COIN receives no assistance 
from the Dominican government, but the government does refer 
victims to its offices. 
 
The Armed Forces sponsored a program to rescue children from 
abuse, known as the General Directorate of Shelters and 
Residences for the Civic Reeducation of Boys, Girls, and 
Adolescents (DIGFARCIN).  DIGFARCIN provided educational 
programs, after-school projects, and recreation opportunities 
to children at risk of abuse, mainly in the Boca Chica area. 
DIGFARCIN also operated a home for abused children in San 
Jose de las Matas. 
 
The Hermanas Adoratrices, a religious organization, operates 
two refuges that receive and rehabilitate prostitutes and 
provide them with health care, childcare, and vocational 
skills.  Those refuges are located in Santo Domingo and La 
Romana.  The organization receives no assistance from the 
 
Dominican government. 
 
There is no formal screening system in place to transfer 
victims detained, arrested, or placed in protective custody 
by law enforcement authorities into the care of NGOs. 
Victims are generally referred to NGOs such as COIN and IOM 
if authorities recognize that they are victims of 
trafficking. These efforts are largely led by the Secretariat 
of Women. 
 
The government generally respects the rights of trafficking 
victims and does not detain or jail them unless there is 
evidence that they have committed a crime, such as drug 
smuggling.  Authorities often arrest prostitutes in raids, 
some of whom are probably victims of trafficking, but in 
general the authorities do not make an effort to investigate 
whether the women are victims of trafficking except when 
there is evidence of child prostitution. 
 
The government does not provide protection for victims and 
witnesses as a matter of course, although the government has 
at times provided protection to victims when an active threat 
is perceived. 
 
There were no shelters, private or public, anywhere in the 
country to provide temporary housing to victims of 
trafficking.  Shelters for victims of violence were not 
generally accessible by victims of trafficking.  COIN reports 
that the lack of shelters forces them to return victims of 
trafficking directly to their home villages, which is 
generally accomplished without difficulties.  However, 
reintegration problems sometimes occur, and the lack of 
shelters also made it difficult for foreign victims to return 
to the Dominican Republic to testify against traffickers. 
 
The government added a number of new programs to assist 
victims of violence and sexual assault, but NGOs reported 
that these resources were not available to victims of 
trafficking.  New resources for victims of violence and 
sexual assault included the following: 
 
The National Directorate for Assistance to Victims, created 
by the Office of the Attorney General in 2005, coordinates 
efforts of official and nongovernmental institutions that 
offer services to victims of violence. It has three offices 
in Santo Domingo and another four at locations around the 
country. These offices not only accept criminal complaints 
from victims of violence throughout the country but also 
provided counseling and protection services and, when 
necessary, referrals to medical or psychological specialists. 
 However, NGOs reported that their services were not made 
available to victims of trafficking. 
 
In the National District, which includes a large section of 
Santo Domingo with approximately 10 percent of the country's 
population, the public prosecutor's office created 13 
satellite offices around the city where victims of violence 
could file criminal complaints, obtain free legal counsel and 
receive psychological and medical attention. Police were 
instructed to forward all domestic violence and sexual 
assault cases to these offices. Each office had professional 
psychologists on staff to counsel victims of violence and to 
assess the threat of impending danger associated with a 
complaint.  However, NGOs reported that their services were 
not made available to victims of trafficking. 
 
The government provides training for diplomatic personnel on 
recognizing trafficking and assisting victims.  The 
administration has established this anti-trafficking training 
as a permanent part of the required curriculum at the 
Diplomatic and Consular school.  Dominican officials overseas 
are instructed to work with host governments to identify and 
assist Dominican victims, to collect information on 
trafficking patterns, and to identify traffickers. 
Information obtained in these efforts is channeled through 
the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs to the other agencies that 
fight trafficking.  COIN publishes pocket-sized books with 
addresses of Dominican consulates overseas and distributes 
them to women at risk.  However, COIN is aware of only one 
case, occurring in Puerto Rico, where a Dominican overseas 
consulate successfully identified a victim of trafficking. 
 
International organizations and NGOs that work with 
trafficking victims all receive good cooperation from local 
 
authorities.  These include: 
 
-     Center for Integral Orientation and Investigation (COIN) 
-     Las Hermanas Adoratrices 
-     International Organization for Migration (IOM) 
-     The International Labor Organization (ILO) 
 
 
¶3.     Embassy human rights officer Alexander T. Bryan is the 
point of contact on trafficking issues.  He may be reached by 
telephone at (809) 731-4203 and by fax at (809) 686-4038. 
HERTELL