VZCZCXYZ0004
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #1000/01 1161945
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 261945Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8093
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4577

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 001000 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP:KATIE BRESNAHAN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM SMIG DR
SUBJECT: FOUR DOMINICAN TRAFFICKING PROPOSALS SUBMITTED FOR 
G/TIP'S CONSIDERATION 
 
REF: STATE 28159 
 
¶1.  The four trafficking proposals being submitted by Embassy 
Santo Domingo for G/TIP's consideration represent four 
organizations with diverse areas of expertise, who are each 
seeking to strengthen and expand existing programs and 
alliances to include stepped-up trafficking components. 
Taken together, these proposals would provide a tested and 
comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy that could generate 
very positive results. 
 
¶2.  In this cable, Embassy has quoted the executive summary 
for each of the four trafficking proposals we have received 
(the full proposals will be forwarded via e-mail to G/TIP). 
We are also including brief Embassy commentaries on each of 
the four proposals, to focus on the organizational capacities 
of the proposed implementing organizations. 
 
¶3.  Applicant: Centro de Investigacion e Informacion Integral 
(COIN) 
   --------------------------------------------- ------- 
Total Project Cost: USD 276,000 
Requested Funding Amount: USD 188,000* 
Duration: 2 years 
 
* - The Dominican Ministry of Health will fund approximately 
32 percent of the total cost of this project by paying the 
costs associated with four doctors, a nurse, and a laboratory 
technician, who will provide medical services to trafficking 
victims received in the shelter. 
 
----------------- 
Proposal Abstract 
----------------- 
 
For a country of its size, the Dominican Republic sends a 
remarkable number of female immigrants overseas.  A 
significant proportion of these are trafficked.  As noted in 
the Embassy's trafficking in persons report this year, there 
is a real shortage of programs in the country that address 
the prevention of trafficking and the protection of its 
victims. 
 
COIN has extensive experience working in these areas. We have 
worked since the early 1990s to educate women in high-risk 
communities on the risks associated with irregular 
immigration, provide protection and reintegration services to 
returned victims of trafficking, and build alliances between 
policy-makers and civil society to promote effective public 
policies to combat trafficking in persons.  We were a 
founding member of CIPROM, the interagency government and 
civil society organization that exists to coordinate all 
trafficking activities.  Until last year COIN served as a 
major implementing partner for trafficking programs managed 
by the International Organization on Migration (IOM) using 
assistance provided in large part by the Department of 
State's Bureau on Population, Refugees and Migration.  The 
Dominican Government's Secretariat on Gender Affairs 
generally refers all identified trafficking victims to our 
offices. 
 
We propose to strengthen and expand our existing alliances 
and programs using the funding we are requesting in this 
proposal. An overview of our plans is provided below. 
 
Prevention: 
 
-- Train a network of 220 community "multipliers" to spread 
the message on prevention of trafficking in persons in 
high-risk communities nationwide. 
 
-- Conduct a series of educational round-tables, community 
activities, and theater presentations in high-risk 
communities around the country on the trafficking risks 
associated with migration and smuggling. 
 
-- Participate in public awareness events, to include mass 
media presentations and reprints of trafficking prevention 
material we have already developed, to warn potential 
migrants of the dangers of trafficking. 
 
-- Receive and follow up on calls placed to our nation-wide 
help line. The help line exists both to provide guidance and 
warnings to intending migrants and to locate and coordinate 
support for those who have already been victimized by 
trafficking. 
 
Victim Protection: 
 
 
-- Create a micro-financing fund to support job training, 
equipment purchasing costs and small business development for 
the benefit of 50 female trafficking victims. 
 
-- Support efforts to provide health care, emotional and 
psychological support, and legal support to victims of 
trafficking in persons at the shelter operated by COIN. 
 
-- Provide follow-up and support through house calls and 
other activities to the beneficiaries of the shelter. 
 
-- Qualitatively evaluate progress through focal groups and 
detailed interviews with service beneficiaries. 
 
--------------- 
Embassy Comment 
--------------- 
 
COIN is perhaps the most widely respected and 
best-experienced authority on trafficking in persons in the 
Dominican Republic. They have worked extensively in 
partnership with the IOM, which managed assistance that was 
ultimately provided by State's PRM Bureau. IOM has 
dramatically scaled back its operations in the Dominican 
Republic, and COIN has faced considerable budget cuts as a 
result. PRM has proposed enhancing the funding it provides to 
IOM's mission in the Dominican Republic, which would 
ultimately benefit COIN. However, COIN has indicated that 
should this occur, the renewed IOM (read: PRM) assistance 
would be used for other purposes, such as paying the office's 
general operational budget, and would not/not 
conflict/overlap with the support they are requesting in this 
proposal. 
 
Because much of the work envisioned within this proposal uses 
contacts, networks and programs that are already established, 
COIN would be in a far better position to accomplish more 
with the funding they are requesting. COIN's Francisca 
Ferreira is Embassy's best contact on issues related to the 
prevention of trafficking and the protection of its victims. 
We have been very impressed with what this organization has 
accomplished despite an extremely limited budget. 
 
 
¶4.  Applicant: International Labor Organization (ILO), 
International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) 
   --------------------------------------------- ------- 
Total Project Cost: USD 641,018 
Requested Funding Amount: USD 199,818* 
Duration: 2 years 
 
* - ILO-IPEC has committed to supporting approximately 69 
percent of costs needed for this project using resources from 
its own operating budget. The specific areas they have 
committed to supporting are laid out in Part 4 (Page 11) on 
"Project Inputs and Budget" of their proposal. 
 
----------------- 
Proposal Abstract 
----------------- 
 
The Dominican Republic (DR) is known to be a major source, 
transit and destination country for persons trafficked for 
sexual and labor exploitation. Around 50,000 women from the 
DR work overseas in the sex industry. Although they are 
typically between the ages of 18 and 25, girls as young as 15 
are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation and 
domestic servitude to Europe, the Lesser Antilles and South 
America. Also, cases of internal trafficking of minors for 
sexual exploitation and domestic labor have been reported. 
 
Over the last years, the Dominican authorities have taken a 
series of measures in order to combat child trafficking and 
the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC). This 
was reflected in particular through the adoption of an 
anti-trafficking and smuggling law (Law 137-03), the revision 
of the Code for Minors (Law 136-03), the creation of an anti 
trafficking unit in the Attorney's General Office, of an 
inter Institutional Commission against CSEC and the adoption 
and implementation of a National Plan to combat CSEC in the 
DR. Also, various workshops for law implementing agencies 
(Attorney's General Office's anti-trafficking unit, Migration 
Directorate's anti-trafficking Department, National Police's 
anti-trafficking unit) have been organized to train their 
staff on these issues. 
 
However, few institutions have dealt with trafficking issues 
 
in a sustainable manner. Among the problems that obstruct 
effective implementation of the law, the International 
Program- against the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC) in 
the DR has identified the following factors: 
 
-- There is no clear criminal policy to tackle the problem in 
a permanent and forceful way; 
-- The judicial sector is not sufficiently aware of the CSEC 
and child trafficking problems and lacks knowledge on the 
corresponding legislation; and, in the same line, there is a 
lack of coordination between criminal judges and judges for 
children; 
-- Biased perceptions and attitudes towards these issues are 
still limiting the persecution and appropriate sanction of 
traffickers and sexual exploiters; 
-- There are no adequate legal and integral protection 
programs for child victims; 
-- The Dominican population at large, in particular in 
sending-prone and affected areas, is still unaware of its 
role and responsibilities as regards the prevention and 
reporting of cases of trafficking and/or CSEC. 
 
Therefore, additional support is required in order to help 
the Dominican Government comply with its international 
commitments to protect child victims and prosecute 
traffickers and sexual exploiters. On this basis, the 
ILO-IPEC, as part of the USDOL-funded project to prevent and 
eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the DR, has 
already supported various initiatives in particular to train 
public prosecutors on CSEC, revise the anti-trafficking law, 
and implement direct support activities to address the needs 
of child victims or children at risk of falling preys of 
exploiters and traffickers. Overall, project activities to 
combat child trafficking and CSEC will be implemented 
according to 3 strategic components: 
 
-- Capacity building and law enforcement, though the training 
of the judicial sector to ensure the adequate prosecution and 
conviction of exploiters and traffickers. A total of 95 
judges, public prosecutors, police and migration officers 
will be trained; 
-- Social mobilization, in particular in sending-prone and 
affected areas, through sensitization and training activities 
at community level. A total of 120 community leaders and 
staff of community-based organization will be trained; 
-- Direct action to prevent and withdraw 100 child victims or 
at risk of trafficking and/or CSE through the implementation 
of a comprehensive program in a high-incidence area of the 
country (Santiago). The child beneficiaries will be provided 
with legal, education and healthcare care services. Their 
parents will also receive support and information services. 
 
--------------- 
Embassy Comment 
--------------- 
 
The ILO/IPEC has managed a significant amount of USDOL 
funding in the implementation of its program to eradicate the 
commercial sexual exploitation of children and other "worst 
forms of child labor" in the Dominican Republic. The current 
proposal is to use community-based networks and existing 
ILO/IPEC programs to confront child trafficking. They also 
seek to add an anti-trafficking element to their existing 
programs to train judges and law enforcement personnel, whose 
lack of specific training was noted in Embassy's trafficking 
report as significantly obstructing effective implementation 
of the Law on Trafficking. 
 
The Embassy has been extremely impressed by the results of 
ILO/IPEC's work on child labor. Their programs have generated 
quantifiable gains in the communities where they have been 
implemented and have led to a new, broad consensus throughout 
society that child labor is wrong and should be opposed. 
Earlier this year the Dominican government announced the 
implementation of a comprehensive strategy to eradicate the 
worst forms of child labor, which will be implemented using 
the government's own resources. That strategy would not have 
been possible without ILO's efforts. Earlier this year 
Ambassador Hertell drafted a personal letter of appreciation 
for the ILO/IPEC's efforts here. Embassy is enthusiastic 
about the ILO's ability to achieve similarly positive results 
in the prevention of child trafficking. Their proposal to use 
their community programs and efforts to attack the 
"demand-side" of trafficking (i.e. to educate adult men on 
the punishments envisioned under the law for those who 
facilitate the commercial sexual exploitation of children) is 
intriguing. 
 
 
¶5.  Applicant: Fundacion Institucionalidad y Justicia 
(Foundation for Institutionalism and Justice, or FINJUS) 
   --------------------------------------------- ------- 
Total Project Cost: USD 190,619 
Requested Funding Amount: USD 145,740* 
Duration: 1 year 
* - FINJUS has committed to providing approximately 24 
percent of the funds needed for this project using its own 
operating budget. The specific areas they have committed to 
supporting are laid out in the budget attached to their 
proposal. 
 
----------------- 
Proposal Abstract 
----------------- 
 
FINJUS played a major role in the drafting process of Law 
137-03 on Trafficking in Persons and Alien Smuggling, and 
with assistance provided by USAID, worked with officials in 
the relevant government ministries to train them on their 
responsibilities in enforcing it.  Nonetheless, problems 
remain.  Key Dominican ministries such as the Directorate on 
Migration fail to enforce their responsibilities under the 
law, and fail to coordinate with others in the interagency 
process.  The government continues to deny sufficient funding 
to support an effective prevention strategy or to guarantee 
the provision of needed services to victims of trafficking. 
Furthermore, there is a general perception that government 
officials facilitate and profit from trafficking schemes. 
 
We believe that part of the problem with trafficking in the 
Dominican Republic is the lack of understanding among key 
actors in civil society, the media, and the general public of 
the phenomenon of trafficking and the importance of combating 
it.  Government officials, despite the training they receive, 
will have little incentive to devote scarce resources and 
effort into seriously confronting the problem as long as they 
are under little or no pressure from their own constituents 
to do so.   Given these realities, FINJUS believes that the 
time has come for the next step in the fight against 
trafficking ) exposing Dominican civil society groups, and 
the Dominican public, to the gravity of the problems 
associated with trafficking and the steps they can take in 
their communities and elsewhere to demand government action 
to combat it. 
 
The project we are submitting seeks to strengthen the 
capacity of civil society to work alongside governmental 
institutions tasked with confronting smuggling and 
trafficking in persons.  Approximately 150 organizations in 
seven regions have already received training and support on 
Law 137-03 (see chart attached to proposal).  These 
organizations have been trained on ways to coordinate and 
network their efforts.  We will work with these organizations 
to strengthen and use this coordination to develop specific 
actions to monitor and provide effective feedback on the 
efficiency of government policies and practices related to 
trafficking, such as the manner in which cases are handled by 
the judicial system and the treatment and protection that 
trafficking victims receive from relevant government 
institutions.  Networks would also be involved in prevention 
and awareness activities in at-risk communities, especially 
targeting women at risk of sexual exploitation.  We aim to 
encourage these organizations to prepare annual reports on 
the incidence of trafficking in Dominican society and the 
public's response to it in order for the authorities and 
society better understand the problem. 
 
At the end of the day, this project will result in a stronger 
and more committed network of civil society organizations 
dedicated to denouncing traffickers, opposing official 
complicity in trafficking schemes, demanding the prosecution 
of trafficking facilitators, and urging and in some cases 
directly providing assistance to its victims. 
 
The project, in addition, aims to provide continuity to 
FINJUS efforts over 2005-2006, which included training of 
community leaders, investigation, training of judges, 
prosecutors, policemen and other actors of the migration 
sector regarding Law 137-03, publication of popular 
educational material, and performance of education and 
awareness activities, among other things. 
 
--------------- 
Embassy Comment 
--------------- 
 
With USAID assistance, FINJUS implemented a strategy similar 
to the one outlined above to mobilize support within civil 
society and the general public for a wholesale revision of 
the Dominican Criminal Procedures Code (CPC). The new CPC 
incorporates greater respect for victims' rights and rule of 
law, and was lauded in the State Department's 2006 Human 
Rights Report as one of the most significant improvements in 
the country's human rights record. 
 
FINJUS did participate in the drafting committee on the Law 
on Trafficking and Alien Smuggling. They see the proposal 
outlined above as the natural continuation of a program they 
implemented over 2005-2006 with USAID assistance to train key 
government personnel on their obligations under the 
Trafficking Law. USAID has been extremely pleased with 
FINJUS's performance in these and other areas of cooperation. 
 
 
¶6.  Applicant: United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 
   --------------------------------------------- ------- 
Total Project Cost: USD 155,600 
Requested Funding Amount: USD 155,600 
Duration: 2 years 
 
----------------- 
Proposal Abstract 
----------------- 
 
The feminization of migration is a phenomenon that has taken 
place in the Dominican Republic since the 1980s.  Aspects of 
gender-based and sexual violence have characterized these 
movements. The main destinations for Dominican women are 
Europe, the Lesser Antilles, Haiti, and several Latin 
American countries. 
 
According to data from the International Organization for 
Migration (IOM), the Dominican Republic is ranked fourth out 
of ten countries with a large number of women abroad, after 
Thailand, the Philippines and Brazil. 
 
Studies conducted in the country with migrant women show that 
the main reason for traveling is the need to improve their 
economic situation and that of their families. The majority 
of them talk about the need to generate income to feed and 
educate their children, to buy a house and to start a small 
business, and some of them also state that the trip is a way 
to escape from violence and abuse from their partners (COIN 
1998, IOM 2000). 
 
This project is aimed at raising the awareness levels of the 
target population of the issue of trafficking in persons, as 
well as working with policy makers and decision makers about 
their role in preventing and sanctioning this practice; also, 
to identify existing response mechanisms and to contribute to 
strengthening their capacity to address the issue of 
trafficking in a more effective way. 
 
The proposed actions will be developed in provinces with high 
migration flow in the Dominican Republic (Province of Santo 
Domingo and National District, San Juan de la Maguana, 
Barahona, San Cristobal, Higuey, Dajabon and La Romana). 
 
The proposed activities will focus on strengthening the State 
mechanisms to address, prevent and sanction trafficking in 
persons in the Dominican Republic.  Also, through an advocacy 
component, a strategy to mobilize social and political 
support around this problem will be implemented, and 
coordinating actions will be taken with institutions 
specialized in service delivery, integral care for 
trafficking victims, with an emphasis on women and girls. 
 
Expected Outcomes 
 
-- To have strengthened coordination mechanisms for the 
effective provision of prevention, care and support services 
for trafficking victims in areas with high migration flows. 
 
-- To have contributed to the elaboration of the regulation 
of Law 137-03 on Trafficking in Persons and Alien Smuggling. 
 
-- To have contributed to raising the level of knowledge 
among women of the risks associated with illegal travel and 
the contents of Law 137-03 on Trafficking in Persons and 
Alien Smuggling in the Dominican Republic. 
 
-- To have sensitized the population located in areas with 
high flows of migration on the issue of trafficking in 
persons and on the various means available to accessing 
 
information and services, through the conducting of 
information-sharing activities with communities and the 
dissemination of educational messages, with the participation 
of main governmental institutions responsible for the 
prevention, care and sanction of the trafficking of women and 
girls. 
 
-- To have strengthened integrated care services for 
trafficking victims through a specialized institution. 
 
--------------- 
Embassy Comment 
--------------- 
 
UNFPA is a relative newcomer to trafficking issues in the 
Dominican Republic, but they have demonstrated interest in 
recent months in expanding the focus of their programs to 
include trafficking components. 
 
The most attractive aspects of UNFPA's proposal are, first, 
that it envisions working directly with CIPROM, the 
government's dysfunctional interagency coordination body. 
CIPROM's biggest obstacle in achieving its objective to 
enhance coordination is its lack of funding, and UNFPA is the 
only organization of the four that proposes working directly 
through CIRPOM. UNFPA proposes working with CIRPOM to 
strengthen its coordination and to ensure the finalization of 
key missing implementing regulations related to the 
Trafficking Law. 
 
The second intriguing aspect of UNFPA's proposal is that it 
proposes "training the system," specifically the government's 
specialists on assisting victims of gender violence, on the 
need to include trafficking victims within their mandate. 
Embassy's trafficking report noted that the Dominican 
government has made considerable progress in providing better 
services to victims of rape and physical abuse, but that 
these services are not made available to trafficking victims. 
UNFPA already works with these specialist networks on gender 
violence issues. 
 
However, some elements of UNFPA's proposal may need further 
clarification. Specific activities for obtaining their 
objectives (particularly regarding their work with CIPROM) do 
not appear to have been adequately conceptualized, and some 
elements of their proposal may conflict with objectives more 
appropriately undertaken by the other three organizations 
listed above. 
HERTELL