VZCZCXYZ0001
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #0350/01 0701818
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 101818Z MAR 08
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0293
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4795

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 000350 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR WHA, WHA/CAR DEPIRRO AND WARD, G/TIP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB KCRM KFRD KWMN PHUM PREF SMIG DR
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: 8TH ANNUAL TIP REPORT 
 
REF: STATE 2731 
 
¶1. Please find the following information keyed to reftel 
questions. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Overview of Dominican Activities 
-------------------------------- 
 
PARAGRAPH A 
----------- 
-- Summary:  The Dominican Republic is a country of origin 
for women trafficked internationally to work as prostitutes, 
cabaret dancers and domestic employees and is a destination 
country for women trafficked into prostitution and domestic 
servitude, as well as a significantly smaller number of men 
who are allegedly trafficked into the agricultural sector as 
forced laborers and children who are forced into domestic 
servitude.  Women and children are trafficked internally for 
prostitution and sexual exploitation. 
 
-- Estimated number of victims:  Numbers of trafficking 
victims are inexact as no comprehensive study has been done 
for over a decade.  The International Organization for 
Migration (IOM) suggests that as many as one-third of the 
30,000 to 50,000 (outward estimates suggest 60,000) Dominican 
women thought to be abroad and working as prostitutes are 
trafficking victims.  While there are no reliable estimates 
as to the number of victims trafficked into or within the 
Dominican Republic during the reporting period, over 50 
percent of respondents in a series of 2008 NGO-sponsored 
surveys in Boca Chica and two urban subdivisions of Santo 
Domingo indicated that they "knew of cases of trafficking" 
within their communities.  . 
 
-- Dominican-nationals abroad:  Dominican-national victims 
come from both urban communities and rural towns and are 
typically unemployed or employed in the informal sector. 
Victims are found to a lesser extent in low paying jobs in 
the formal sector (e.g., factory worker).  Principal 
destination countries for Dominican-born victims of 
trafficking were in Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America, 
and included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, 
Curacao, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, 
Spain, Surinam, St. Marten, Switzerland, and Turkey.  Many 
Dominican trafficking victims travel using bona fide legal 
documents, including non-immigrant visas, which are often 
taken from them upon arrival. 
 
-- Foreign victims and destinations:  Foreign-born victims of 
trafficking are primarily Haitian in origin, though there 
have also been isolated cases of victims from South America. 
The majority of foreign-born victims are smuggled into the 
country without proper identification and are subsequently 
trafficked to urban areas (for sexual exploitation) or 
allegedly trafficked to agricultural areas (for forced labor). 
 
-- Internally trafficked and destinations:  Internally 
trafficked victims are typically women or adolescents of 
either gender that are trafficked for sexual exploitation to 
urban or tourist areas.  The tourist areas of Boca Chica, 
Puerto Plata, and Sousa are well-known destinations; 
principal cities such as Santo Domingo and Santiago are also 
known destinations. 
 
-- Children:  There were no reports of children being 
trafficked outside of the country.  There have been 
allegations of Haitian children "for sale" in open markets in 
Dominican border communities, particularly in the city of 
Dajabon, but the Embassy has found no supporting evidence and 
does not find these allegations to be credible.  However, 
Embassy thinks it probable, given the large Haitian Diaspora 
in the Dominican Republic, the extremely porous border 
between the two nations, and a 2002 UNICEF-IOM report 
suggesting cross-border trafficking, that Haitian children 
are smuggled and/or trafficked into the Dominican Republic as 
"restaveks."  Embassy has interviewed a Save the Children 
official who was a restavek within Haiti; this official 
stressed that only some restaveks are forced into domestic 
servitude, others experience a more benign existence 
resembling informal adoption. 
 
The results of police sweeps, as well as simple observation 
by Embassy personnel, suggests that an unknown number of 
children aged 12 to 17 are internally trafficked for purposes 
of prostitution and sexual exploitation.  These children are 
typically trafficked to tourist areas in the north and 
southeast of the country, as well as major urban areas (most 
notably Santo Domingo and Santiago). 
In April 2007, the Center for Dominican-Haitian Culture 
(CCDH) repeated a claim made during the last reporting period 
that as many as 400 Haitian children have been trafficked 
into the Dominican Republic to participate in "begging 
rings."  While the Embassy cannot definitively rule out the 
possibility that children are trafficked into non-domestic 
forced labor, little evidence has surfaced within the larger 
NGO community to suggest that the practice occurs and 
government investigation into "begging rings" suggests 
parental abuse rather than trafficking. 
 
-- Sources of information:  Information is gathered by 
individual government agencies and ministries (i.e., The 
Secretariat for Tourism's "Tourist Police" (POLITUR), the 
 
SIPDIS 
Secretariat of Labor, the National Police, the Public 
 
SIPDIS 
Ministry (Attorney General's Office), the Foreign Ministry, 
the Secretariat of the Armed Forces, The Directorate of 
Immigration, the Secretariat for Women's Issues, and the 
National Council for Children and Adolescents), which 
generate reports that are later coordinated for limited 
distribution by the Foreign Ministry.  In addition, the IOM 
and the International Labor Organization provide their own 
reporting, as do a wealth of NGOs of varying credibility. 
Embassy notes reports by the Center for Orientation and 
Integral Investigation (COIN) and the Movement of 
Dominican-Haitian Women (MUDAH) to be of particular value. 
Other NGO sources include the CCDH, the Jesuit Refugee 
Service, the Center for Assessment and Legal Investigation 
(CEDAIL), and the AFL-CIO affiliated Solidarity Center. 
 
-- Documentation:  In November 2007, Presidential Decree 
575-07 mandated the creation of an interagency working group 
on trafficking (hereinafter the "575-07 Group") to include 
the above governmental agencies, as well as the Office of the 
First Lady and the IOM (in an advisory capacity).  The goal 
of this group, which had previously existed on an ad hoc 
basis without the participation of the First Lady, is to 
establish a national anti-trafficking strategy that should 
include a documentation component.  Meetings are scheduled 
regularly and the Group has already met twice since their 
inception. 
 
PARAGRAPH B 
----------- 
-- General Overview:  Despite the paucity of resources 
available, the trafficking situation in the country has 
improved over the previous 12 months, most notably in the 
treatment of foreign-national victims.  As discussed more 
fully below, foreign national victims are no longer kept in 
immigration custody prior to their deportation, but are 
rather released into the custody of the IOM, which arranges 
for shelter and the provision of psycho-social services. 
Services for repatriated Dominican victims are available 
through COIN and other NGOs and temporary shelter for 
Dominican-nationals and documented foreigners is 
theoretically available through a newly expanded network of 
domestic abuse shelters. The legal framework for combating 
trafficking was greatly improved with the addition of a law 
criminalizing the transmission and/or possession of child 
pornography (discussed below). 
 
-- Outbound flow:  Considering U.S. Coast Guard intercepts of 
intending migrants, a recent survey suggesting that the vast 
majority of Dominicans would emigrate if possible, and 
continuing grinding poverty despite a degree of economic 
growth, Embassy's best estimate is that the numbers of 
victims trafficked abroad has not decreased appreciably in 
the past year. 
 
-- Inbound flow:  Considering the relative stabilization of 
the Haitian economy, an increased security environment in 
Haiti, and increased Dominican attention to border control, 
the Embassy estimates that the number of victims trafficked 
into the Dominican Republic has not increased in the past 
year and has, perhaps, decreased. 
 
-- Traffickers:  Traffickers often work in unaffiliated small 
groups or as individuals and, in the case of foreign-born 
victims, often present themselves as smugglers. 
 
-- Targets:  1) Children - Parents in great economic need 
have been known to traffic their children and are a source of 
trafficked minors.  Adolescents of both sexes who have left 
home (both voluntarily and involuntarily) prostitute 
themselves to obtain necessities (e.g., food, shelter); 2) 
Women - Victims are culled from the ranks of the 
unemployed/underemployed and those performing menial jobs in 
the formal sector.  Victims are often initially approached by 
friends and/or family members who describe the "great" job 
opportunities waiting abroad.  Victims are deceived as to 
their ultimate destination, work, and wage, and in the case 
of those possessing valid travel documents, find their 
documents seized upon arrival in their new locale; 3) Men - 
Foreign-national men who are unemployed are typically 
approached abroad by individuals promising work in 
construction or agriculture and are allegedly brought to 
agricultural work-sites without the functional freedom to 
leave (because of the language barrier, geographic isolation, 
and lack of proper documentation). 
 
-- Agencies and documents:  Dominican victims trafficked 
abroad typically possess valid travel documents, while the 
opposite is true for foreign-national victims trafficked to 
the Dominican Republic.  Unscrupulous travel agencies 
generally defraud, as oppose to traffic, their victims (i.e., 
stealing funds without providing brokered visas for the 
promised trip).  Some Dominican-national women have been 
trafficked abroad into sham marriages (largely in Italy), but 
the role of marriage brokers in this process is unclear. 
 
PARAGRAPH C 
----------- 
-- Government agencies: Government agencies identified in 
Paragraph A answers are involved in anti-trafficking efforts: 
 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs unofficially coordinates the 
interagency working group, though the Public Ministry takes 
the lead in investigation and prosecution, as well as the 
functional lead on victims' services.  The Secretariat for 
Women's Issues also attempts to exert leadership on victims, 
services. 
 
PARAGRAPH D 
----------- 
-- Limitations on government action:  Efforts to combat 
trafficking and aid victims in the past year have been 
hamstrung by an overall poor budgetary situation, combined 
with repeated national disasters (i.e., repeated widespread 
flooding) with damages and recovery costs estimated in the 
hundreds of millions of dollars.  This dire lack of general 
funding complicates all criminal investigations, including 
investigations into trafficking, as the ability to train 
Dominican personnel (especially soldiers (who provide border 
patrol-like functions), police, and immigration officials) is 
greatly diminished.  This lack of funding also results in 
significant underpayment to members of the above groups, as 
well as prosecutors and judges, placing all at an increased 
risk of being corrupted by human traffickers.  Moreover, a 
lack of overall funding diminishes the resources that the 
Dominican government can dedicate to intervention with 
potential victims, as well as the identification and 
repatriation of, and provision of services to, victims. 
 
Further complicating efforts to investigate and prosecute 
crime is the slow pace at which the National Police are 
adapting to the revision of the Dominican Criminal Procedures 
Code (2004).  Police frequently have difficulty executing 
complex investigations and following basic police procedures 
(e.g., securing the crime scene, preserving the chain of 
custody, etc.). 
 
PARAGRAPH E 
----------- 
-- Monitoring:  The Dominican government does not 
systematically monitor its anti-trafficking efforts.  Rather, 
it utilizes an ad hoc approach by differing agencies.  It is 
thought that the 575-07 Group will soon address this issue in 
its national plan.  Currently, the GODR does not release 
statistics to the general public (though, theoretically, it 
would comply with a FOIA request).  It sometimes delays 
release of statistics to international donor partners, but 
eventually complies.  The government's 575-07 Group will 
release statistics to diplomatic missions upon request of the 
mission.  Individual ministries will also work directly with 
diplomatic missions to release statistics outside the 575-07 
Group process. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
Investigation and Prosecution of Traffickers 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
PARAGRAPHS A - D 
---------------- 
-- Legal framework:  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.  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. 
 
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 Against High Technology Crimes (Law 53-07) was passed 
early in the reporting period and criminalizes the electronic 
dissemination of child pornography from, into, or within the 
Dominican Republic.  The production, distribution, sale, or 
other commercialization of pornographic images is punishable 
by 2 to 4 years incarceration and a fine of between 10 and 
500 times the minimum wage.  Acquisition and possession of 
pornographic images is punishable by 3 to 12 months 
incarceration and a fine of between 2 and 200 times the 
minimum wage.  The law also criminalizes the electronic 
request for or offering of children for sexual exploitation, 
with possible penalties of between 3 and 10 years 
incarceration and fines between 10 and 500 times the minimum 
wage.  Using electronic media to further trafficking in other 
circumstances is covered by other existing laws (e.g., 
137-03, 136-03. etc.). 
 
There are no civil forfeiture laws in existence. 
 
-- Sanctions:  Final judgments (convictions or acquittals) of 
"sex traffickers" over the reporting period and prosecutions 
of "labor traffickers" will be reported septel. 
 
PARAGRAPH E 
----------- 
-- Prostitution:  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 
anti-prostitution laws, but there were several crackdowns of 
street prostitutes when minors were obviously involved. 
 
PARAGRAPH F 
----------- 
-- Investigation/prosecution/conviction/sanction - Reporting 
period statistics will be reported septel. 
 
PARAGRAPH G 
----------- 
The Foreign Ministry provides consular officials prior to 
their being stationed abroad with intensive training that 
focuses on the identification and repatriation of victims. 
Immigration officials, likewise, receive training on the 
identification of victims.  The IOM partners with the 
government regarding training. 
 
PARAGRAPH H 
----------- 
The government cooperates with other governments in 
investigation and prosecution to the extent possible. 
Details will be discussed septel. 
PARAGRAPH I 
----------- 
The Dominican government has not yet been asked to extradite 
persons charged with trafficking, but would do so providing 
the crime was an extraditable offense under existing treaty 
or some other binding international instrument.  Trafficking, 
as such, is not an extraditable offense under the 1909 
U.S.-Dominican Republic Extradition Treaty, but traffickers 
could be reached under charges such as rape or kidnapping. 
 
PARAGRAPH J 
----------- 
There is no credible evidence to suggest that the government 
is involved in or tolerates trafficking either locally or as 
an national institution. 
 
PARAGRAPH K 
----------- 
Low-level government officials are popularly assumed to be 
complicit in trafficking, at least in regard to in-bound 
victims, as low-level police and military officials have 
already been demonstrated to be complicit in the smuggling of 
both individuals and materials into the Dominican Republic. 
 
Literally hundreds of rank-and-file immigration, customs, 
police, and military officials have been terminated on the 
mere suspicion of corruption and/or association with 
smugglers and traffickers.  These abrupt firings purge the 
affected agencies of bad actors and, while the abruptness has 
a deleterious impact on the State's ability to prosecute, at 
the same time it recognizes and circumvents the shortcomings 
of the Dominican judicial system. 
 
Prior to the reporting period (in June 2006), newspaper Clave 
Digital reported a joint investigation by military 
intelligence (J2) and the FBI-equivalent National Directorate 
for Investigations (DNI) that suggested involvement by both 
high-level officials ("funcionarios") and lower-level 
officials ("empleados publicos") in the smuggling of Chinese 
nationals.  Government officials in this reporting period 
have noted that an inability to gather information within the 
insular Chinese community prevents effective investigation). 
Embassy notes this claim refers to "smuggling" not 
"trafficking."  There were no claims of high-level collusion 
or complicity in trafficking during this reporting period. 
 
Prosecutions of officials will be reported septel. 
 
PARAGRAPH L 
----------- 
The Dominican Republic did not participate in peacekeeping 
operations during the reporting period. 
 
PARAGRAPH M 
----------- 
Various academics and, at various times, international 
organizations have identified the Dominican Republic as a 
child sex tourism destination.  The government suggests that 
a series of brothel raids before the reporting period 
effectively ended organized child prostitution and child sex 
tourism, though a "hard core" of child prostitutes remains 
active.  Internet advertisements, bulletin boards, and blogs 
tend to portray the Dominican Republic more generally as a 
"sex tourist" destination (versus "child sex tourist") and 
are targeted to Western European, American, and Canadian men. 
 Still, these same blogs and bulletin boards occasionally 
note the availability of minors as sex workers.  Dominican 
laws do not have extraterritorial effect. 
Prosecution/deportation/extradition statistics will be 
reported septel. 
 
------------------------------------ 
Protection and Assistance to Victims 
------------------------------------ 
 
PARAGRAPH A 
----------- 
The government does not directly provide assistance to 
foreign trafficking victims, though it began, during this 
reporting period, to release them to the IOM, which arranges 
for shelter (a temporary shelter is provided by a religious 
order of nuns) and the provision of psycho-social services 
prior to the victims' deportation.  While the government does 
not provide temporary residency or otherwise defer 
deportation of foreign national victims, it permits the 
return of victims (facilitated by the IOM) to provide live 
testimony in the trials of accused traffickers. 
 
PARAGRAPHS B - C 
---------------- 
Dominican-national and properly documented foreign 
trafficking victims theoretically have access to an 
increasingly large network of domestic violence shelters. 
These shelters are not specialized trafficking shelters and 
the government maintains no records as to what drives 
particular women to seek shelter.  The Government has 
committed to building a dedicated trafficking shelter, but 
has not yet broken ground on a facility.  In the absence of a 
dedicated facility, the Government refers identified 
Dominican-national victims to COIN for specialized services 
and releases undocumented foreign-nationals to the IOM for 
shelter and services prior to the victims, deportation. 
 
Legislation mandates that small portions of the country's 
national budget be dedicated to children's, services and 
violence prevention (to include trafficking prevention), but 
these figures are not met in practice.  Funding for victims, 
assistance is almost entirely non-governmental. 
 
PARAGRAPH D 
----------- 
There is no formal system of proactively identifying victims. 
  During the reporting period, the Government developed a 
mechanism to release rescued foreign-national victims from 
immigration detention facilities into the custody of the IOM 
prior to their deportation.  There is a parallel non-formal 
mechanism that directs Dominican victims to various NGOs, 
principally COIN.  There is no formal mechanism to provide 
child protection/social services for child prostitutes, 
approximately 30 of whom were briefly detained in street 
sweeps by POLITUR during the reporting period.  Child victims 
were released to shelters and/or their parents on an ad hoc 
basis. 
 
PARAGRAPH E 
----------- 
As the sex trade is legal, but not regulated, the government 
only screens for trafficking victims among sex workers when 
the circumstances make victim identification a foregone 
conclusion (i.e., obviously underage streetwalkers, 
prostitutes employed in a brothel). 
 
PARAGRAPH F 
----------- 
Rights of trafficking victims are respected, initial 
detentions are brief (as victims are being identified), and 
charges are not pressed.  Undocumented foreign-national 
victims are held in immigration detention only until their 
transfer to the IOM can be arranged; following which they are 
deported with leave to return to testify. 
 
 
PARAGRAPHS G - H 
---------------- 
The government encourages victims to assist in investigation 
and prosecution, but there is a significant societal stigma 
attached to having been victimized.  Many victims blame 
themselves for failing to recognize the danger posed by a 
"too good to be true" overseas job offer and many families 
think themselves complicit as they have accepted remittances 
from the victim while she was trafficked overseas. 
Accordingly, few victims file or support criminal charges. 
Victims may file civil suit, but rarely do so for the same 
reasons that they are reluctant to assist in criminal 
investigations.  The government is generally poorly prepared 
to offer witness protection in any criminal case.  For 
services and shelters, please refer to answers in sections D 
and F, immediately above. 
 
 
PARAGRAPHS I - J 
---------------- 
The issue of specialized training of government employees has 
been discussed above and, as detailed more fully above, the 
government tends to rely on non-governmental organizations to 
provide services to repatriated victims.  IOM officials 
categorize the relationship with IOM field offices and 
Dominican consulates abroad as "very close" and Dominican 
consular officials often rely on the IOM to actually arrange 
for the shelter and ultimate repatriation of Dominicans 
trafficked abroad 
 
 
PARAGRAPH K 
----------- 
The government tends to rely on the NGO and international 
community for the complete range of services to trafficked 
individuals from repatriation through the provision of 
shelter and the arrangement of and provision of psycho-social 
services.  These organizations receive little to no funding 
from the government and include organizations previously 
mentioned. 
 
---------- 
Prevention 
---------- 
 
PARAGRAPH A 
----------- 
The government acknowledges trafficking as a problem, but 
directs much energy to the issue of illegal migration and 
human smuggling, particularly of Haitians into the Dominican 
Republic. 
 
PARAGRAPH B 
----------- 
During this reporting period the government, together with 
the Ricky Martin Foundation and the Interamerican Development 
Bank, publicized the existence of an anti-trafficking hotline 
located within the Attorney General's Office.  The 
Spanish-language hotline, designed to both provide prevention 
information and serve as a "crime-stoppers" tip-gathering 
mechanism, received a significant number of calls over its 
low baseline level, though few of the additional calls were 
substantive.  (The vast majority were "crank" calls asking to 
speak with Ricky Martin.) 
 
PARAGRAPH C 
----------- 
The Dominican government works collaboratively with a variety 
of international and non-governmental organizations on the 
trafficking issue, particularly with the IOM and COIN, with 
whom they have warm relations. 
 
PARAGRAPH D 
----------- 
The government monitors emigration patterns at airports, 
seaports, and land border-crossings for evidence of 
trafficking and plans to distribute "warning" brochures to 
members of high-risk groups (e.g., women aged 18 to 25) 
traveling to known destination countries.  Immigration 
officials receive training in victim identification, but use 
this training principally for outbound travelers.  Members of 
the Dominican military and the quasi-military border force 
CESFRONT who patrol the border have not received training in 
victim identification.  National Police officers receive 
"human rights" training that does not specifically address 
the issue of victim identification.  Consular officials 
posted abroad receive extensive training on victim 
identification and assistance. 
 
PARAGRAPH E 
----------- 
The aforementioned 575-07 group provides a mechanism for 
coordination and communication between agencies and 
organizations; it is a working group for high-level policy 
coordination.  There is no multi-agency (law enforcement) 
taskforce.  There is no public corruption task force; issues 
of corruption are handled by individual ministries and 
agencies.  While there is a permanent presidential commission 
on corruption, it is not well known and is under-utilized.  A 
"Department for the Prevention (and Prosecution) of 
Corruption" sits within the Attorney General's Office and is 
chaired by an Assistant Attorney General. 
 
PARAGRAPH F 
----------- 
The government is currently drafting a national plan of 
action, with governmental and other organizations as detailed 
in the earlier description of the 575-07 group.  Embassy 
understands that COIN will also be consulted in the creation 
of a national strategy. 
 
PARAGRAPH G 
----------- 
The government has continued a preexisting public service 
campaign (highlighting national pride and penalties for 
perpetrators) at ports of entry to discourage/prevent foreign 
travelers from seeking to perform sex acts with minors in the 
Dominican Republic, but has otherwise taken no measure to 
reduce commercial sex acts. 
FANNIN