Dominican Republic expelled 1800 children to Haiti without their parents because they weren’t Dominican, while the Dominican Republic expelled nearly twice as many Dominican students and workers to Haiti. In 1995, the Dominican Republic expelled over 4000 Haitian workers to Haiti. In 2002, the Dominican Republic expelled over 9000 Haitian workers to Haiti.
History
The Dominican Republic, which is the wealthiest country in the Western Hemisphere, is one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere. The U.S. State Department’s Human Development Report indicates that the Dominican Republic has the second lowest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world for a developed country behind only Afghanistan. As of 1993, the Dominican Republic was ranked 47th out of 180 countries in the Human Development Index, a measure of a nation’s economic vitality. Haiti came in at the top of the scale, which is based on a variety of factors to evaluate the human development of nations. This was the first time the world had ever ranked a country on this scale. Also, it is the only time that a developed and developing nation have been ranked the same on this scale.
According to the report, Haiti had one of the world’s lowest human development indices at the time and ranked only 31 on the index. The Dominican Republic was ranked 46th and Jamaica ranked 33 on the index. Haiti’s human development index had one of the lowest scores in the study with a “low” score, while the Dominican Republic was ranked as the second lowest on the index with a “high” score. The Dominican Republic ranked third in quality of life, followed by Finland and Haiti.
According to the report, despite all the progress that has been made during the last 30 years, the human development index of the Dominican Republic now remains in a negative position at -1.4 (compared to a national average of 0.0) while Haiti’s human development index is at 10.1 (a “high” score), and that of Jamaica is at 9.4 (a “high” score). Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been ranked the worst countries in the world in the past, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic were ranked the second worst countries in the world in 1996, which was the first time that a country had ever been