Sonia Pierre

Sonia Pierre, "Director of the Movement for Dominican Women of Haitian Descent (MUDHA), on Friday November 17th, 2006. Under Sonia’s leadership, MUDHA has risen to protect the rights of the Dominican Republic’s Haitian immigrants and their descendants and to empower women and children in the face of deep rooted discrimination and intolerance. Despite threats against her life, Sonia has been a driving force for change and a leader in the movement to end human rights violations against Haitians in the Dominican Republic...

"Sonia has become a vocal leader against policies that deny Haitian immigrants and their descendants’ legal equality and keep them in perpetual poverty. She was a petitioner in the landmark case before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights, Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, which for the first time in the court’s history upheld human rights laws prohibiting racial discrimination in access to nationality and citizenship. The two children named in the case had been denied birth certificates due to requirements established by the discriminatory registration system. The Court ruled that the nation’s current system of registration for citizenship not only defied the country’s own constitution, which extends citizenship to all born within its borders, but had violated the fundamental human rights of Yean and Bosico. The Court then ordered the Dominican Republic to open its schools’ doors to all children, aiming to end rampant discrimination in the nation’s education system against its Haitian minority." [1]

• Winner of the 2006 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award