Senator Edward Kennedy presented RFK Human Rights Award to activist Sonia Pierre .

Tequila Minsky, Heritagekonpa Magazine

The award was presented at the Russell Senate building on Tuesday, November 17, 2006, where the Caucus room was standing room only for Sonia Pierre, the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy 2006 Human Rights Award. Ms. Pierre is a Dominican of Haitian decent.

Senator Edward Kennedy presented RFK Human Rights Award to Sonia Pierre.

The room was filled with supporters who paid homage: lawyers and students of the law clinic of the University of California-Berkley that helped petition the court cases at the Inter-American Court, many members of the Kennedy clan--Bobby's daughter Kerry started the RFK Memorial Foundation, Washingtonians and others interested in human rights, and a chartered busload of Haitian Diaspora who boarded a bus at 5am in Brooklyn and Queens.

Sonia Pierre, a woman of unfathomable courage has worked tirelessly her entire life for the rights of her people, Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian Descent.

Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts was the main speaker and presented the Award, "The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award is one of the many good works my brother's foundation. It serves as a reminder to all of us of the vital importance of human rights and the many challenges we face at home and abroad to protect those rights. It also reminds each of us of the power of an individual to make a difference in the lives of many.

It's a privilege to present this year's award to one of those individuals, Sonia Pierre. Sonia has devoted her life to the cause of equality and justice, two of the most fundamental human rights."

Sonia's mother came to the Dominican Republic fifty-four years ago and searched for her husband who had come earlier. Her father died when she was two years old.

The Senator spoke eloquently about Ms. Pierre's life and her incredible work, "Her mother was a cane cutter, an unusual profession for a woman because of the immense physical stamina required. She raised Sonia and her eleven other children in a one-room portion of a barrack with a dirt floor. Because of the respect her mother had earned among sugar workers, Sonia and her sisters did not have to endure the rape and physical abuse that was commonly inflicted on the migrant community by the authorities."

Two RFK Human Rights Award Laureates (left) Loune Viaud, director of Zanmi Lasante a medical complex in the Central Plateau in Haiti, received this award in 2002. Sonia Pierre (right) from the Dominican Republic , this year's recipient.

When she was nine, a local resident offered some instruction -two hours a day--to a hundred children in her community that had no school. Later she walked several miles to go to school.

Since 1976, at the age of thirteen when she spoke out and was arrested at a demonstration for Haitian sugarcane cutters, she has championed the rights of her people. In 1983, she founded MUDHA, an organization dedicated to the empowerment of women in the community. As MUDHA grew and the needs of the community were recognized MUDHA expanded those it served in the community.

MUDHA works primarily in five areas: human rights education, assistance in obtaining birth certificates for children of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic, legal representation, medical assistance and improvement of women's health, and MUDHA has a small school that provides pre-school and education for first and second graders. 

The Dominican Republic has created a system that makes it very difficult for the children born in the worker camps to obtain their birth certificates. This is a basic human rights violation because it prevents these children from having a nationality. The children are born in the Dominican Republic, many from parents who have lived there for decades, yet they have no nationality.

MUDHA was a petitioner before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights in Costa Rica, which upheld human rights laws prohibiting racial discrimination in nationality and citizenship. In spite of the fact that the Dominican government has been ordered to admit all children to its schools, it has refused to comply.

Senator Kennedy further commented on the contributions of Sonia Pierre, "Her colleagues compare her to a Nobel Peace Prize winner and call her a hero. One said, 'Sonia never held anything back in promoting the human rights of our communities.'

Sonia has personally affected the lives of thousands of her people. She has given voice to their struggles, won landmark legal victories for them, and created new networks to meet their basic needs. Because of Sonia, this neglected, impoverished, downtrodden community has greater rights and greater hope for a future where equality and justice are not just ideas, but reality."

Before Ms. Pierre returned to the Dominican Republic she met fellow Dominican, Commissioner Guillermo Linares of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. She spoke of the work she does and the abuses on the Haitian immigrant population in the Dominican Republic. Most recently, this population is now subject to arbitrary citizenship annulments without any legal due process, which also include the citizenship of one's children. Commissioner Linares spoke of the work his governmental office does on behalf of New York's vast immigrant population.