A/HRC/31/77 residents to their place of origin in Haiti and giving them a small subsidy to get them started. The move would need to happen quickly, as the rainy season was about to begin and the tents were not likely to hold up against the rains. 85. The camp residents said that they had not been expelled by the Dominican authorities. They defined themselves as “voluntarily displaced people” who had moved “under pressure”: they had feared being deported by the Dominican Republic after that country’s Government announced that all persons in irregular status would be deported as from 17 June 2015. They had thus left of their own volition. 86. While acknowledging the right of the Dominican authorities to control migration in their national territory, the Haitian authorities have requested that the 1999 Protocol between the two countries be revisited so that the names and status of persons to be deported would be made available sufficiently in advance. 87. The Independent Expert also called on the Haitian authorities to take urgent steps to ensure that persons entering from the Dominican Republic, whether deported or displaced “under pressure”, had access to health care, education and sanitation, as well as food and drinking water. 88. The Independent Expert wishes also to point out that, without diminishing the significance of the important specificities of the rights of Haitians and persons of Haitian origin living in the Dominican Republic, the situation of displaced persons in the camps at Anse-à-Pitres is similar to that of the displaced persons living in the camps set up after the 2010 earthquake and other natural catastrophes in Haiti. Means of subsistence are lacking entirely, beginning with the right to housing, but other fundamental rights are at stake as well. This confirms the need for a coherent social assistance policy in order to meet the basic needs of thousands of Haitians who still have nowhere to live other than in camps for displaced persons. (ii) Some considerations concerning statelessness 89. The Independent Expert is concerned by two aspects of statelessness: (1) the risk of statelessness for Haitians not possessing identity documents; and (2) the risk of statelessness for persons of Haitian origin born abroad, namely in the Dominican Republic, who are denied access to a nationality by virtue of Haitian law, the law of the country of their birth or other practices. 90. With regard to the first aspect, limitations in the country’s civil registry system and local habit sometimes impede enjoyment of the right to Haitian nationality for individuals who acquire it automatically pursuant to the principle of jus sanguinis as established in Haitian legislation. In 2011, it was estimated that between 20 and 40 per cent of the children born in Haiti were not registered when they were born, thus placing them at risk of statelessness. Many Haitians not in possession of a document attesting to their nationality are at risk of statelessness because of this and numerous other factors. An awareness campaign should be launched to draw attention to the importance of registering babies at birth. 91. The Independent Expert notes that some progress has been made in this area, for example through the Organization of American States project for the modernization and integration of the civil registry system in 2012. Under the project, the Government was able to issue birth certificates for thousands of children and identity cards for millions of adults, at the same time as it modernized the civil registry system. The Independent Expert encourages the Government to step up its efforts to ensure that all Haitians have access to an identity document. 16 GE.16-01946