A/HRC/38/30 56. Over the years, the precarious living conditions and high rates of unemployment among people displaced by the 2010 earthquake have led to the breakup of many families. Men often left to seek work, leaving behind their families. As a result, some 70 per cent of internally displaced persons in the 26 camps is composed of women and children. Women heads of household struggle to provide for their families as they must balance the need to work with caring for their children, many of whom are not attending school. In such precarious conditions, women and children are also vulnerable to a range of violations, including sexual violence and human trafficking. 57. In October 2016, the first landfall of Hurricane Matthew hit the rural area of southwest Haiti, killing some 550 persons and displacing half a million. While most of the displaced were able to return home or at least to their region of origin, in early 2018, some 1,600 people remained displaced, living in temporary settlements and evacuation centres. 19 58. Recovery efforts can only be sustainable if human rights considerations are duly taken into account. In a context in which further natural disasters are expected, the incorporation of human rights considerations into disaster risk reduction policies and recovery plans would contribute to mitigating the risks of human rights violations, in particular for the most vulnerable. VII. Situation of Haitian migrants 59. Haiti has a population of 11 million, while 2 million Haitians are estimated to be living abroad. The Dominican Republic and the United States of America host the majority of Haitian migrants. Other countries with significant Haitian immigrant populations include the Bahamas. These three States have adopted policies that could result in large-scale deportations of Haitians. While none of them — nor Haiti — have ratified the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, all are bound by the International Bill of Human Rights and customary international law obligations. 60. In 2013, the Dominican Republic counted some 458,000 Haitian migrants in addition to another 736,730 persons, including 355,640 children, considered as a “transborder population” (border dwellers). That year, the Dominican Constitutional Court ruled that people born in the Dominican Republic after 1929 who did not have at least one parent of Dominican descent would not have the right to Dominican nationality. The InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee denounced this ruling as discriminatory. In 2014, the Dominican authorities set up a National Regularization Plan for Foreigners to rectify some of the shortcomings of the Court’s decision, but the number of migrants deported or forced to return from the Dominican Republic following the expiration date of the registration period according to the National Regularization Plan in July 2015 increased by 45 per cent from December 2016 to October 2017 — namely, from 158,800 to 230,300.20 61. The second largest Haitian diaspora community in the Caribbean lives in the Bahamas, with 40,000 Haitians registered in 2013. In November 2014, the Bahamas reformed its migration law establishing that all irregular migrants — most of whom were Haitians — had to leave the territory to regularize their migration status, including to obtain passports in their country of origin. The Government stopped the deportations following concerns over statelessness from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in 2015. Yet, in November 2017, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas announced the resumption of the implementation of the law in 2018. 62. Some 59,000 Haitians moved to the United States in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake under Temporary Protected Status, a legal immigration status for countries 19 20 Humanitarian Country Team, “Revised Humanitarian Response Plan, January–December 2018: Haiti” (January 2018). Available at https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/haiti-revised-humanitarianresponse-plan-january-december-2018. Ibid. 13