"Sugar companies sued for forcibly evicting sixty families from their homes in the Dominican Republic" 3 February 2020

On Monday, January 27, 2020, twenty-four men, women, and children sued the Central Romana Corporation and its parent company, the Fanjul Corporation, in U.S. district court for the companies’ forcible eviction from their homes in the Dominican Republic in January 2016. The twenty-four victims are seeking justice and compensation from these corporations for this violation of their human rights four years ago. 

These twenty-four men, women, and children were some of the sixty families forcibly evicted from their homes during the night of January 26, 2016, a public holiday in the Dominican Republic. Around 3:00 that morning, heavily armed guards from the Dominican sugar company Central Romana entered the Villa Guerrero neighborhood in the province of El Seibo in the Dominican Republic and forcibly evicted these sixty families...

As of this week, the victims have received no reparations from either Central Romana or its parent company as redress for the destruction of their homes or for the trauma that the plaintiffs-- especially children- have suffered as a result of these violent evictions. There has been no offer of alternative housing for families who are now living in extreme poverty, although the victims have been attempting to get redress within the Dominican Republic for four years...

While the families in the Dominican Republic await their day in court, their advocates could also follow the strategies employed by the Cambodian families. In conjunction with those avenues, the families could consider petitioning the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR)...Additionally, the families could consider bringing their harm to the attention of the Fanjul Corporation’s end buyers of the sugar. Some companies, such as Coca-Cola, have “zero tolerance for land grabbing policies” that specifically ban any of their suppliers from land grabbing.