Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham seems more concerned about women's rights in The Bahamas than many Bahamian women, who appear quite content to continue to walk a few paces behind their men

tribune242 editorial



PRIME Minister Ingraham resurrected the issue of women's rights at a luncheon given last week to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Bureau of Women's Affairs.

Mr Ingraham seems more concerned about women's rights than many Bahamian women, who appear quite content to continue to walk a few paces behind their men. Although women are no longer -- as they once were -- classified on our statute books with "children and lunatics" -- their children still cannot claim Bahamian nationality if their husband is not a Bahamian. However, the irony of the matter is that illegitimate children of a Bahamian woman are Bahamian citizens even though the children's natural father might be a foreigner -- and even though they might be born outside the Bahamas. So any child who wants Bahamian citizenship is better off if his mother is unmarried. Also, as in Common Law a child's nationality follows that of the father, children of Bahamian men married to foreign women, are also Bahamian -- regardless of where they are born.
The only children left out in the cold -- and at the discretion of the whim of a politician -- are the legitimate children of a Bahamian mother and a non-Bahamian father.

Make sense? Not to us, but if the rejection of the referendum to right an obvious wrong is to be the yardstick, its seems that illegitimacy has more status in this country than legitimacy. And given a chance by the Ingraham government in a free vote on February 27, 2002 it was the women themselves who rejected the referendum, and decided to remain unequal.

Of course, it was the PLP Opposition that muddied the waters and confused the electorate. The PLP apparently thought that the defeat of the referendum would be a defeat of the Ingraham government at the polls -- which it eventually was.

On the floor of the House -- and led by then Opposition leader Perry Christie -- the PLP did a most interesting two-foot shuffle. Having had an inordinate amount of time to consult with the government on the proposed referendum, which Prime Minister Ingraham assured them would not include any issue with which they disagreed, and after a five-day debate in the House on the proposed referendum, 39 of the 40 MPs voted "yes" to the referendum. All questions that were to go to the public for its vote, the Opposition on the floor of the House had agreed.
However, when it came time for the public to vote, the PLP -- again led by Mr Christie -- ordered their supporters to vote "no."

Surprisingly Mrs Alyson Maynard Gibson, at that time PLP MP for Pinewood, threw out the red herring that a "yes" vote for the referendum, which would make Bahamian women equal to their menfolk, would create a "marriage of convenience" market in the Bahamas. Why should it be more of a marriage of convenience for Bahamian women than for Bahamian men? Apparently she had no answer.

If Mrs Gibson had looked carefully at the 1973 Constitution and the proposed change, she would have known that this was not true. The nationality amendments to the Constitution were to make Bahamian women equal, not give them more rights than Bahamian men.

But all that did not matter. We have never seen or heard such jiggery-pokery as the PLP pulled during that referendum. It had become so political - PLP vs FNM -- that in the end the real issue was lost. As a result Bahamian women remain second class citizens -- and they have only themselves to blame.

"We put in our Constitution," Mr Ingraham said at the time, "a provision that gave to Bahamian women who had children outside of a marriage more rights than a Bahamian woman who was in fact married."

And so it remains today. It's now up to Bahamian women to do something about it.

About a year later -- by now Mr Ingraham had lost the 2002 election and Mr Christie was Prime Minister -- we attended a wedding at which Mr Christie was also present. The date was May 30, 2003. The place-- St Anselm's Church, Fox Hill.

Outside of the church we introduced Mr Christie to a Bahamian woman from an old and respected Bahamian family who had married a foreigner and whose children were left out in the cold by the defeated referendum. We brought the matter to his attention. He gave her his most affable smile, and, never at a loss for words, assured her that on his watch all wrongs would be made right. He said he knew that Mr Ingraham could not get the referendum through, but he, Perry Christie, certainly could. As Prime Minister he intended to do so.

That conversation took place eight years ago. Since then the young Bahamian man and his foreign wife, whose wedding we attended, have had four handsome Bahamian boys -- one of them born in England. Mr Christie was prime minister for five years and today the children of Bahamian women, whose husbands are foreign, are still out in the cold.

From the day of that conversation no more was heard from Mr Christie's quarter about women's rights, nor about doing something about the referendum that he helped scuttle.

June 27, 2011

tribune242 editorial

Caribbean Blog International