The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL BENNETT

The country seems to be hitting a stride as once again last week another video appeared on Facebook and Whatsapp of a young girl being beaten, this time with a shower curtain rod. We have been debating at length the need for a policy on gender as well as the need to create equality between men and women. In sum, we need to create a more equitable society. Ironically though, many in society seem loathe to surrender our current unequal state. In the meantime, we have been working to promote equality.

There has been a gender policy in the works for years, a policy the country has spent thousands of dollars fine-tuning and even more time creating. We were ‘given’ funds from yet another international agency to seek specialists to write a gender policy for the country; of course these specialists were not from the country. After the present government came to power, promises were made to finalise the document and to implement it, as to do so would begin a positive transformation in the nation.

This document would re-conceptualise how women and men are treated throughout the archipelago, not just in the capital. It was meant to create a more equitable way to pay people for their work. Women who currently earn less than men for the same job would receive equitable pay. The policy has somehow wavered and gotten lost along the way. This would answer some of the concerns of other international agencies and part of the national need to create a more equitable society moving beyond the second decade of the 21st century.

When the Bahamas went to United Nations in 2012 to report on its advancement towards eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and girls, the government committed to meeting particular objectives in the short term. One of these objectives was the need to eliminate the inequality in women passing on their citizenship to their children and their husbands.

On the second part of this objective there appears to be concern raised. This concern has sparked great debate and could cause some problems. There are also concerns with married and unwed men passing on their citizenship in an equitable manner.

Many persons seem to think that women should not be able to pass on their citizenship to their foreign-born husbands, but this addresses another concern that was never tackled by policy makers, the ability of Bahamian men to pass on their citizenship to their foreign-born wives. Usually this does not happen automatically, and the same would hold true for women who marry foreign-born men, their husbands would not automatically become Bahamians. They would still have to wait the requisite amount of time and follow the steps to obtaining citizenship. As it stands, the requirements for citizenship are made clear under the law, so too is the process. This process and these requirements remain in operation for anyone applying for citizenship.

It is of no small concern that the draughting bodies did not see how to clarify the language before the bills were voted on.

There were many opportunities to address public concerns around language that seems unclear or, according to some critics, would open the wrong doors. Meanwhile, the language is clear and the doors will not be opened, but many persons feel it is their right to play games with the public. They are fully cognizant that by throwing the red herrings out there, they can create chaos through confusion. Given the reading and comprehension level of the country, any confusion and chaos provoked from language and a challenge to what is written by someone who appears to have sense can obviously cause trouble. Our ability to read critically is extremely limited.

To have a productive country, one must have a literate and numerate group of citizens. Democracy functions with an educated group. It is severely constricted by poor educational levels. The law and its ability to function are similarly reliant on an educated mass of people, and that does not a ‘D’ group make.

When the constitution is altered to allow for equity between men and women and to disallow for discrimination based on sex, which means biological sex, the language is clear. There are other laws that determine who can marry whom, such as the matrimonial causes act. The constitution is the highest law and many countries have spent the last few years correcting any inequalities that outdated constitutions held.

In a country where more than 50 per cent of families are headed by single women and where a matrifocal system operates unofficially, there would seem to be a need to create more equity between men and women. Equitable societies are societies where things work better, where benefits are more equally shared among citizens. For women to move ahead, there must be equity and equality. We cannot continue to work in a country where women are treated like second-class citizens and do not have the same rights as men.

There are societies where people are not treated differently because they are poor or black or Asian, that is not the kind of society we wish to inhabit. Places where men and women can own land and businesses equally, they can open bank accounts and operate lives equally and they can vote in the same elections create social harmony. Systems of apartheid are not in place here that render the society completely unequitable, as there once were.

Violence thrives in societies where there are glaring inequalities. Currently, as was pointed out last week, the Bahamas has an extremely high level of inequality. The Gini coefficient is 0.6; alarmingly high. This means that there are huge disparities between people. And while this disparity may not seem important or significant, it causes serious national problems. It also increases the levels of violence.

The violence witnessed on Facebook is a part of a culture where women are not allowed to be equal partners in the democratic space. While we argue that we are a developing nation, what we have are pockets of development interspersed with hugely poor and voiceless sectors. We have opted to silence our citizens if they are women, are poor, or are dark-skinned young men. We have opted to encourage women to be beaten by their boyfriends and to allow men to get away with doing so in public spaces and not be arrested for assault and battery. Does a woman need to be killed before a man is arrested for causing her harm? Or is there a legal responsibility to protect citizens’ rights notwithstanding their sex?

Can women receive rights that would allow them to be full citizens in their own country? Government has promised to implement this! Can we as citizens promote peace and harmony independent of functional or dysfunctional government in our country? The need for a gender policy and for legal reform to address the national inequalities between men and women go beyond government or parties. These are matters that speak to our humanity. Inequalities make life very expensive and the country extremely dysfunctional.

• bethellbennet@gmail.com