The Tribune

By Felicity Ingraham 

Bahamian women continue to soar to lofty heights on both local and international fronts, proving their viability in making a worldwide impact.

Most recently, attorney-at-law Marion Bethel was elected to serve on the United Nations’ CEDAW Committee, which places her in a prominent position to make a difference in the lives of women all around the globe.

The energetic elections ended with Ms Bethel successfully beating out a candidate from Spain, due to the support from the CARICOM countries.

Ms Bethel is a “guru” in social, cultural and literary circles for her numerous national contributions. 

She laid out the history and triumphs of the women’s suffrage movement in the Bahamas in detail on the website: www.womensuffragebahamas.com.  She is also author of the acclaimed poetry book “Guanahani, My Love”.  Ms Bethel is not only a practicing attorney, but also a partner in her law firm along with her husband, former Attorney General Alfred Sears. 

Her most recent appointment to serve the United Nations will begin in January 2017 and will require her to travel at least three times a year for intense CEDAW committee meetings, lasting three weeks at a time.  

CEDAW stands for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. It is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. It is also an international bill of rights for women instituted on September 3, 1981, and has been ratified by 189 UN states. 

The Bahamas, which ratified it in 1993, is now obligated to uphold its commitments to the Convention, which seeks to protect and promote equal attainment of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights for women.

The Ministry of Social Services and Development released its first CEDAW report in 2012. Currently, a new report is near completion for presentation to the United Nations. This most recent report is expected to inform the international body about the unsuccessful constitutional referendum on gender equality held in the Bahamas this past June. The referendum failed on June 7, and two weeks later Ms Bethel was elected to CEDAW.

On July 24, she addressed the issue during a presentation to Caribbean Women Parliamentarians during the 41st Regional Conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association of the Caribbean, the Americas and the Atlantic Region under the theme: “Strategising for Women’s Leadership in the Caribbean Political Space.”

“It is indeed ironic that these two events – the defeat of the gender equality referendum and the Bahamas’ election to the CEDAW Committee, co-existed in the same political space and time,” Ms Bethel told the conference.

Reflecting on the failed gender equality referendum, Ms Bethel said: “It was shocking but not surprising that each of the bills that advanced in its own way the two principles of gender equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex was soundly defeated. It was shocking as even the two bills that were slated to grant citizenship to children under the constitution were defeated. It was not surprising that the Bahamian electorate voted against the constitutional right to citizenship of the foreign husband of a Bahamian woman. It was not surprising that bill four that proposed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sex being defined as a female or male, was defeated.”

CEDAW, she pointed out, brings together in one international human rights treaty wide-ranging provisions concerning discrimination on the basis of sex. It is essentially a ‘Bill of Rights’ for women, which focuses on rights in all areas of public and private life and is also an agenda for action by member states to guarantee the acquisition and enjoyment of human rights by women, she said.

CEDAW as a human rights treaty has been ratified by all but four UN member states and represents wide acceptance by the international community of certain standards and norms.   

The outcome of the gender equality referendum in the Bahamas, Ms Bethel said, left her with these questions for national reflection: “What is the vision that we collectively have for our country in regard to the two human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination? What are the principles, values and standards that we embrace that will continue to guide us as a nation for decades to come?”

In light of the low voter turnout on June 7 (47 per cent of the electorate) and the vote of “no” to each bill, Ms Bethel feels that the questions posed have yet to be adequately answered.  

“How did we arrive at this point in our history where the two principles of equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex were resoundingly defeated by the electorate that voted on June 7?” 

“The principles or values that have made the Bahamas a self-respecting democratic country are anchored in our historic struggle of the 1940s, 50s and 60s for the right to equality, the right to non-discrimination, the right of the consent of the governed and the right to majority rule and to self-determination,” she said.

“These are the principles and values that continue to give me a sense of pride, dignity, self-respect and a profound sense of national identity; these are the principles that constitute the moral fabric of our nation.”

Bahamian women, she added, must reflect on how to give an account for such a defeat when Bahamian women of the past would have fought so assiduously for their rights and created a “vibrant, dynamic and successful” women’s suffrage movement. 

“In 1961, both a colonial Parliament and a colonial Bahamian society upheld the principles of equality between women and men and non-discrimination on the basis of sex in regard to the right to vote and to stand as an electoral candidate,” said Ms Bethel.  

“This was the result of decades of lobbying, demonstrating, educating and strategising by women of the suffrage movement.  This political movement offers us many lessons for mobilisation, women’s agency, empowerment, voice and participation in the service of change and transformation of societal norms.”

The failed referendum, she added, amounts to a failure to complete the unfinished business of the previous generation.  

“We have allowed the energy and dynamism of the suffrage movement to be muted and relegated to a footnote of Bahamian history at our peril.  It is difficult to assess the damage to our history and ourselves when on the two occasions in an independent Bahamas we have chosen to dishonour and demean ourselves, our history, the legacy and struggle of our maternal foreparents,” she said.

Ms Bethel said it is “deeply distressing” to her that there remains a need to make a case for Bahamian women as worthy of equal rights under the constitution.

“It is our obligation and responsibility as women parliamentarians and women in civil society to extend and advance the principles of equality and non-discrimination in our constitution,” Ms Bethel said.

For this reason, she said, she is elated to serve on the CEDAW Committee. 

The Bahamas has had a long and active engagement with the United Nations in regard to the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the specific fundamental rights and freedoms as set forth in this Declaration, the International Labour Organisation Conventions, and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of 1960.

“It is to our advantage to know and appreciate this historical engagement as a colony as it has a direct and significant bearing on the current political and social issues that confront us today,” said Ms Bethel.

Over the past few weeks, Ms Bethel said she has been busy making a series of courtesy calls and working meetings. She met with Prime Minister Perry Christie and had working meetings with women parliamentarians of the Bahamas. 

She also participated in working meetings with the National Congress of Trade Unions and the National Commission on Persons with Disabilities. 

Ms Bethel paid two courtesy calls on United States Embassy officials, including the US Chargé d’Affaires Lisa Johnson and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.  

In January of 2017, her work with CEDAW will begin in earnest. Prior to that, she will engage in talks with civil society institutions and several women’s associations, such as the Sister Sister Breast Cancer Support Group.