The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL-BENNETT

Over the last few years, the Bahamas has encountered a number of international challenges with regard to discrimination, and especially to discrimination against women and girls.

The state under the leadership of the last government organised a referendum to address the long-standing discrimination enshrined in law against women, but this only served to solidify the status quo and to demonstrate how unfortunate our leadership and public education programmes are.

Given the international encouragement to eradicate discrimination against women and girls in the country, it was interesting the way this encouragement has been interpreted to mean that the Bahamas is being forced to do things it does not wish to do nor has ever wanted to do. In reality, the state agreed to and has legally bound itself to these basic forms of legal equality and equity, but later did nothing to achieve these goals.

Currently, we understand that women cannot pass on their citizenship to their children the same way men can, and that women cannot pass on their citizenship to their legal partners the same way men can, but this was obfuscated by special interest groups that chose to change the face of the debate from being about allowing women the same access to rights as their male counterparts.

Dame Joan Sawyer pointed out at the time that government could achieve the same or similar results by amending other legislation without having to create a full-scale legal referendum to address the legal inequality enshrined in the constitution. Has the new government entertained this possibility? This serves as background to the renewed discussion about eliminating discrimination against women and girls that took place recently on the international level.

The Human Rights Council of the United Nations organised a working group to address the issue of discrimination against women and girls. The group produced and submitted a report in April 2017. In June 2017, a meeting of the organisation was held and matters relating to the report were discussed in an effort to eliminate discrimination against women and girls. The working meeting went from June 6-23 and led into the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women meetings that will follow from July 3-23.

A great deal of work by civil society organisations and governmental groups was underway to ensure that the declaration was adopted by the General Assembly. By coming together to work virtually on such declaration, to recommend and to encourage government groups to support these declarations, many hands may not have made light work, but they encouraged success. The hope is to achieve consensus on a declaration to eliminate discrimination against women and serves to empower women and girls. The Bahamas participates in these meetings and has people involved in CEDAW and other levels of UN work. The irony of the situation is that the Bahamian government has agreed to these international agreements.

What does equality really mean for us?

The declaration offers a number of points that seek to improve the status of women in the country. This piece will only focus on a very few of them because the general idea and spirit of the debate is communicated through these points. The Bahamas could be seen as engendering the point noted directly below:

• Expressing profound concern about the backlash against the progress made by civil society, including women's and community-based organisations, feminist groups, women human rights defenders and girls' and youth-led organisations, to fulfil women's human rights,

Perhaps this point explains the result of last year's referendum. Be that as it may, we can educate the public to promote public awareness and a better understanding of what equal access to legal rights means for women and girls. We can also create an understanding of how damaging gender-based discrimination is to national development, which is a part of the Sustainable Development Goals. This government can take up this mantle. Also, most important is the basic principle of legal equality without discrimination.

• Recognising the need for States to accelerate the implementation of strategies that respect, protect and fulfil women's right to enjoyment of civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights without discrimination by adopting good practices, and affirming that realising their human rights requires the full, effective and meaningful participation and contribution of women and girls in all aspects of public, political, economic, cultural, social and family life, on an equal footing with men and boys,

• Recognising that legal provisions related to gender equality create the framework from which women's rights can most comprehensively be promoted, protected and fulfilled and constitute an essential mechanism for women's and girls' full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, and recognising that laws alone are insufficient to eliminate discrimination against women and girls and must be accompanied by supportive and sustainable environments in all sectors of society in which they can be meaningfully implemented,

• Recognising also that discrimination against women and girls is inherently linked to deep-rooted gender stereotypes, that discriminatory attitudes, behaviours, norms, perceptions, customs and harmful practices have direct negative implications for the status and treatment of women and girls and that gender-biased environments impede the implementation of legislative and normative frameworks that guarantee gender equality and prohibit discrimination against women and girls,

As an essential part of information that allows accurate reporting and permits good quality research and solid studies to be produced by local participants is the call on governments to continue to develop and enhance standards and methodologies at the national and international levels to improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of gender statistics and sex- and age-disaggregated data by strengthening national statistical capacity, including by enhancing the mobilisation, from all sources, of financial and technical assistance for enabling developing countries to systematically design, collect and ensure access to high-quality, reliable and timely data disaggregated by sex, age, income and other characteristics relevant in national contexts.

This government has an opportunity to move forward on solid grounding with adequate and reliable reporting that promotes gender equality based on non-discrimination. The idea behind this article has been to promote understanding that there is ongoing work to remove legal discrimination against women and girls. By creating more equal access to legal rights and equal employment opportunities, for example, women can be fully performing citizens. If the state participates in these international debates and in crafting agreements, why is it so remiss in implementing the changes to which we have made legally binding commitments? Can we have a better system of public education that promotes clarity and awareness without creating impassioned alarm because of red herrings and apparently 'logical' fallacies?

• For questions and comments, e-mail bethellbennett@gmail.com.