The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Immigration Minister Brent Symonette criticised the government yesterday for not presenting a plan to automatically grant citizenship to the children of Bahamian women born abroad to non-Bahamian men.

The Privy Council recently affirmed that children born out of wedlock to Bahamian men are citizens at birth regardless of their mother’s nationality.

Attorney General Ryan Pinder had said the Davis administration was waiting on that ruling before moving with wider plans to address other citizenship inequities, including the failure to automatically confer citizenship to the children of Bahamian women born abroad to non-Bahamian men.

The administration has not said when it will address the issue, even as the Passport Office began accepting applications from some people affected by the Privy Council ruling.

“Just a separate story is that government hasn’t talked about married women,” Mr Symonette told The Tribune. “Bahamian woman, married to a foreigner has a child overseas; that child is not automatically a Bahamian.”

“So they’ve had this decision. They say they’re going to do this for the illegitimate children. That’s fair enough, but they have yet to comment on what’s going to be done for the Bahamian woman who has a legal child to a non-Bahamian father born outside the country, and they are still not Bahamian and that is not fair.”