BAHAMAS-Former attorney general supports change to citizenship status.

ASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – Former attorney general Allyson Maynard-Gibson has called on the government to pass legislation giving Bahamian men and women an equal chance to pass citizenship to their children and spouses.

Bahamians rejected more liberal citizenship laws in the 2002 and 2016 constitutional referendums.

“I urge us to think about what the suffragists did, us as women, us as Bahamians who believe that all Bahamians, women, and men are entitled to be treated equally, and I say that there’s already a bill drafted that gives women the right to pass their citizenship on to their spouses and their citizenship on to their children and single Bahamian men also to pass their citizenship on to their children under certain circumstances,” she said.

In February, Attorney General Ryan Pinder said that legislation allowing Bahamian men and women to pass on citizenship in all circumstances would be brought to Parliament once the Privy Council has ruled on whether children born out of wedlock to Bahamian fathers and foreign mothers have an automatic right to citizenship.

Last year, former prime minister Hubert Ingraham called on the Phillip Davis administration to abandon the appeal of Chief Justice Ian Winder’s landmark ruling. But the country’s highest court, the Privy Council, heard the matter on January 17.

But Mrs. Maynard-Gibson said people should push for change.

“Now, that’s not to say it’s the same as eliminating discrimination from our constitution, but I want to point out that today, while people are wringing their hands and worrying about what will happen, there are women who are suffering, there are children who are suffering, and there are men who are suffering, and it is the job of our legislators to eliminate, not cause suffering. Pass the bill.

Mrs. Maynard-Gibson also urged the government to outlaw marital rape.

“I will say that very clearly, there is something that is marital rape. I don’t think that any human being should be subjected to that.

“And again, I think that the necessary legislation … it is so fundamental that it requires a systemic approach, and we need to have specific legislation that deals with it, how we will prosecute it, how we will punish it, and so forth so that our society sends the strongest message about what we will tolerate in a civilized society in a democracy.”

“A healthy marriage doesn’t contemplate rape. That’s me. That’s my decision,” she added.