From May 2007 to December 31 last year, 2,590 applications for citizenship were approved by the FNM government. The majority of the new citizens were either born in the Bahamas of foreign parents, or have lived here all of their lives. Many others were women married to Bahamian men.
Explanations were given to justify each category, but one that intrigued us most was the mention of a young man born in the United States and described only as a “periodic visitor” to the Bahamas.
However, further investigation of this young man led us back to the defeated Referendum of 2002 and the unfair position in which Bahamian women and their children still find themselves today.
Through his Bahamian mother, this “periodic visitor” should have as much right to Bahamian citizenship as a child born of a foreign mother and a Bahamian father in a foreign land. However, this young man found himself in the reverse position, having been born of a Bahamian mother and a foreign father in the United States.
The only thing that barred these young people from citizenship was the very thing that should have eminently qualified them — the nationality of their Bahamian mother.
However, by some twist of fate, the young man got through the hurdle and was among those who recently became citizens. However, his sister was rejected. The irony of this whole matter is that if their Bahamian mother had given birth to them in a foreign country out of wedlock, they would have automatically taken their mother’s nationality – despite the fact that their natural father was a foreigner. Illegitimates take their mother’s nationality.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham saw the injustice against the modern Bahamian woman who was still legally regarded as a chattel of her husband, and so as his administration neared its end in 2002, his last effort was to put Bahamian women on the same footing as their male counterpart.
When the matter came before the House all members agreed that women should have the right to bestow their citizenship on their children and their foreign spouses — the same as Bahamian men. The only objection that Opposition Perry Christie and his colleagues made during the House debate was that the timing of the referendum was bad. They claimed that the Ingraham government was using women’s rights just before an election to gain political brownie points. However, while voting for it in the House, once they got on the campaign trail they fought against it. They encouraged Bahamians to vote it down.
The Opposition complained that one of the questions confused the issue. That confusion was removed, by removing the question. Still the Opposition opposed it, and the people voted it down. The Opposition went on to win the government for a five-year term.
That was the last that was heard of the rights of Bahamian women and their families.
Editorial from The Tribune
February 17, 2012
