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United Nations: Bahamas Fails To Give Equal Rights To Women

A Team of international experts on women’s rights has expressed disappointment at the government’s failure to live up to commitments of the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The United Nations representatives have requested that the government educate the population at large about its commitments to the Convention, which The Bahamas ratified in 1993, and has since failed in just about every way to live up to it.

Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham tried to correct the glaring discrimination in the Constitution of The Bahamas with a referendum, back in 2000. The Constitution gives certain rights to men, while denying them to Bahamian women. The PLP was outspoken in their oppostion to making women equal to men and the referendum was defeated.

Now, the PLP government is planning to hold a referendum on gambling, before they address the discrimination against women.  This leads people to believe that the PLP government’s allegiance to illegal numbers kingpins is greater than their committment to Bahamian women.

It has been suggested that the numbers mafia contribued heavily to the PLP’s campaign in the 2012 general elections.

Last month, the Bahamas government sent a nine-member team to the United Nations to stall and snowball the UN while giving excuses for the failure to implement the various provisions of CEDAW.

Former ambassador and advisor to the Ministry of National Security, Missouri Sherman-Peter, said CEDAW reaffirms that women’s rights are human rights, and sets out the essential rights and fundamental freedoms to which women are entitled.

“It provides the context in which governments are to address, as the convention states, all forms of discrimination against women and importantly to work for the elimination of such discrimination,” said Ms Sherman-Peter.

However, Ms Missouri Sherman-Peter did not adequately explain why The Bahamas has so miserably failed to live up to such ideals.

In response to the governments report, the CEDAW committee produced concluding observations, expressing areas of concern and giving recommendations for the Bahamas to further its obligations under the convention.

“The committee expresses its deep concern at the persistence of adverse cultural norms, practices and traditions as well as patriarchal attitudes and deep-rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities and identities of women and men in the family (in which men are considered breadwinners and woman family caretakers), in the workplace, in politics and in society.

“The committee notes that stereotypes contribute to sex-based inequalities in all areas of life and the persistence of violence against women,” states the concluding observations by the committee of international experts.

The committee also urged the government to widely disseminate the findings of the committee to make people aware of the steps that still need to be taken to ensure equality for women.

They suggest that the information not only be distributed to government officials, politicians, parliamentarians, women’s and human rights organisations, but also to the general public.

The committee also urged the government to organise a series of meetings to discuss the implementation of these observations.

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