Call for equal rights for women in Bahamian law

Minister of Social Services Loretta Butler Turner says women need the same kind of rights men have to transfer citizenship and make other legal decisions. (BIS Photo / Gena Gibbs)

NASSAU, Bahamas, Wednesday February 23, 2011 – Minister of Social Services Loretta Butler Turner is championing for equal rights for women to transfer dual citizenship rights to their children and make other legal decision. 

“There are some very important, fundamental things we haven’t done, and as long as we continue to sit on it, we will continue to remain where we are,” she said at a recent Bureau of Women’s Affairs forum which engaged non-governmental women’s organisations.

“We allowed politics to stop us from allowing women to be able to pass on citizenship to their children, if they are married to a foreign spouse and the baby is had outside of the country. But our husbands are allowed to do it.  They could marry anyone in the world and that child is Bahamian.” 

Women make up about 51 percent of the Bahamian population.

Butler Turner added that extending freedom to women to make legal decisions without a man’s consent, such as transferring citizenship, land and inheritances, would indicate an evolution of national maturity as well as an increase in emotional security among Bahamian men. 

“I am not a feminist, but I do believe in equality,” she said.

During the forum, concerned community activists discussed solutions for adding weight to the social imbalance that they argue has been created by cultural gender conditioning in early childhood development. 

Women were encouraged to work together to resolve the issues that divide them and put them at a disadvantage to men.

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