DO THESE WOMENS’ GROUPS SPEAK FOR THE BAHAMIAN WOMAN?
“The Protection Against Violence Bill, 2023 is a comprehensive legislation designed to provide protection and support for victims of violence in The Bahamas. The Bill not only seeks to uphold the nation’s commitments under international conventions such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1981 (CEDAW) and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, 1994 (Convention of Belem do Para), but also creates a domestic framework for supporting victims, handling complaints, and raising public awareness. ” - Attorney General L. Ryan Pinder KC Senate Debate Wednesday August 2nd 2023
The debate and passing into law of the Protection against Violence Act in Parliament presents legitimate queries and concerns on who truly and with consent, speaks for the Bahamian Woman?
Is it the numerous Women’s Rights groupings which are very aggressive in advocating their views on national issues but unlike the Women’s Crisis Center can show no established community effort or work and have no identifiable grass root following?
Is it the professional Women’s organizations who seem to draw their membership from very distinct demographics and tend to shy away from public policy debates which do not affect their status quo or peculiar in house interest?
Does the ordinary Bahamian Woman have any idea of what the Bahamas’s representative or rapporteur to external communities or forum transacts or commits on their behalf?
And where is the log book or public record which can show the wider general consultation with Bahamian Women on these issues?
Has an intellectual minority quarantined the super majority by imposing postures and ideas which the wider country does not accept, has not requested and will not support and nor have they been consulted?
Is the Bahamas Christian Council reflective of a consensus of where Bahamian Women stand or is its opinion just a jaundiced prescription of a Christian religious assembly whose religious ideologies and practices wary and are often in serious conflict?
Is it fair and honest to subject the wider society to a view of a religious association or it is more prudent to allow the Bahamian people to be advised and consulted by their own denominations and religious leaders?
With Women understandably angry and concerned over the staggering escalation in crimes of violence and sexual abuse; does it stand to reason that the Bahamian woman is as equally concerned for her son and other males in her family unit who are susceptible to similar crimes of violence and abuse?
If so why would certain of these Women’s groups want the boys and men to be excluded from any progressive legislation which would align the Bahamas with international standards; and here at home provide equal protection and support services for victims of all gender classifications?
The major complaint put forward by several of these Women’s groups, save for an except; the Women’s Crisis Center- is the new legislation rescinds a 2016 Gender Based Violence (GBV) frame work which was exclusive to women.
We will walk through these concerns and pause for further discussion, where the facts seem to be most stubborn.
Would distinguished women or men, secular or clergy entertain a proposition put forward by one of these Women’s Groups in 2021 in a meeting with the Government in which those groups proposed the decriminalization of prostitution or the licensing of sex workers?
These Women wanted the decriminalization of sex workers put into the very same legislation which they are claiming today does not meet the mark on Human Rights.
Has any Paper or Study been done by these Women’s Groups which establish a hygiene, psychological, psychiatric and sociological platform for Bahamian men and women to be licensed sex workers and or the importation and licensing of non Bahamians to these jobs?
Is the the Sexual Trafficking of Persons, which is the darling issue of the western world’s animus on Human Rights and the protection of persons against sexual exploitation; counter offensive and counter-productive, alien and eggregriously harmful to the Bahamas’s reputation should we accept their prostitution proposals?
How does the Bahamian parent feel about the proposed option of Sex Work being presented as Job and a Career to the graduating class of 2024?
Why does it not appear to be a personal affront to many of the spokesman and representatives of these Women’s Groups that the Protection Against Violence Legislation is not their exclusive brain child and what do they mean that they were only presented it with a draft in early July before the Bill made it to Parliament and they required more time to digest and dissect it?
To the ordinary person these complaints lack sincerity and appear to be grounded in personal aggrandizement and claims rather than in the general concern or well being of anyone.
And if one does accept the argument that these groups got the Bill in a time frame which did not allow them time for proper study how does their argument of their scholarship and familiarity with the vagaries of the issues on a domestic and international front balance out? Just how long does it take an expert to figure out a litmus test reading and result?
Somewhere in their complaint there is also a criticism of Dame Anita Allen, former President of the Court of Appeal and considered a regional expert on legal draughting who was commissioned by the Government to work on this legislation.
Did Chris Rock have it down to to fine point with his comment on rivalry amongst women?.
Domestic Violence in The Bahamas may be linked inextricably to religious and other cultural facets which are so commonplace as to be non-distinguishable or jarring to the national psyche.
Miriam Emmanuel, the FNM Member of Parliament for MICAL pierced the veil to this largely unspoken social phenomena in 2017. Mrs. Emmanuel is a Pastor in the Good Samaritan Pentecostal Church which is led by her husband Pastor Leroy Emmanuel. On her feet in Parliament; Mrs. Emmanuel recounted a story of her elder married sister running back home to their dad to complain that her husband had hit her; very early in their marriage. The dad, who was a stern religious man, according to Mrs. Emmanuel; rebuked his daughter and sent her back home to her husband with the admonition that her husband was somehow not wrong in what he had done and his daughter needed to heed her husband to avoid further repeat of the husband having to put his hand on her.
Six years earlier; the PLP Member of Parliament for Tall Pines Leslie O Miller, in one of his famous vignettes said he dated women who felt that if he did not “put my hand” on them; they were not loved and appreciated.
The Women’s Rights groups in the country descended on Mr. Miller like a ton of collapse-able bricks. That Miller hailed from the PLP made his comment even more of a transgression as these Women’s Rights groups imported to Mr. Miller every conceivable criticism; which was surely an attack on his political association.
Mr. Miller apologized for his remarks and attempted to make a sizeable donation to the Womens’ Crisis Center, one of the nation’s more respectful and transparent Womens’ rights advocacy groups. His donation was not accepted.
Fast forward to the Women’s Advocacy groups in a meeting with the Ministry of Social Services in February 2022 when they proposed that new legislation; (1) to decriminalize prostitution and give (2) to give sex workers a license to operate in the nation.
Various religious leaders seemed horrified by the proposal on prostitution but very few offered any public commentary; other than the Dr. Dave Burrows, the pastoral leader of Bahamas Faith Ministries. Many saw such silence as a fear of alienating these Women’s groups and losing their support for other more conservative issues which the evangelicals wish to pursue.
When a woman known to the PLP Abaco MP Kirk Cornish made a criminal complaint against him alleging physical and sexual abuse, the FNM women’s groups sprung again into political action. These political units accused the Police of a cover-up and again there was this thinly disguised veil of wanting to import a behavior exclusively to their political opponents.
The facts never interfere with a good political repartee in this country. The tit for tat which followed the FNM Women’s assertions do not warrant further publicity as it became clear the country had reconciled that the Cornish issue required delicate police work based on the sociology of the parties involved and after a respected former Assistant Commissioner of Police Paul Thompson put in writing the cautions the Police have to follow on such complaints which show a familiarity between the complainant and the accused.
It was interesting to note how the Cornish issue was not thrown onto the grill as a side dish by the FNM during the Protection Against Violence Bill debate. And nor did the PLP hand the FNM their lunch by sliding such allegations and acts done by persons on their side onto the moveable feast.
The FNM’s Senator Michela Barnett Ellis, no doubt, was responsible in no small way for the large contingent of FNM supporters and symphatizers who gathered in the Senate gallery for her presentation. Unfortunately she was unable to deliver the goods and had to sit through a humiliating point of order exercise as Attorney General underscored her ignorance or her deliberate attempts to distort provisions of the legislation. FNMs in the gallery was visibly embarrassed for her.
Said one staunch FNM supporter under her breathe, “Ryan light up Michela like a Christmas tree.”
Senator Ellis is highly respected in her profession.
The Protection Against Violence legislation passed in both Houses of Parliament in end of July/August brought these Women’s Groups back to the center stage. The chief complaint being the new Legislation was not a 2016 legislative draft which they say was confined to Gender Based Violence (GBV); on which they claimed to have done much work.
The Parliamentary Debate was a lesson in Opposition gymnastics.
The Government defended the Protection against Violence Act as revolutionary and maintained it ticked the correct boxes on every convention on Violence against women and children, GBV and men’s rights and Human Rights, the country has signed on to.
Besides from the Women’s organizations, whose names were as strange to the public as their protest; the FNM voted in support of the new legislation.
Leader Michael Pintard said they voted “yes” so as not to be on the wrong side of history.
Yet the fine thread of Mr. Pintard and his colleagues’ debate was hinged on the complaints of these Women’s groups and particularly Mrs. Marion Bethel, the wife of the PLP Cabinet Minister Alfred Sears.
Mrs. Bethel said the new legislation was grossly inadequate and useless in that it did not cover all of the Human Rights principles and language which were, according to her, contained in the 2016 drafts.
She did not offer further detail on these Human Rights components alluded to.
The FNM glossed over the fact that the 2016 draft legislation referred to was on their desk when they served in office as Government from 2017 to 2021. They did nothing with it.
Say “don’t touch that”.
The PLP returns to office under new Leadership in 2021 and within two years and further consultation the Protection Against Violence legislation is being shared to stake holders and interested persons.
Yet the complaint is this is not the GVB some were advocating for as far back as 2016.
Attorney General Ryan Pinder again was exhaustive in giving a time table and history of the evolution of the legislation and the participatory democracy which brought so many stake holders to the table. The AG was definitive that the older draft legislation had to be culled for repetitiveness and irrelevancies and to bring it on line with the accepted norms of the conventions the country has signed on to. The AG repeating the remarks of Prime Minister Davis was unequivocal in mandating that the legislation required inclusion of males.
The trapeze flip flop of the FNM, which is usually a traditional political approach is to give as much succor and support to all argumentative sides which criticize the government of the day so to make it appear there is a common ground for redress should the Opposition prevail in subsequent general elections. The harsh reality is it just amounts to politics as the vote at the end of the day reflects the genuine posture of a political organization.
As one political pundit put it, saying you want to be on the right side of history does not add up when your reasoning and rational are on the wrong side of the facts.
“We didn’t want to be on the wrong side of history that opposed any measure that was fighting violence in the country .The desired impacts, specifically gender-based impacts, won’t be enormous because the bill is ill-conceived, but with any measure designed to fight violence of any form, we will be on the right side of history. The point the government missed is that your whole strategy on how to fight gender-based violence depends on your understanding of the definition of it. If you think it’s just like all kinds of violence, you’ll miss the mark when it comes to sensitivity training, for example,” Mr. Pintard said.
“The new bill clearly is dramatically smaller in scope and to date most stakeholders are unaware of what has been removed from the 2016 bill.”
“This administration does not take dissent or criticisms well. Most often, they savage those with opposing views, or they dismiss them as a small interest group whose ‘fringe views’ should not be taken so seriously that it derails the governments’ agenda and timetable” Mr. Pintard offered.
It stands to reason that the presentation made by Dame Anita Allen covered these grounds of concern and contention during preliminary presentations. It is rather peculiar that none of the criticism which surfaced when the Bill was tabled in the House found its way into the public domain after those presentations with the stake holders.
It caused Prime Minister Davis and State Minister for Social Services Lisa Rahming to query aloud this conduct. What is alarming is the admission of some of the Womens’ groups that having been invited to list their disagreements and their concerns and to meet further with the Government before the Bill was presented to Parliament, they declined to do so.
The Prime Minister’s and Minister’s Rahming’s alarm over the uproar at the parliamentary presentation is not be overlooked.
Amazingly, these groups found time to sit with the Official Opposition and to catalogue their list of grievances.
And what did they get from the Official Opposition?
A complimentary mention in passing and the slap in the face on not wanting to be on the wrong side of history so the FNM will vote yes.
Now how does that really compute with the right side of history? There can be a wrong side to the right side of history.
What the FNM did not do was to balance the rationale and explanation by the Government against the criticisms of the Women’s groups during the debate. They showed their support and cognizance of the Bill and their repudiation of the criticisms by simply voting Yes. Mrs. Bethel et all can understand that.
Surely.
Mr. Pinder said that the bill should be seen as “an investment in the safety, dignity, and wellbeing of Bahamian citizens.”
Dr. Dave Burrows.
The government should not consider a recommendation from the National Gender-Based Violence Discriminatory Law Review Forum to decriminalize prostitution, Bahamas Faith Ministries Senior Pastor Dr. Dave Burrows said yesterday. Participants of the forum recommended the criminalization of marital rape, legalization of abortion and decriminalization of sex work. “On the issue of prostitution, I must begin by stating that I am and will always be for the promotion of values and virtues that enhance life rather than vices that contradict decent living,” Burrows said when reached for comment. “Prostitution, in my mind, is a dehumanizing and a degrading activity, and a vice that should not be incentivized by decriminalization or legalization. Prostitution is fraught with criminal and health issues which do not go away with decriminalization. “Legalization of vices do not eliminate them or sanitize them. Prostitution, regardless of whether it’s legal or not, involves so much harm and trauma, it cannot be seen as a conventional business.” Burrows said consideration should be given to what are appropriate penalties for prostitution. He said consideration should also be given to whether the penalties should be harsher for the traffickers and facilitators and less on the workers who may be victimized themselves. Burrows also said he does not condone or endorse marital rape or any form of rape. “I recognize the current gap in protection afforded to married women,” Burrows said. “I believe provision should be made for the offense of marital rape, sexual assault within a marriage within certain parameters. I believe both men and women should be protected by any laws we implement. “I believe that protections should be built into any new amendments that would protect against and penalize false reporting of rape beyond the level of misdemeanor.” Burrows said the identities of the accused should remain private until they are convicted because the accusation, if unproven, could result in permanent damage to someone’s reputation. He said there should be an option for trial before a single judge or a panel of judges. “I believe distinction should be made between levels of offense within the bounds of marital rape/sexual abuse to reflect the level of egregiousness similar to what is done for other offenses with a range based upon degree of severity,” Burrows said. “I believe sentencing should be based upon level of severity and relative in comparison to other serious offenses.” Prime Minister Philip Davis said last month that recommendations will be made according to the forum and that legislation will be brought forward and enacted in accordance with those recommendations, so long as they are “deemed appropriate” by Cabinet.