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We agreed to protect women – why don’t we?

THE Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women, also known as the Belém do Pará Convention was adopted on June 9, 1994. Belém do Pará is now 30 years old and has been ratified by 32 of the 34 member states of the Organization of American States (OAS). The Bahamas ratified the Convention, obligating it to prevent, investigate, and punish violence against women.

In Article 1, Belém do Pará defines violence against women as “any act or conduct, based on gender, which causes death or physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, whether in the public or the private sphere”. In Article 2, it elaborates with the specific inclusion of violence that “occurs within the family or domestic unit or within any other interpersonal relationship, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the woman”, “occurs in the community and is perpetrated by any person” including harassment in the workplace and other institutions, and “is perpetrated or condoned by the state or its agents regardless of where it occurs”.

In addition to the specific mention of the public and private spheres in Article 1, Article 3 specifically states the right of every woman to be free from violence in both the public and private spheres. Article 3 also draws attention to State-condoned violence and, in the Bahamian context, makes it necessary to look at laws that discriminate against women and exclude particular acts of violence or perpetrators of violence.

Articles 1 to 3 are easily applied to the issue of marital rape in The Bahamas and the flimsy excuses put forward by successive governments and anti-rights groups who insist, implicitly, that women are not full human beings and there should be exceptions when violence is perpetrated at home and by spouses. Violence against women is clearly defined, and the Convention explicitly states, twice, that women have the right to be free from violence in the public and private spheres, and perpetrated by any person. This means states are obligated to prevent, investigate, and punish violence enacted against women in the home and violence enacted against women by their spouses.

Articles 7 to 9 are specific to the duties of State Parties. These include their obligation to:

1. apply due diligence to prevent, investigate and impose penalties for violence against women

2. include in their domestic legislation penal, civil, administrative and any other type of provisions that may be needed to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women and to adopt appropriate administrative measures where necessary (This includes the gender-based violence bill, recommended by the CEDAW Committee in 2018 and by member states in the Universal Periodic Review process in 2023. The government committed to pass the bill, but stopped consultation, abandoned the bill, and passed the “Protection Against Violence” Act which does not, in any way, address the specific issue of gender-based violence.)

3. take all appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to amend or repeal existing laws and regulations or to modify legal or customary practices which sustain the persistence and tolerance of violence against women (This includes the amendments to the Sexual Offences Act, removing “who is not his spouse” from the definition of rape, repealing section 15 on “sexual assault by spouse”, adding a statutory definition of consent, and adding a clause of non-immunity on the basis of marriage.)

4. promote awareness and observance of the right of women to be free from violence, and the right of women to have their human rights respected and protected (The CEDAW Committee has recommended that the government ensure that women and girls are aware of their human rights, particularly under the Convention, and there has been no movement toward this in the five years since.)

5. modify social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, including the development of formal and informal educational programs appropriate to every level of the educational process, to counteract prejudices, customs and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes or on the stereotyped roles for men and women which legitimise or exacerbate violence against women (Related to the previous point, there is no plan and there has certainly been no action by the government to address the issue of gender stereotyping and harmful ideology. This, too, is an obligation through CEDAW, and one that is critical to preventing violence against women and girls.)

6. to ensure research and the gathering of statistics and other relevant information relating to the causes, consequences and frequency of violence against women, in order to assess the effectiveness of measures to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women and to formulate and implement the necessary changes (The gender-based violence, which was never passed, should have included a system for recording and analysing incidents of violence against women and, in particular, femicide, in order to identify risk factors and trends which would aid in developing effective prevention and intervention.)

The Belém do Pará is not often discussed in The Bahamas. We have generally been more attentive to the United Nations human rights mechanisms. While they are useful, it is important that we make better use of regional mechanisms and find ways to learn from other countries in the region that have had success in reducing violence against women and in implementing the Convention in effective ways.

That 30 years have passed since The Bahamas ratified the Convention and few people recognise its name, much less know what it is about and what it contains is a failure of successive government administrations. It is, as we know, not enough to participate in multilateral processes, sign and ratify documents, make commitments, and occasionally report. The general public needs to be made aware of the obligations of the government to protect and expand our human rights. We need to know our rights and how to access them. We need to have a clear understanding of the existing national legislation and how it is contravention with international commitments. We, importantly, need to know that these commitments are to us, and not to an institution. The institutions are vessels and, yes, motivators, and we, the people, are rights holders. It is our right to know our rights, and it is the obligation of the government to ensure that we know them and access them fully.

Published in The Tribune on June 12, 2024.

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Bahamian politics a race to the bottom

It looks like we are in for another race to the bottom. We are now halfway through this term, and the Free National Movement will decide who its leader will be in the coming weeks. While the two candidates, from what we have seen thus far, are quite different, neither inspires confidence. The party itself has a significant amount of work ahead of it to define itself and prove itself to a new generation of voters and the voters who refused to show up for it in 2021. Two and a half years later, this work has not even begun. In fact, it seems to be working against itself. It is not even trying to play the role of Opposition, failing to draw attention to the governance failures, failing to offer solutions, and failing to model better practices.

Member of Parliament for St. Anne’s seemed to be upset by the announcement that The Bahamas now recognises Palestine as a state. The Bahamas took far too long to take this step, particularly as we witness, on a daily basis, the settler colonialism and genocide, by Israel, of Palestine and the Palestinian people. The Bahamas was the last CARICOM country to recognise Palestine as a state, and this is an embarrassment. White has now added to the embarrassment by his weak attempt to challenge it, and using “traditional allies” to do it. He said, “Our traditional allies, Madam Speaker, are countries that we haven’t aligned our position with, and I find that on such an important international issue, now it’s a national issue.”

The genocide of the Palestinian people has been an issue at the international, regional, and national levels for years, and without recognition of the same. As stated in the Caribbean Feminist Statement Against Israel’s Settle Colonial Project and Ongoing Genocide in Palestine, “We, Caribbean people, who have arisen from histories of genocide, enslavement, indentureship, and colonialism, remain firm and unwavering against all attempts at settler colonialism, apartheid, arbitrary arrests and detention, displacement and forced exile, confiscation of land and territories, sexual violence, and other human rights violations carried out by any State against any ethnic, racial, or geographic population. These images of violence are all too familiar.”

Over the past 228 days, we have seen the displacement of over 900,000 people from Gaza. We have seen the destruction of schools, mosques, and hospitals. We have watched as journalists report on the conditions with the eery sound of weapons flying overhead. We have read about the hunger, seen the images of injuries and death, and heard the cracks in the voices of thousands of people who continue to speak against the violence they are experiencing without end and call on us, the rest of the world, whoever our allies may be, to help them.

When we, human rights advocates, call on the government to fulfill its obligation to protect, promote, and ensure access to human rights, there is talk of “sovereignty.” When we reference the United Nations human rights mechanisms that The Bahamas has voluntarily adopted and ratified, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), “sovereignty” comes up. When the United States Embassy flies the PRIDE flag at its locations, “sovereignty” is thrown around. For some reason, though, when it comes to The Bahamas taking a principled position — the right position — on the statehood of Palestine, it is time for The Bahamas to worry about its allies and their wishes. Why might that be? There are far too many people in positions of leadership who are ill-equipped, unprepared, and generally opposed to human rights, regardless of sovereignty or allyship. It seems, in fact, that they are playing a game that has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the people they claim to serve.

White said, “[…] the people of this nation, Madam Speaker, should be informed I think on a more regular basis on why some of these international decisions are being made, why we are agreeing one way or the other.”

He said this about the decision by The Bahamas to recognize Palestine as a state. He did not say this about countless other decisions made by the Government of The Bahamas with no announcement at all. There are no questions about the financial bills that are pushed through quickly and without consultation. There are no questions about the way The Bahamas votes at the United Nations on a regular basis. There are no questions about participation in InterAmerican processes or the decisions made therein. The continued failure of government officials to disclose assets is not a conversation this week. Why might that be?

Several human rights advocates have been calling on the government to communicate with the general public about its commitments and activities in international spaces. In fact, we have used international spaces and processes to demand that the government inform the Bahamian people of its commitments and to make human rights mechanisms accessible to the public. When we talk about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it should not be a cloudy concept for the general public, but a clear set of rights that we all can easily apply to their own lives, even if we cannot perfectly recite them. When we reference CEDAW, it should not evoke fear. When we remind the country that migrants are human beings with human rights, it should not be surprising or confusing. Perhaps successive administrations have enjoyed the low access to information for the general public which enables them to distract, to lie, and to create enemies of human beings rather than the inequitable systems we live within. Migrant people have always been scapegoats of choice, haven’t they?

It is no surprise that Minnis is not only running for leadership of the Free National Movement again, but that he is so easily and confidently referencing his spectacular failure from 2017 to 2021 — which even he was in a rush to escape with a nonsensically early general election — saying “Let’s do it again,” is a sure sign of delusion or confidence that, in a race to the bottom, he is a good bet.

Rather than focusing on the state of the country, largely due to his egotistical, sloppy, tyrannical “leadership” and the current administration that is taking full advantage of the terrible precedent set in many areas, including undisguised abhorrence for the press, he has taken aim at some of the most vulnerable people in the country. Instead of acknowledging the harm already done by terrible decisions and devastating inaction, he is going the lazy route of scapegoating Haitian migrants. He said that he would “aggressively deport all undocumented people” and claimed he would regularize those who have been in The Bahamas for a long time. These two promises are not aligned. The first is, in fact, quite troubling when we should know what is happening right now in Haiti. (It is important that we do not pretend that he was talking about all migrants. He meant, as they always mean, Haitian migrants).

Pintard, on the other hand, said the Free National Movement should not “make every immigrant a tyrant”. He pointed to willingness to collaborate and a duty to solve problems. It is cause for concern that these conversations do not seem to be taking place within the party and, importantly, across the obvious factions. Is there no clear direction for the party? No shared values? No clarity on what leadership means and looks like in practice?

We have not seen strong leadership from Pintard who has been in the ideal position to demonstrate his ability over the past few years. The current Opposition has fallen into the same practices as every Opposition before it, opposing for the sake of it, criticizing at every turn, and offering no solutions. It is old, it is tired, it is ineffective, and it serves no one. This is unfortunate, not only for a party that is vying for leadership in the next general election, but for the people of The Bahamas who need a true, properly functioning Opposition.

Anyone who is serious about leading a political party, not to mention leading a country, must demonstrate their values. These are not centering hatred of people or particular groups of people. Values are indicative of positions on pressing issues. People who are serious about leadership are clear in their positions. If they cannot decide for themselves, they certainly cannot be trusted to listen to and make decisions in the best interest of others. When will the Progressive Liberal Party and the Free National Movement figure out who they are and where they stand on critical issues? How will they communicate their identities to us? What will it take for them to be truly people-centred? Who, within these parties, are leaders with the competence to listen, learn, collaborate, communicate, and act with the most vulnerable in mind? If it takes anywhere near two more years to see manifestos and charters, we need to be clear that there are no leaders in these parties, and there are no parties prepared to lead.

Published in The Tribune on May 22, 2024.

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Blueprint for Change says so

It should not be surprising at this point. Another week, another idiotic statement in response to the call for the criminalization of marital rape. This week, when asked about movement on the marital rape bill, the prime minister made a number of disturbing comments. 

First, he said, “Drafts are given for consideration. So we have a draft that has been given for our consideration. We have not gotten around to it yet.”

The bill to amend the Sexual Offenses Act to criminalize marital rape has been in draft form since, if not before, 2022. We have had the bill for at least two years. This comes after four years of sitting on an inadequate bill drafted by the previous administration. This is not a new issue, and there are no new items for consideration. There is nothing complicated to think about or discuss. Just last week, he stated that rape is rape, and that he has difficulty with categories and descriptions of rape. The marital rape bill removes a category and ensures that rape that is perpetrated by a spouse is legally treated as rape, as it should.

Next, he said, “As you would recall, I am guided by my ‘Blueprint for Change’. That sets out the basis for which I asked people to vote for me and marital rape was not contained in that. I’m not insensitive to it. I appreciate it and I know.” The Blueprint for Change mentions women only twice. On page 49, it states, “The PLP is committed to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals that ensures quality education, life long learning opportunities, gender equality and empowerment for women and girls; quality water, sanitation, and access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy.”

The Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 with full support from all Member States, including The Bahamas. All of the 17 goals have targets, and those targets have indicators that facilitate monitoring and evaluation of progress toward the goals. 

Sustainable Development Goal 5, referenced in the Blueprint for Change, is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The first target is “End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.” The indicator for this target is “Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non‑discrimination on the basis of sex.” The second target is “Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation. The indicators of this target are “Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by form of violence and by age” and “Proportion of women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to sexual violence by persons other than an intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by age and place of occurrence.”

Gender equality requires an end to gender-based discrimination in law, policy, and practice. This, combined with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the recommendations made by the Committee, led to the government engaging UN Women to undertake a review of all laws to identify those that discriminate against women and girls. This is what led to the discriminatory law review forum where the draft was, in a less than ideal way, discussed. The final report has not yet been delivered and approved, but we know the laws that were identified. The Sexual Offenses Act was one of them and Section 3, which defines rape, was specifically identified as one that needs to be amended. Eliminating discrimination against women, which is required to achieve gender equality, necessitates the criminalization of marital rape. The Blueprint for Change, then, includes a commitment to criminalizing marital rape.

On page 52, the Blueprint for Change states, “The Progressive Liberal Party is committed to eliminating all forms of discrimination against men and women in The Bahamas.” 

The Bahamas ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1993. In 2018, it underwent its sixth periodic review. Marital rape was raised, again, raised as a pressing issue. In its Concluding Observations, the CEDAW Committee recommended that the Government of The Bahamas “Adopt, without delay, the amendments to the Sexual Offences Act expressly criminalizing marital rape, remove any temporal limitations to the right to file a complaint for marital rape in the draft amendment to the Sexual Offences Act and establish a sex offender register and registry.”

In her report following her visit to The Bahamas, the (then) Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women called on the Government of The Bahamas to “Revise or adopt new criminal law provisions to prohibit marital rape, including by ensuring that the definition of sexual crimes, including marital and acquaintance/date rape is based on the lack of freely given consent, and takes account of coercive circumstances, in line with general recommendation No. 35 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.”

These recommendations are connected to the aforementioned parts of the Blueprint for Change. Criminalizing marital rape is required to follow through on the commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals which include gender equality and to eliminate discrimination against men and women. We must not accept what the Prime Minister has said. This is the work that is required of his administration, and this is the work that is committed to carrying out in its own campaign document.

Finally, the prime minister said, “My thing is that any time a couple … in blissful marriage reaches a stage where they are going to report their husband for rape, it seems to me that that marriage is irretrievably broken, meaning they are no longer married even though it may not have been so pronounced by a court.”

The marriage is broken? Violence is destructive. Sexual violence destructive. Rape is destructive. The conversation about marital rape, contrary to popular belief, is not about marriage. It is about people. Specifically, it is about a person who is violated in a devastating, irreparable way by a perpetrator who is not only known to them, but in a legal arrangement that is supposedly rooted in love, but often turns out to be obsession and/or possession. At present, the law suggests that legal arrangement erases the humanity of the person who has been violated, and that they should endure that violence and have no legal recourse.

Here comes the prime minister. He says the rape means the marriage is broken, such that they are no longer married, regardless of what the law or courts say. This shifted the line of questioning to divorce. It must be made clear that divorce is not a remedy for rape. Whether the marriage is broken or a person in the marriage fails to see the other person as a human being with human rights, including the right to give and withhold consent, divorce should be readily available. It should be more than possible. It should be easy because those people should not be together and should not be forced, by the law, to operate, in any way, as a married people. The violent act of rape, however, requires different action. Any person who is raped must be able to report the rape and have access to justice. Divorce and rape charges are not the same, they are not interchangeable, and one does not replace the other. We need access to both. Everyone should be able to report acts of violence against them, have their reports taken, and see the justice system work for them. 

In December 2017, the prime minister said, “I think we all accept…I know no right thinking Bahamian will accept that a person should be violated or in any form or fashion be abused.”

In February 2022, he said, “I’ve given the attorney general the mandate to follow the recommendations that will flow from that conference[…] and we’ll see what the recommendations are from there, and we’ll move to enact what laws [are] recommended by them to the attorney general that is deemed appropriate by the Cabinet.”

In October 2022, he said, “Any assault on a woman, be it whether you call it rape, grievous harm or otherwise, the law should take its course. Report those incidents to the police.”

Help women who raped by their husbands to report those incident to the police. Make rape a crime, regardless of the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim or survivor. Commitments have already been made. The bill has already been drafted. Stand in the shoes you so desperately wanted to wear.  Do what you claimed, in your Blueprint for Change, you would do. Move toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 5 for gender equality and eliminate discrimination against women. Criminalize marital rape.

Recommendations

Yesterday was World Book Day, and Equality Bahamas shared a list of recommended books. One set of books were selected from the Feminist Book Club reads, and one set were written by Palestinian authors. Here are four books to consider buying or borrowing to read this month. 

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, a New York Times Notable Book, and winner of the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction winner, this book is hard to put down. From the first page, Sinclair captures readers with the vivid depiction of her childhood and family life and her determination to get out and create a different life for herself. 

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

Yara got married to break free from her conservative family. She went to university, got a job, and wants to teach full time. Her ability to participate in the work culture, which seems inextricably linked with upward mobility, is constrained by her domestic and care responsibilities. It does not help that colleagues obviously buy into stereotypes about Palestinian people, and this flattens her view of her own life into obligation and regret. She wants to prove that she isn’t the stereotypical Palestinian woman, and she wants to challenge, carefully, the norms that have been created in her own family so that she does not become her mother. 

What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

This is one of those books that, once you have read it, you are bound to think everyone should read. It is memoir infused with research, bringing scientific context to the deeply personal story Foo shared. Foo survived a childhood rife with abuse and abandonment. Though it took a long time, she got the diagnosis of complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and soon realized that she could not just “rally” and move on. She put in significant work to understand the diagnosis and access the care she needed. The story is difficult in parts, yet full of hope. 

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

A queer Palestinian-American girl is trying to be and love herself. This book takes us back and forth between the U.S. to the Middle East, showing different parts of her life. She struggles to live in a space between cultures and beliefs, trying to keep her identity and sense of self stable and strong. What happens when a mother tells her girl child, “You exist too much?” She has to reject it. She has to accept herself.

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Yes, rape is rape

The Prime Minister said, “Rape is rape!” Women’s rights advocates have been saying this for years. Rape is rape! Rape is rape! Wherever it happens, whoever is involved, rape is rape. There are no exceptions. 

The rest of what the Prime Minister said, however, is nonsense. The rest of what he said, in fact, was contradictory. The rest of what he said was irresponsible and misleading. The rest of what he said was what we, by now, have come to expect from him—unwillingness to state a clear position and a singular commitment to obfuscation.

“Why do you want to describe rape? Rape is rape.”

Well, for all who are as confused as the Prime Minister, the statement “Rape is rape” means that rape in all forms, by any person with or without any kind of relationship to the person violated, is rape. Rape of an underage person is rape. Rape on a hotel property is rape. Rape in the morning is rape. Rape by a spouse is rape. In the statement “Marital rape is rape,” we see that “marital” is used as an adjective, indicating that the rape being discussed is rape by a spouse. It is both more succinct and wholly accurate. The reason we use the term “marital rape” is not a suggestion that it is not rape, but an affirmation that it is, in fact, rape. It is not that we are creating a category of rape, but that we are calling attention the distinction that is made in the law—a distinction that dehumanizes married women, violates the right to bodily autonomy, violates the right to be free from violence, and violates the right to be seen and treated as person before the law. “Marital rape” is a necessary term within this context—the violent, misogynistic Bahamian context—where there is no recourse for a women who raped by her spouse.

Rape is, as the Prime Minister put it, divided into categories. This does, indeed, present a problem. Rape is rape! All forms of rape are wrong. Whether rape takes place in the morning or at night, perpetrated by a person known or unknown to the person violated, it is rape. Sexual intercourse without consent is, without question, rape. The Sexual Offenses Act, however, does not align with this fact. Not only are there several “categories” of sexual violence in the Act, the definition of rape in Section 3 has a marital exclusion, hence the term “marital rape” in the advocacy to amend the law. Because the Act creates this exclusion, we must be intentional in naming the exclusion.

The definition of rape in Section 3 of the Sexual Offenses Act says, “Rape is the act of any person not under fourteen years of age having sexual intercourse with another person who is not his spouse —[without consent].” The issue with the definition is that it provides an exception for people who are married to the people they rape. “Rape is rape,” the Prime Minister said, but the law does not say the same, and his administration has the power to change it. 

The definition of rape in the Sexual Offenses Act limits rape to non-consensual sexual intercourse that occurs outside of a marriage. The law, then, recognizes rape perpetrated by stranger, a parent, a sibling, a boyfriend, a teacher, an acquaintance, and a host of other people. It very specifically and deliberately does not recognize nonconsensual sexual intercourse, which is rape, that is perpetrated by a spouse. Again, this is an exception on the basis of marriage. It creates a “category” of rape that is permissible by the Sexual Offenses Act (while in contravention with international human rights standards and commitments that The Bahamas has made through its ratification of various conventions including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará). 

Given this, it important to look at Section 15 on sexual assault by spouse. In this section, the drafters determined that there is a narrow set of circumstances under which nonconsensual sexual intercourse perpetrated by a spouse is a criminal offense. They decided that this nonconsensual sexual intercourse, which is understood to be rape in other cases, is going to be in a different category. Rather than rape, it is called “sexual assault by spouse.” This, then, is another “category” of rape.

Section 6 is the first that addresses indictable sexual offenses and states that “Any person who commits rape is guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for life, subject to, on a first conviction for the offence, a term of imprisonment of seven years and, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction for the offence, a term of imprisonment of fourteen years.” Terms of imprisonment vary from one “category” to another. Again, note that women’s rights advocates have not created these categories. They exist in the law.

Section 15 states “Any person who has sexual intercourse with his spouse without the consent of the spouse —[where there is a decree nisi of divorce; a decree of judicial separation; (a separation agreement; or an order of a court for the person not to molest or co-habit with his spouse[…] is guilty of the offence of sexual assault by spouse and liable to imprisonment for a term of fifteen years. In addition, prosecution requires “consent of the Attorney-General.” It is clearly rape, though given another name and treated differently by the law, and putting up an additional barrier to reporting and accessing justice, again, privileging the rapist who is married to the person they sexually violate.

“Rape is rape, whether you’re married or unmarried and the challenge they are having is describing it,” the Prime Minister said.

Who is the “they” being referenced by the Prime Minister? Women’s rights advocates are not trying to “describe” rape. We are using appropriate language to specify that the rape of a person by their spouse is currently not considered, in Bahamian law, to be an act of sexual violence, and it ought to be. As the Prime Minister said, rape is rape! The most direct and clear way to discuss this issue is to use the succinct term “marital rape” until the necessary amendments are made to the Sexual Offenses Act to remove the words “who is not his spouse” from the definition of rape. Then we can talk about rape without the adjective “marital.”

The Prime Minister said, “We passed a bill… a bill against violence against persons[…] that covers any manner of degradation, or what I call behavior that’s not acceptable to society.”

This is, quite simply, incorrect. The “Protection Against Violence” Act is an embarrassment. It was rushed, bypassing consultation processes, in order to displace—and perhaps get people to forget about—the Gender-Based Violence bill. We have not forgotten the Gender-Based Violence bill which has been in draft since 2016. Equality Bahamas has been calling for the Gender-Based Violence bill to be updated and passed for several years, and this has been one of its demands during the Global 16 Days Campaign since 2020. The CEDAW Committee, in 2018, expressed its concern about “the lack of a comprehensive law addressing violence against women and the delay in finalizing and adopting the draft bill on gender-based violence and the draft national strategic plan to address gender-based violence.” The Committee called on the Government of The Bahamas to “accelerate the adoption of the comprehensive draft bill on gender-based violence and the draft national strategic plan to address gender-based violence, in line with the Committee’s general recommendation No. 35.”

Successive administrations have failed to act on the recommendations to move closer to compliance with CEDAW and other international human rights mechanisms. The “Protection Against Violence” Act does not meet the requirements. It is not a gender-based violence bill and it does not address gender-based violence. It absolutely does not “cover any manner of degradation” and certainly does not, as the Prime Minister seemed to suggest, address the issue of marital rape.

The so-called Protection Against Violence Act states as its purpose “to provide for a national strategy to prevent and respond to the occurrence of violence and to protect victims of violence by promoting a strong multi-disciplinary community and services for the comprehensive management of victims and offenders; a system of information gathering for the purpose of generating reliable statistics in instances where violence in domestic relationships results in death; compliance with regional and international human rights treaty obligations of The Bahamas.”

In summary, the “Protection Against Violence” Act is meant to provide a strategy to prevent and streamline responses to violence, collect data on death due to domestic violence, and meet international human rights obligations. The Act has sections on developing and implementing a national strategic plan (which, we must remember, was already published in 2015 and has been collecting dust instead of being implemented or, at this point, significantly and substantively updated), institutional strengthening, establishment of a foundation, establishment of a commission, establishment of a secretariat and appointment of a director, general rights of victims, procedure for handling complaints, care and support services (including housing and legal assistance) which apply only to victims of sexual abuse, protocol when violence results in death, establishment of a violence fatality review team, and administrative details related to the bodies to be established. 

The “Protection Against Violence” Act does not, in and of itself, propose prevention. It does not present a strategy. It does address marital rape at all. It focuses on the establishment of bodies and structures. It is not the kind of law that people imagine when they read or hear the title. The law that address sexual violence is the Sexual Offenses Act and it, as explained, does not acknowledge that rape is rape. The marital exception is cruel, violent, dehumanizing, and does not have to exist. 

All we need is a Prime Minister who cares. Members of Parliament who care. Who are not lazy. Who are not complicit. Who are not more concerned about reelection than addressing the pervasive issue of gender-based violence and, in particular, violence against women that is perpetrated by a spouse or intimate partner. We need legislators who know and understand the law. Who are prepared to work together to amend the law so that marital rape is, legally, rape. It only takes one Member of Parliament to take a bill to Parliament. Thus far, not a single member has cared enough to do it. What great evidence of where we are as a country, with our “representation” in the government and its priorities.

Recommendations

  1. Join the call to criminalize marital rape. Learn more about the #Strike5ive campaign by Equality Bahamas at tiny.cc/strike5ive. 
  2. Read the Sexual Offenses Act. Pay attention the definition of rape, the forms of sexual violence that are included, and the differences in sentences.
  3. Read the “Protection Against Violence” Act. There was no consultation on the bill before it was rushed to be passed, bypassing the Gender-Based Violence bill which was mid-consultation and has been recommended by numerous bodies including the CEDAW Committee in 2018 and Member States of the United Nations at the Universal Periodic Review in 2023. Understand what is and is not in the Act. The misinformation being spouted by this administration is not accidental, and it is not hard to miss if you read the text yourself, looking for the changes it is expected to make.
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Culture Clash: Eight Years On The Same Debate With The Same Answer – Rape Is Rape

We need to talk about consent. Most of us understand it to mean permission. Parents and guardians signing forms to allow children to participate in extracurricular activities probably comes to mind. We don’t think about consent as a way of controlling and protecting our own bodies. Instead, we view the bodies of women and girls as public property.

When we force children to show affection to family members and friends without prejudice, we teach them they do not own their bodies. When we tell teenaged girls, “Dress the way you want to be addressed”, we are telling them other people’s perceptions of them are the most important thing. We have many ways of making each other less than human, stripping away rights and dignity. We find ways to blame one another for any violation experienced, conditioned by and continuing the perpetuation of rape culture.

Rape culture is prevalent in our environment and allows people to believe there is something women and girls can do to prevent sexual assault. We can dress differently, travel in groups, ensure we are always accompanied by men, refrain from consuming alcohol, get home before dark and ignore our own sexuality. Even further, we can purchase a number of products like special underwear that only we can remove and nail polish that detects date rape drugs in our drinks. The onus is continuously put on us, women and girls to protect ourselves by being less visible and investing in products specifically designed for us. As if this is not enough to bear, our law does not recognise us as full people after we marry.

According to the Sexual Offences Act, once married, women are no longer entitled to (not) give consent to their husbands and are expected to engage in sexual activity whether we would like to or not. The Act says we cannot be raped and, by marrying us, men have unlimited rights to access our bodies.

What if this were the case for murder? If a man owns his wife’s body to the extent he can penetrate her vagina without her consent, what is to keep him from thinking he can kill her without consequence? If we stick to the “two become one” argument, we set ourselves down a slippery slope. Married women can vote, but not say “no” to sex and have the right to press charges if her husband rapes her. Married women are human beings in some ways, but property in others.

There is no reason for women to be denied the right to choose what to do with their bodies, in marriage or otherwise. The narrative of false accusations is completely baseless at best and foolish at worst. If we create legislation and policies based on potential for misuse, we would likely be forced to go without. Anarchy, anyone?

People talk about the great fear of the lying woman. Won’t married women lie on their husbands, just because?

People sometimes lie — not women; people. Cases sometimes go to court and the defendants are innocent. Sometimes it is difficult to prove the crime. We see this happen every day. This is the reason for courts, judges and juries. It is the reason evidence is required. The justice system has its issues, but so do society, the church and the institution of marriage. Are we really satisfied to doom married women to live as the property of their husbands, able to be lawfully violated? Are we happy to have even ten women suffer in silence, with no legal recourse, because one might lie on her husband? Do we really believe men are entitled to sex on demand when they marry a woman?

To be clear, rape is not sex. Sex can only occur with clear, continuous consent from all parties involved. When anyone is forced to participate in sexual activity, it is assault — a violation. If a person is underage, they are not able to give consent. If a person is intoxicated, they are not able to give consent. If a person is unconscious or asleep, they are not able to give consent. Consent must exist for a sexual act to be lawful. It must be explicit and cannot be coerced. There is no such thing as sex without consent; that is rape. It does not matter whether or not the people involved are married. Consent is not granted in perpetuity, regardless of licences and vows. We have the right to say yes or no.

In July 2009, then MP for Long Island Loretta Butler-Turner tabled the marital rape bill which would have amended the Sexual Offences Act to omit “who is not his spouse” so that marital status does not enter the definition of rape or impede access to justice. Eight years later, we are having the same conversation on the same level, seemingly with no better understanding of or appreciation for women’s rights as human rights. We listen to political and religious leaders and allow them to guide our thoughts on opinions far too often. We forget Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers work for us and should be acting in the best interest of the Bahamian people. Laws and policies should be made to protect the most vulnerable among us; not putting them at higher risk or further marginalizing them from the rest of society. Religious leaders should not be interfering in governance of the country, or imposing themselves and their views on the citizenry. They should be rebuking the consistent, dangerous misuse of biblical text to support misogyny.

Those who support men who rape their wives often use biblical text, mostly in fragments, to compel others to do the same. A favourite is Ephesians 5:22 which implores women to submit themselves to their husbands. Those quoting this scripture conveniently neglect to mention verses 23 and 28 which call on men to love their wives as Christ loved the church and “as their own bodies”. A true, practising Christian would surely look at the full scripture and, upon seeing “love,” refer to I Corinthians 13 for its definition and characteristics. According to Paul, love is patient, kind and protective and is not self-seeking. If a man loves his wife, would he not be patient, kind and protective, and willing to put his own desires aside instead of being self-seeking? If a man loves his wife as Christ loved the church — for which He gave His life — what limit would there be to what he would give up for her? Why aren’t we holding men to the same standards we demand women meet?

A married woman is still a woman, and a human being. Married women, like unmarried women, have human rights. These include being equal in dignity and rights, the right to security of person, freedom from slavery or servitude and recognition everywhere as a person before the law. In addition to being protected from sexual assault and understood to be human beings, women deserve to have access to justice. We need to look at the Sexual Offences Act and its definition of rape. We need to look at the way we view marriage and, in particular, the privileges of men within the institution. We need to understand that rape is rape, no matter who is involved. Perhaps more than that, we need to look at the positions we take and the arguments we use and ask ourselves who we are trying to protect – and why?

Published in Culture Clash — a weekly column in The Tribune — on December 20, 2017

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