The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I join people of goodwill from all over the world in acknowledging and celebrating International Women’s Day (“IWD”). The theme of IWD 2020 is: “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women's Rights.

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka called 2020 a “massive year for gender equality”, and said 2020 is all about “Generation Equality”. 2020 is the year of “mobilizing to realize women’s rights, and to mark 25 years of implementing the Beijing Platform for Action” – the historic and landmark gender equality plan drawn up in the Chinese capital. General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande said gender equality is “a necessity in upholding human rights”.

The 2020s is called the Decade of Action to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). President Muhammad-Bande urged that SDG5 – Gender Equality, should be included in all of the SDGs, thereby, ensuring that “women and girls have the opportunity to participate equally in all decisions”.

We, in The Bahamas, have much to celebrate. I pay homage to the Bahamian Suffragettes, including Mesdames Eugenia Lockhart, Mary Ingraham and Georgiana Symonette (my Grandmother) and Dames Bertha Isaacs and Doris Johnson whose efforts, together with thousands of others, led to women’s suffrage and universal suffrage. I also salute the scores of women in academia, sports, the arts, economics and all other areas of our country’s life, who have paved and continue to pave the unfinished road to generation equality.

A UN news release dated 8 December 1995, reminds us that The Bahamas was a co-sponsor to the resolution introduced by Masood Khan (Pakistan), on the Fourth World Conference on Women.

Although we have come a long way, there is still much land to be possessed. I propose the following actions, each of which is in the power of the legislature and should attract rational and dispassionate debate, especially through the prism that all people are created equal and in the image of God:

1. pending any constitutional amendment, pass a law enabling spouses and children of Bahamian women to become citizens on the same terms as spouses and children of Bahamian men;

2. pass and Equal pay Act so that, by law, Bahamian women must obtain equal pay for equal work;

3. pass specific legislation, with strong penalties, to deal with sexual harassment;

4. acknowledge that a married woman can be raped by her husband and pass legislation penalizing marital rape;

5. implement the Family Court so that family resolution of family matters may be resolved through a prism of enquiry and mediation rather than the destructive adversarial approach and conquest;

6. promote easy access to justice by implementing and enforcing a system of online payments and salary, or other income deductions, to support court orders made in family matters; and

7. implement a system of appointments at all government clinics, in the same way that appointments are given in private clinics. Women are generally the primary caregivers for children and aging parents. Taking a parent or child to the government clinic often means that a day must be taken off from work. This causes economic hardship. An appointment system will eliminate the need to take a day off.

Finally, we have to examine at least 2 further concepts to advance gender equality:

1. whether the time has come for legally binding quotas for women’s representation in the legislature. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka pointed out that 80 countries have “successfully” passed such law and many have gender balanced cabinets; and,

2. how to promote gender equality on Boards in in C Suites.

If we agree that women’s rights are human rights and that women and men are equal, both created in the image of God and both charged with the care and management of God’s creation, these ideas and so much more can be accomplished over the next 12 months.

Happy IWD 2020.#EachforEqual

Allyson Maynard Gibson, QC

Nassau,

March 8, 2020