By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said officials are looking at the country’s “domestic” laws to see how they can level the playing field to ensure there is gender equality.

He made his comments after the signing of the United Nations’ Multi-Country Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (MSDCF). It is a business plan for the UN agencies fund and programme for the Caribbean for 2022-2026. The framework supports the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and other international development plans of the individual countries in the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.

Sustainable Development Goal Five is gender equality. According to the United Nations website, one of the targets of this particular goal encompasses eliminating “all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.”

Another target of the goal is to “adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.”

The Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development has drafted a proposed bill that addresses gender violence issues, including marital rape, Minister of State for Social Services and Urban Development, Lisa Rahming has said.

However, a government official had said earlier that the proposal to which Ms Rahming referred does not deal with marital rape. It speaks to abuse in various relationships, including marriages, the official said.

Gender-based violence and discussions about criminalising marital rape have been points of discussion lately.

When asked if he felt tackling this would make the country closer to reaching goal five, Mr Davis said: “I think the question about gender equality is much wider than just the narrow concept of what I call a description of violence. I call it descriptive because it says marital rape, but that’s violence in a different form and what the controversy arises because of the manner in which we describe it. We just need to say what it is. It’s a domestic violence that requires attention and the laws are there for that purpose and perhaps it just needs clarity in definition. That in and of itself is not sufficient for us to reach our goal of gender equality.

“The unfortunate factor is that on two attempts, how our legal construct, our constitution and other consequential laws, domestic laws to ensure gender equality — the Bahamian people voted against it.

“We had two referendums and what is so ironic about that fact is that we have more females on the voting registrar than males, but yet still we have on two occasions an attempt to amend our constitution to entrench the concept of gender equality fails. So we have to devise and this is what this government is doing. So, looking at domestic laws and seeing how we can level the playing field so as to ensure that there is gender equality.”

Also present at the signing was Minister of Works and Utilities and acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Sears. For his part, Mr Sears explained what the government has been doing to advance gender equality.

He said: “If I can add to this, on the question of gender equality and also domestic violence is the government has been, as Prime Minister has noted, multi-dimensional.”

He noted the focused attention in education to socialise young people to appreciate diversity and to emphasise the norm of respect. Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin has made this a core focus in education, said Mr Sears.

“As you know, the first attempt to remove those offending provisions of our constitution was taken by our party and government and there is still a commitment that the supreme law of the land reflects the mandate of CEDAW and the Sustainable Development Goals that there be equality. Also, the Prime Minister has been personally committed to this and it’s reflected in the number of females who are in our Cabinet… and also the number of female members who are legislators of the country.

“So it has to be a multi-dimensional approach and the government and the Prime Minster has emphasised to all of us right across the board in all of our ministries to take affirmative action and to be very clear in the policy we implement that there is a recognition that we have to reverse this legacy of patriarchy and discrimination,” Mr Sears explained.