By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson urged the government to pass legislation giving Bahamian men and women an equal chance to pass citizenship to their children and spouses, calling this a “no-brainer”.  

She was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an Inter-American Development Bank workshop at Island House on Friday.  

Attorney General Ryan Pinder said in February that legislation allowing Bahamian men and women to pass on citizenship in all circumstances would be brought once the Privy Council has ruled on whether children born out of wedlock to Bahamian fathers and foreign mothers have an automatic right to citizenship.

 The delay has frustrated critics. Mr Pinder had previously said the legislation would be brought to Parliament by the end of last summer. Last year, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said the Davis administration should prove its commitment to reforming citizenship laws by abandoning its appeal of Chief Justice Ian Winder’s landmark ruling. The Privy Council, however, heard arguments on the matter on January 17.

 Bahamians rejected more liberal citizenship laws in the 2002 and 2016 constitutional referendums.

 Mrs Maynard-Gibson said people should push for change.

 “I urge us to think about what the suffragists did, us as women, us as Bahamians who believe that all Bahamians, women and men are entitled to be treated equally and I say that there’s already a bill drafted that gives women the right to pass their citizenship on to their spouses and their citizenship on to their children and single Bahamian men also to pass their citizenship on to their children under certain circumstances,” she said.

 “Now that’s not to say it’s the same as eliminating discrimination from our constitution but I want to point out that today, while people are wringing their hands and worrying about what will happen, there are women who are suffering, there are children who are suffering and there are men who are suffering and it is the job of our legislators to eliminate, not cause suffering. Pass the bill.

 Mrs Maynard-Gibson also said the government should pass legislation outlawing marital rape.

 She said: “I will say that very clearly, there is something that is marital rape. I don’t think that any human being should be subjected to that. And again, I think that the necessary legislation … it is so fundamental, that it requires a systemic approach, and we need to have specific legislation that deals with it, how we will prosecute it, how we will punish it and so forth so that our society sends the strongest message about what we will tolerate in a civilized society in a democracy.”  

 `Asked if religious leaders have too much say in the debate over marital rape legislation, she said: “I do note how, unfortunately, ministers of religion derailed the referendum process and so these kinds of things can happen. I don’t cast blame because at the end of the day my relationship with God is between me and God, and so I have to decide whether I will support women having the right to pass on their citizenship, whether I will support the notion that there should be no marital rape in a marriage. A healthy marriage doesn’t contemplate rape. That’s me, that’s my decision. I can’t blame pastors for that.”