By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville said final meetings to establish genetic testing protocols for people affected by the landmark Privy Council ruling are set for early January 2024.

He had earlier told reporters that the protocols would be released before the end of this year. Officials have been grappling with how to prevent DNA fraud.

The Privy Council affirmed in May that people born out of wedlock to Bahamian men are Bahamians at birth regardless of their mother’s nationality. However, while many of these persons have since obtained passports, those whose father is not identified on their birth certificates remain in limbo.

“Final meetings are scheduled for early January 2024,” Dr Darville said yesterday. “The plan is to finalise our deliberations with the AG’s office on an effective DNA testing protocol going forward.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said that addressing citizenship inequalities is a priority for his administration next year. People born outside The Bahamas to a Bahamian mother and foreign father are not automatically citizens, and Bahamian women do not have the same rights as men to get citizenship for their foreign spouse.

On Tuesday, The Tribune reported the challenges Harvard-educated scholar Dr April Finlayson has traditionally faced trying to visit the country to be with her family without hassle.

She said she went to the Passport Office in September and was told she was ineligible for a passport because the affidavit she presented was not accepted as proof of paternity. She has been trying to get a Bahamian passport since she was 15. Before her recent visit to the Passport Office, she went through a three week process of compiling her “original documentation”, such as hospital and school letters.

Attorney General Ryan Pinder said in June 2022 that the administration would push legislation allowing Bahamian men and women to pass citizenship in all circumstances. He later said this would happen after the Privy Council ruled on the status of children born out of wedlock to Bahamian men.