Between 30,000 and 60,000 residents Haitian or of Haitian descent
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The US Department of State has once again raised the issue of insufficient laws to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals in The Bahamas and what it called “little progress” in advancing legislation intended to address the issue of statelessness in a report released Tuesday.
“The law does not provide anti-discrimination protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics,” read the report.
Consensual same-sex sexual activity between adults is legal. The law defines the age of consent.
The age of consent for heterosexuals in The Bahamas is 16.
However, the age of consent for same-sex individuals is 18.
According to the Department of State, non-governmental organizations have reported LGBTI members faced social stigma and discrimination, though the report did not highlight examples of these incidents.
Discrimination
The department said according to unofficial estimates, between 30,000 and 60,000 residents were Haitians or of Haitian descent, “making them the largest ethnic minority”.
“Many persons of Haitian origin lived in informal settlements with limited sewage and garbage services, law enforcement and other public services,” it said.
“Authorities generally granted Haitian children access to education and social services, but inter-ethnic tensions and inequities persisted after thousands of persons of Haitian descent were displaced by Hurricane Dorian in September 2019.
“Members of the Haitian community complained of discrimination in the job market, specifically that identity and work-permit documents were controlled by employers seeking advantage by threat of deportation.
“After Hurricane Dorian, the government offered to replace lost immigration documents, including work permits, free of charge.”
Statelessness
The department pointed out that children born in the country to non-Bahamian parents, to an unwed Bahamian father and a non-Bahamian mother or outside the country to a Bahamian mother and a non-Bahamian father do not acquire citizenship at birth.
It said the government did not effectively implement laws and policies to provide certain habitual residents the opportunity to “gain nationality in a timely manner and on a nondiscriminatory basis”.
“There was little progress in advancing legislation intended, in part, to address the issue of statelessness,” read the report.
Under the Constitution, Bahamian-born individuals of foreign heritage must wait until their 18th birthday to apply for Bahamian citizenship.
There have been proposals to amend the Constitution, which would allow a Bahamian father of a person born outside of wedlock to pass on his citizenship, and a Bahamian woman to pass her citizenship on to her child born to a foreign husband in a foreign country, but both referenda dealing with these issues have failed.
The department said the “narrow window” for application, difficult documentary requirement and long waiting times left “multiple generations of persons, primarily Haitians due to their preponderance among the irregular migrant population, without a confirmed nationality”.
It said: “Government policy allows individuals who missed the 12-month window to gain legal permanent resident status with the right to work, but some Haitian residents had difficulty applying because they did not have the necessary documents.”
The department said there were no reliable estimates on the number of people without confirmed nationality.
It said while the government asserted a number of stateless individuals had a legitimate claim to Haitian citizenship, those people refused to pursue it due to fear of deportation or loss of future claims to Bahamian citizenship.
“Such persons often faced waiting periods of several years for the government to decide on their nationality applications and, as a result, in the interim lacked proper documentation to secure employment, housing and other public services,” read the report.
“Individuals born in the country to non-Bahamian parents were eligible to apply for ‘belonger’ status that entitled them to work and have access to public high-school education and fee-for-service healthcare insurance.
“Belongers permits were readily available. Authorities allowed individuals born in the country to non-Bahamian parents to pay the tuition rate for Bahamian students when enrolled in college and while waiting for their request for citizenship to be processed.”
The report said the lack of a passport prohibits students from accessing higher education outside the country.
“In 2017, the government repealed its policy of barring children without legal status from government schools,” the department said.
“Community activists alleged some schools continued to discriminate by falsely claiming to be full in order to avoid having to admit children of Haitian descent.”
The report also stated that migrants, refugees and stateless individuals continue to accuse police and immigration officers of excessive force, warrantless search and corruption.
It said there were also widespread “credible reports” that immigration officials solicited and accepted bribes to prevent detention or to grant release.
“Human rights organizations alleged that bias against migrants, particularly those of Haitian descent, intensified in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian,” read the report.
“The government generally enforced its immigration policies equally on all irregular migrants, regardless of nationality or origin.”
