In a recent television news broadcast some members of the Bi-partisan Affiliation of Women Parliamentarians in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas announced that The Bahamas will host the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians The Caribbean, The Americas and Atlantic Region for a special call meeting this week at Melia Resort in New Providence.
During the press conference Minister Melanie Griffin took the opportunity to highlight the plight of the 200 Nigerian girls that were abducted as the group of female parliamentarians publicly stood in solidarity for their return. The concern Min. Griffin and the group showed for these Nigerian girls should be applauded, as activists and governments around the world have been publicly standing in solidarity for the return of these girls since the end of April.
Responsible Bahamians, however, must now question the motives of this public display of support for the young women from Nigeria, their families, and their community while civic groups in The Bahamas have been vigorously appealing to numerous women in parliament for public support in the fight to protect women and children from abuse in our own country.
The Coalition to End Gender-based Violence must, on behalf of the Bahamians, ask why Bahamian women in parliament failed to band together for their own people. Why didn’t they denounce the February 20th, 2014 incident in the House of Assembly where a member of parliament made a joke of a story about beating up an ex-girlfriend? Why haven’t they questioned the postponement of the citizenship referendum? Why haven’t they investigated the basis for the lack of retroactivity within Marco’s law, and failure to set a date for the legislation to come into effect? Why didn’t they expressed outrage when a 15 year old girl was murdered in Grand Bahama, or when a convicted statutory rapist started a new church?
We have seen that our Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe did not hesitate to make public statements regarding the San Salvador assault and rape of an American 17 year old girl, but now have to ask which government group will speak on behalf of Bahamian women and children that are being abused in record numbers according to recent statistics released by the Bahamas Crisis Centre.
Min. Melanie Griffin has yet to officially respond to two proposals that she and Prime Minister Hon. Perry G. Christie have received since Tuesday March 13, 2014 regarding the eradication of gender-based violence in The Bahamas. Coalition to End Gender-based Violence received confirmation that the proposals were received by both parties, and still awaits an official response. The Coalition – along with its supporters, and all whom it supports – is disappointed by the failure of the Government of The Bahamas to respond to its recommendations to end violence against women and children, and build a better Bahamas, not only for foreign investors and tourists, but for Bahamians.
The Coalition to End Gender-based Violence invites the Bahamian public to sign the online petition in support of its original proposal at tinyurl.com/ViolenceIsNotFunny. tinyurl.com/ViolenceIsNotFunny.
