On Thursday, March 27, we held a forum with the theme “Achieving Equality for Women and Girls”. Our main objectives at this forum were to bring about awareness to the Bahamian public of the fundamental threats to women’s equality and to offer an opportunity for all citizens – men and women – to band together to evoke change.

The inequality of women in our society is manifested in numerous ways: salary differences for jobs with equal responsibility; differences with respect to the inherited citizenship rights of children; and differences in the responsiveness to victims of violence. Unfortunately, today, there are still laws that encourage inequality towards Bahamian women. Article 26 of the Constitution fails to adequately cover gender-based discrimination, and this must be amended.

It leaves us to wonder how this could have lasted for so long, unchanged by successive governments. But, the reality is, many citizens don't know the law, or don't understand it or its implications. Also, women have remained divided along political lines, and this is clearly counterproductive. No matter your political affiliation, as a woman, as a Bahamian...as Bahamian women together, we need to be united for the equality, safety, well-being, success, and prosperity of all Bahamian women. Because we remain a divided people in this country, absolute change can hardly ever be realized.  Whenever it is, it is slow to happen.

The only real attempt to correct the inequality of Bahamian citizenship was a failure, in the referendum of 2002, because people...women, voted on party lines (as was the case with the 2013 gaming referendum). Referenda have consistently been utilized as methods of punishing governments for what we the people don't agree on. And as important a civil right as it is, to request and hear the voice of the people in a referendum, the equality of Bahamian women with Bahamian men should never be something on which we as Bahamians, or as Bahamian women, should ever disagree.

It is time for the Constitution of The Bahamas to be amended, to remove all of this inequity. The current government has promised to see this amendment through to law in the coming months of their term in office. We look to them to fulfill this promise.

In the meantime, we need to fight - for equal pay for equal work, for the citizenship of Bahamian women's children, for review of the statutory rape law, with the overarching goal of change. We have to put an end to the deprivation of education for the girls at Willamae Pratt. We need to sensitize law enforcement agents of the state to properly handle the assault and abuse of women, as almost half of the murders recorded are of women. And, in keeping with such appropriate enforcements, we would like to see a safe house built and immediately thereafter opened for abused and battered women.

Women comprise the largest voting block in The Bahamas. And, with this balance of voting power in our favor, we can make the incredible difference needed in our country. Women of today can ensure the protection and fair treatment of generations of women to come. In fact, we can decide who will win or lose an election. So it is incumbent upon us to use this inherent power to obtain the inherent rights of citizenship and equality for all of us and for our children.

As a signatory to the CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women), The Bahamas has an international obligation to make right the wrong of unequal citizenship rights for the children of Bahamian women. We of the DNA Women's Alliance are committed to ensuring that this isswiftly done. We signed on to the declaration and now we must comply.