March 9, 2022 – Guardian Radio 96.9FM
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia Wallace featured in Guardian Radio’s On the Clock with Erin Greene on March 9, 2022.
Tune in from 20:06 to hear about our Building the Gender Machinery event series and gender-based violence.
Listen back to the replay below.
Mar. 8, 2022 – Eyewitness News
Equality Bahamas authored an Op-ed for Eyewitness News on March 8, 2022.
From Eyewitness News:
Equality Bahamas is hosting a series of events as it observes International Women’s Day and facilitates civic participation in the building of the national gender machinery. Since the World Conference of the International Women’s Year in 1975, there has been increased focus on the gender machinery, described in the Beijing Platform for Action as “central policy coordinating unit inside government […] to support government-wide mainstreaming of a gender-equality perspective in all policy areas”. The Beijing Platform for Action also clearly stated that the national gender machinery must be at the highest level in government, have processes to facilitate participation of non-governmental organizations, have sufficient resources to properly function and the ability to influence all government policies. As The Bahamas has yet to properly structure and resource the national gender machinery, Equality Bahamas is identifying and compiling existing tools to move The Bahamas toward gender equality.
“This month, we are building on our activities during the Global 16 Days Campaign, familiarizing community members with the tools and practices that are critical to — and should be developed and promoted by — the national gender machinery, which is the Department of Gender and Family Affairs,” said Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas.
“We raised awareness of international mechanisms and critical documents that remain in draft form or have been shelved for years. People are talking about proposals and calling for immediate implementation, but we need to increase understanding of their contents, recognition of their gaps and participation in consultations to improve them.”
Equality Bahamas issued six demands during the Global 16 Days Campaign. They included the update and implementation of the National Strategic Plan to End Gender-based Violence, full compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), full compliance with Belém do Pará and criminalization of marital rape. The events in March 2022 will familiarize participants with the named international mechanisms and documents and create opportunities for members of the public to engage experts and practitioners, ask questions and make recommendations to improve draft documents and accelerate progress toward gender equality and a world free of violence.
“We reiterate our demand that the government meet its obligations to the people of The Bahamas. It needs to accelerate legislative reform, including the immediate criminalization of marital rape, calling it rape. Prioritize the protection and expansion of women’s human rights and address the specific needs of women, girls and people in situations of vulnerability,” said Wallace.
Upcoming Equality Bahamas events include an interactive workshop on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 with Aneesah Abdullah, Office of the United Nations resident coordinator, and Allicia Rolle, SDG Unit, on March 9 at 6pm; a discussion on the Sexual Offenses Act and proposed amendments to criminalize marital rape with Marion Bethel, CEDAW committee member, on March 15 at 6pm; and a review of the draft gender policy with Gaynel Curry, human rights expert, on March 19 at 10am. All registration links can be found at facebook.com/equality242.
Mar. 8, 2022 – The Tribune
Equality Bahamas featured in The Tribune on March 8, 2022.
From The Tribune:
“This month, we are building on our activities during the Global 16 Days Campaign, familiarising community members with the tools and practices that are critical to — and should be developed and promoted by the national gender machinery which is the Department of Gender and Family Affairs,” said Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas. “We raised awareness of international mechanisms and critical documents that
remain in draft form or have been shelved for years. People are talking about proposals and calling for immediate implementation, but we need to increase understanding of their contents, recognition of their gaps, and participation in consultations to improve them.”
Equality Bahamas issued six demands during the Global 16 Days Campaign. They included the update and implementation of the National Strategic Plan to End Gender-based Violence, full compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), full compliance with Belém do Pará, and criminalisation of marital rape.
Mar. 7, 2022 – Eyewitness News
Equality Bahamas one of 30 organizations that signed a joint open letter addressed to the Prime Minister mentioned in Eyewitness News on March 7, 2022.
From Eyewitness News:
In a joint open letter to the prime minister, chief justice, director of public prosecutions and others last week, over 30 women’s organizations demanded delivery on promises to address gender-based violence.
“This is not a favor that we are asking,” Paul said as she urged the government to make decisions with all of its populous in mind.
“This is our right as 51 percent of the populous.
“To me, that’s the underlying thing that deals with all of our areas of concern.
“It continues to be an afterthought or when someone like yourself recognizes or when women organizations recognize they’ve left us out again, and then we have to advocate, and so, first and foremost, that’s the overarching message that needs to be sent and registered.”
The issue of marital rape continues to be publicly debated, with many lawmakers supporting views to criminalize it.
In 2017, United National Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Dubravka Simonovic said The Bahamas is out of step with the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Former of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as the country had failed to criminalize all forms of marital rape.
Dec. 15, 2021 – Guardian Radio 96.9FM
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia Wallace featured on Guardian Radio’s On the Clock with Erin Greene on December 15, 2021.
Tune in from 23:27 to hear our wrap-up of this year’s 16 Days of Activism events as well as the topic of femicide.
Listen back to the replay below.
Nov. 30, 2021 – Guardian Radio 96.9FM
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia Wallace and co-director Lauren Glinton featured on Guardian Radio’s On the Clock with Erin Greene on November 30, 2021.
Tune in from 21:03 to hear about our 16 Days of Activism events.
Listen back to the replay below.
Sept. 20, 2021 – The Tribune
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia Wallace featured in The Tribune on September 20, 2021.
From The Tribune:
In a statement issued yesterday, Equality Bahamas also encouraged all parliamentarians to create a culture of gender sensitivity and publicly acknowledging the diverse and specific experiences of women and girls — including LBTQ+ women, women with disabilities, women experiencing poverty, and women engaged in unpaid care work — and the gender-specific response needed.
All seven of the Progressive Liberal Party’s women candidates — Leslia Brice, Patricia Deveaux, JoBeth Coleby-Davis, Glenys Hanna Martin, Pia Glover-Rolle, Lisa Rahming and Ginger Moxey — were elected to Parliament last week.
“We call on the women in Parliament to recognise women and girls as their shared constituency,” said Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas.
“A gender-sensitive approach is needed at all levels of governance. This includes engaging constituents, drafting legislation, developing policies, designing and executing programmes and activities and contributing to the national budget.”
The group said the advancement of women and the country does not depend on the seven women but requires all parliamentarians to consider gender dynamics and the specific impact of every action on women and girls and commit to gender equality.
Equality Bahamas said both major political parties in The Bahamas “have contributed to dismal representation” of women, particularly as they each only ratified seven women — 18 percent of their candidates — for the 2021 general election.
Equality Bahamas called on the government to implement a 50 percent quota, requiring gender balance on all political party candidate slates.
March 3, 2021 – Guardian Radio 96.9FM
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia featured in Guardian Radio’s On the Clock with Erin Greene on March 3, 2021.
Tune in from 6:18 to hear all about how Equality Bahamas was started, Alicia’s weekly column in The Tribune, Women’s Wednesdays and International Women’s Day.
Listen back to the replay below.
Jan. 21, 2021 – The Tribune
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director, Alicia Wallace featured in The Tribune on January 21, 2021.
From The Tribune:
A WOMEN’S rights advocate wants society to stop placing the blame on young vulnerable girls being lured out of their homes and becoming victims of statutory rape and hold the men responsible accountable for their actions.
Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas, told The Tribune yesterday there needed to be an open dialogue on the issue of the rape culture, one that informs and addresses sexual violence in its entirety.
Her comments came after Police Commissioner Paul Rolle revealed on Monday that the majority of the people reported missing in 2020 were adolescent females “engaging in sexual intercourse”.
However, his remarks raised eyebrows in some quarters considering the fact that, according to the law, minors are incapable of giving their consent to sex with adults.
By legal definition, crimes that involve sexual contact with a person who is underage is called statutory rape. The age of consent for heterosexual relationships is 16 while it is 18 for same-sex relations.
Noting there seems to be a common misconception about statutory rape victims in The Bahamas, Ms Wallace said there needed to be greater focus placed on the men “preying on our young girls”.
She also called on police officers to crack down on these perpetrators who may have a history of targeting underaged females.
She said: “We often see that people blame girls for what happens to them. We see the cases pop up, we see the flyers being circulated asking for help with finding girls, minors, people who are under the age of 18.
“And a lot of the social commentary around it is ‘why bother? She’ll come home over the weekend. She probably by man’ and people behave as though these girls are at the age of consent when they’re not.”
She added: “They cannot legally give consent and we’re ignoring the fact that the people who are engaging them and the people who are luring them out of their homes are adult men and these men, as far as we can tell, aren’t being held accountable.
“(These men) know who has little money and who might be motivated by money and they know who may see their bodies as the only way to survive. These are predators and these are people who practice it and no one is safe from it.
“Why do you think they happen to find people who are 16 or 14? Do you think that they were not building these relationships years ago and were waiting? This is sexual grooming.”
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia Wallace featured in Eyewitness News on November 4, 2020.
From Eyewitness News:
Researchers concluded that individuals respondents “may not have a full understanding of their own agency, and certainly suggest an imperfect knowledge of their rights in situations of sexual pressure.”
Equality Bahamas Director Alicia Wallace told Eyewitness News that while the study is shocking, the results are not new.
“The study was really focused on consent which is a critical issue which we need to address holistically,” Wallace said.
“One of the major problems that we have is a lot of people don’t even realize it when they are violated or when they experience a form of sexual violence because we don’t have a clear understanding of what consent is.”
Wallace noted that the matter has never been addressed directly, despite the continuous push for comprehensive sexual education in both public and private schools.
“We need to be having conversations about the use of contraceptives, about consent, about how you negotiate for condom use,” she added.
She added that the concept of consent should be taught at a younger age about what is appropriate and not appropriate.
“It continues to be an afterthought or when someone like yourself recognizes or when women organizations recognize they’ve left us out again, and then we have to advocate, and so, first and foremost, that’s the overarching message that needs to be sent and registered.”
