AG: GBV BILL WA S POTENTI A LLY CONFUSING A ND H A D DATED OR UNNECESS A RY PROV ISIONS

BY LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY Gen- eral Ryan Pinder said the Davis administration advanced the Protection Against Violence Bill over the previously drafted Gender-Based Violence Bill because the latter was potentially confusing and contained either dated or unnecessary provisions.

He said the 2016 bill was not broad enough because it only addressed the needs of gender-based violence victims.

He said several organisations expressed concern about the bill’s lack of inclusivity.

Some women’s groups announced they opposed the bill not long before it was debated in the House of Assembly last week.

They said the legislation is less comprehensive than the 2016 bill that they had worked on over the years.

“The 2016 bill speaks entirely and exclusively to gender-based violence matters,” Mr Pinder said during the Senate debate. “It is our position, and that of esteemed professionals, that a regime focused only on genderbased violence has the potential to be confusing, and a broader application to violence is more appropriate.”

“I think it appropriate to mention that the suggestion to broaden the scope of the current bill to violence generally was done on recommendation from the Crisis Centre and the Department of Gender Affairs.

“They are esteemed experts that also weigh in on the issue between narrowing a regime to just gender-based or applying a regime to broader violence generally.”

Mr Pinder highlighted sections of the previously drafted bill that are now deemed unnecessary.

“The 2016 bill provided for separate criminal offences that constitute acts of physical abuse and gender-based violence,” he said.

“I noted earlier that there are a variety of laws in place that address offences related to violence and gender-based violence. Having a separate list in the 2016 bill was regarded as inconsistent with current law and would provide an opportunity for confusion on the applicable law, offence and penalty. It was determined that these offences should be removed and that we should rely on the offences in existing law.”

Mr Pinder said one difference between the drafts relates to protection orders. The 2016 bill would repeal the Domestic Violence (Protection Orders) Act, 2007. However, officials have concluded that doing this could have unintended consequences. Consequently, Mr Pinder said, they decided to create two separate bills, one for protection orders and another dealing with GBV matters. He added that the government proposes amending the Domestic Violence (Protection Orders) Act to include a new definition of domestic violence that reflects contemporary realities.

He said: “This amendment would describe the victim as one who is ‘personally connected’ to the abuser rather than the present description of the relationship of the victim as a spouse, partner, child, or any other person who is a member of the household or a dependent.”

Mr Pinder also noted that the 2016 bill created the Department of Family and Gender Affairs, a provision that is no longer necessary because the department has since been established.

Additionally, he said the 2016 bill would allow gender based support service providers to register as non-profits to help victims.

“We agree that these NPOs should have access to tax concessions,” he said. “However, it should not be as in the 2016 bill as there are other mechanisms already established with our revenue collecting departments to facilitate tax concessions to NPOs generally.”

Nonetheless, FNM Senator Michela Barnett-Ellis repeated her previous concerns about the bill, saying it is limited in scope and far less comprehensive than the 2016 legislation.

Although she supported the bill’s passage, she said: “We are concerned about gender-based violence. There is an increase in gender-based violence, and we need specific legislation to deal with gender-based violence. This legislation does not. Bahamians deserve a bill to provide for the protection of victims of gender-based violence and all connected matters.

“The women of this great country deserve an administration that takes them seriously, not an administration that ignores their own female expert; not an administration that dismisses without justification the work of stakeholders, many of whom are female; not an administration that does not take a woman’s allegation of rape and threats of death seriously and not an administration that does not have the testicular fortitude to protect wives from rape.”