Bahamas

Reporting History before the UN Treaty Bodies

Treaty Body Recommendations addressing Programme Areas

[The following are selected recommendations included in each Committee’s Concluding Observations to country reports. Selection is based on population issues addressed by UNFPA, and some recommendations may address more than one subject. The recommendations presented belong to the last report submitted, and may not reflect actions taken since towards their implementation.]

Population and Development

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Sixty-fourth session, (23 February – 12 March 2004) The Committee considered the fifth to fourteenth periodic reports of the Bahamas, submitted as a single document (CERD/C/428/Add.1), and adopted the following concluding observations.

• The Committee invites the State party to include more detailed questions in the population census so as to get a better idea of the ethnic composition of the country, and draws the State party's attention to paragraph 8 of its General Guidelines on the form and contents of reports.
• The Committee notes with concern the reservations to the Convention entered by the State party, and encourages the State party to consider withdrawing all the reservations it entered upon acceding to the Convention.
• The Committee invites the State party to include more detailed questions in the population census so as to get a better idea of the ethnic composition of the country, and draws the State party's attention to paragraph 8 of its General Guidelines on the form and contents of reports.
• The Committee is concerned at reports of statements and press articles inciting racial discrimination against migrants, Haitians in particular, and actual discrimination against migrants in fields such as education and employment. The Committee recommends the State party to conduct an inquiry into these allegations and notify the Committee of the outcome. Where appropriate, the State party should take all necessary punitive, educational and other measures to put an end to such conduct.

Promoting Gender Equality

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Sixty-fourth session, (23 February – 12 March 2004) The Committee considered the fifth to fourteenth periodic reports of the Bahamas, submitted as a single document (CERD/C/428/Add.1), and adopted the following concluding observations.

• The Committee takes note of the constitutional reform process now in progress but is concerned at the fact that the Constitution contains discriminatory provisions on the subject of women's rights to transmit their nationality to their children and foreign spouses. and invites the State party to continue its efforts to remedy such discrimination, and draws its attention to the Committee's General Recommendation XXV (2000) on gender-related dimensions of racial discrimination.