Discrimination focus of latest ‘Charter’ forum

The topics of discrimination and citizen’s rights took centre stage as public discussions surrounding a draft “Charter for Barbados” continued on Thursday.

The open forum, which saw several members of the Republican Status Transition Advisory (RSTAC) Sub-committee on Fundamental Principles, Rights and Freedoms, including the subcommittee’s chair, Chereda Grannum; Co-Chair of the Charter Committee, Senator Rev Dr John Rogers, and Dr Deryck Murray, Director of The Centre for Hybrid Studies (CHyS), received strong interest surrounding the topic of discrimination within Barbadian society, particularly surrounding homosexuality.

In responding to a question as to why sexual orientation was included in the charter under the category of requiring protection from discrimination, Dr Murray acknowledged that although the topic was complex, with various views from a wide cross-section of society, discrimination in all forms must be cited and protected under a nation’s laws.

Dr Murray said: “Usually what it is, is that you have personal prejudices; you can afford to have your personal prejudices, no person can stop you from saying you don’t want to be associated with someone who is gay… but then to raise that to the level of preventing that person from finding work, or getting education, or living life without interference is problematic.

“We must remember in Barbados we have a history of enslavement, and we more than most people should be extremely sensitive to any issue on discrimination on any grounds whatsoever because we know what it is to have a legacy of being considered sub-human,” he explained.

Dr Murray said that sexual orientation should be outlined in the charter which is seen as a philosophical statement of the general public that is then used to anchor a country’s constitution and guide how all citizens should be treated.

On the subject of Government not mandating COVID-19 vaccines for citizens, Dr Murray, the last head of the now defunct Commission on Pan-African Affairs, supported the move and saw it in line with Barbados imminent shift to a republic.

He said: “I think that our government made the correct decision in not insisting that vaccines be mandatory, and what that says, is that in a charter we would want to say something like it’s only in the most extreme of situations or crises, that we would go the route of doing something like that, in terms of infringing on your individual right over your body.

“You should be very careful… we should have a very high bar in infringing some of these rights. If you have to reflect that position in a charter, that minimum we would not go in terms of infringing on human rights, and also demarcating what would be the extreme conditions under which we would allow infringement of those rights, how would we shape that language in the charter… That is what I think we should reflect on, on what would be in the charter.”

During the discussion, international human rights advisor Michelle Brathwaite also cited the topic of poverty within societies as an often ignored situation which, at its core, goes against the basic human rights of most nations.

For her, addressing poverty in the current charter, and possibly the Constitution should be considered a priority.

She said: “I frequently have discussions with others about whether or not poverty is a human rights violation; to the extent that we are defining poverty as a lack of access to quality education, a lack of quality access to health care, and to be sure governments and the state have an obligation to provide the minimum essential levels of those kind of rights.

“Eradicating poverty has to be a priority because poverty undermines many of the rights that we protect in the Constitution and our laws.”
(SB)