NASSAU, Bahamas, Mar 27 2017 – The Bahamas government says it is not perturbed by a recent move by the Haitian parliament to join the international drive to end the tragedy of statelessness and to ensure the millions of innocent people around the world with no nationality get the help they need.
In a brief statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “the policy and the law of The Bahamas is that one obtains citizenship by descent, which means through your parents.
“There are no plans to change that,” the statement added.
Nassau has complained in the past of the number of Haitians who are seeking to enter the country illegally and also seek to gain resident status or citizenship.
Last week, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, praised Haiti for becoming the third member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the 69th country to accede to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness once the government deposits the instruments of accession with the Depository of Treaties in New York.
The 1961 Convention requires states to establish safeguards in their nationality laws to ensure no person is made stateless at birth or later in life. It notably provides that children must acquire the nationality of the country in which they are born if they would otherwise be stateless.
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