STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON HAITI VOTE ON INTERNATIONAL STATELESSNESS

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON HAITI VOTE ON INTERNATIONAL STATELESSNESS

25th March, 2017

News Release
For Immediate Release

For any further information, contact:

Al Dillette – Ministry of Foreign Affairs Public Affairs Officer: aldillette@hotmail.com

‘Existing Mechanisms in Law to deal with Statelessness’ – Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Immigration

In response to media enquiries in reference to a recent vote by Haiti on international statelessness, and for general information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Immigration points out 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 Ministry further observes that there are existing mechanisms in Bahamian law to deal with statelessness.

In the case of individuals born in The Bahamas of foreign parentage, including those born to Haitian parentage; those persons are not stateless at birth nor thereafter.

With respect to the specific vote by Haiti, this is not a matter for comment by The Bahamas. The laws of The Bahamas on this issue are clear.

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