Cubans, Haitians and other migrants who flee their homeland and end up in the Bahamas are treated like criminals, locked up in decrepit facilities, subjected to unfair asylum screening standards and too often forcibly repatriated, an Amnesty International report said Tuesday.
The Bahamian government called the report unbalanced and defended its treatment of immigrants.
The report — the first by Amnesty on human rights abuses of undocumented migrants in the Bahamas — also warned that Bahamian authorities are placing Cuban migrants at risk by providing Cuban authorities with the names, addresses, photos and dates of birth of fleeing Cubans within 72 hours of their arrival in the Bahamas.
”A confluence of concerns have come to our attention over the last several years” on the Bahamas, Eric Olson, Amnesty’s advocacy director for the Americas, said in a telephone interview. “The report gives a pretty negative picture of things. The conditions there are not meeting international standards.”
The report, Forgotten Detainees? Human Rights in Detention in the Bahamas, highlights inadequate healthcare, gross overcrowding, allegations of beatings, unsuitable sanitation and bedding and sexual contacts between male guards and female detainees at the Carmichael Immigrant Detention Centre, where most are held, and other facilities.
Based on a visit by Amnesty to the Bahamas in August 2002, the report also criticized the detention of youths at adult facilities, saying the practice places the Bahamas ”in serious breach” of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
NO LAWYERS
According to the report, asylum-seekers and child migrants in Bahamian detention centers are not given access to legal aid and are denied protections provided for in international treaties.
The report alleges that poor detention conditions are used to force detainees to drop their asylum applications and return home.
”The use of detention has the effect and intention of inducing asylum-seekers to abandon their claims,” the report stated.
“It would seem that the Bahamian authorities wish to deter future illegal migration by maintaining miserable conditions.”
In a three-page response to Amnesty included in the report, Bahamian authorities criticized Amnesty’s assessment for its “lack of balance.”
STRUGGLING NATION
It said the Bahamas is a developing nation that is struggling with infrastructure needs and limited resources.
‘The Bahamas’ geographical location makes illegal migrant/refugee issues a matter of national security as well as having an impact on relations with neighboring countries,” said the letter dated Oct. 20 and signed by Marcus Bethel, acting minister of foreign affairs.
”The Bahamas has to utilize scarce resources to deal with these issues in order to prevent the country from becoming a gateway for these individuals to gain access to their destination of choice: the United States,” the letter added.
BY NANCY SAN MARTIN
nsanmartin@herald.com
