Amnesty International Annual Report 2011 - Bahamas

Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II, represented by Sir Arthur Alexander Foulkes (replaced Arthur Hanna in April)
Head of government: Hubert Ingraham
Death penalty: retentionist
Population: 0.3 million
Life expectancy: 74.4 years
Under-5 mortality (m/f): 14/12 per 1,000

There were concerns about the treatment of Haitian migrants. At least five people were sentenced to death; no executions were carried out.

Police and security forces

Members were appointed to a new Police Complaints Inspectorate, which is mandated to review complaints of abuses by police officers and ensure investigations are conducted impartially. The Inspectorate was established to address long-standing impunity for past cases of police abuses.

Refugees and migrants

Following the earthquake in Haiti in January, the authorities announced that they would suspend the repatriation of Haitian migrants. However, soon afterwards, there were reports that Haitian migrants who landed in the Bahamas were being charged with illegal landing and repatriated. By the end of the year hundreds of Haitians had been repatriated.

The government failed to publish a report by the Department of Immigration into reports of ill-treatment of scores of migrants held in the Carmichael Detention Center in 2009.

Violence against women and girls

The bill introduced in July 2009 to amend provisions of the 1991 Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act, which excludes rape within marriage from the definition of the criminal offence of rape, had still not been discussed in Parliament by the end of 2010.

Death penalty

At least five people were sentenced to death. Thirteen of those under sentence of death were awaiting retrials following a ruling in 2006 by the UK-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council abolishing mandatory death sentences for murder. In December, the Bahamas voted against a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.