A long standing court injunction on shanty towns was recently lifted and the government has advanced that it plans to demolish shanty towns around the country. Marlon Brown, 28, is a shanty town resident worried about where he is to go if these villages are torn down.
Brown spoke to ZNS News about his concerns, “and they talking about breaking down the village, this and that, I don’t even know where I can go. I don’t know what to do but I born here, I supposed to have at least some rights over here.” Brown wishes to obtain the proper documents to life and work in The Bahamas.
The Minister of Labour and Immigration, the Hon. Keith Bell commented on the issue. He said, “this is a case before that courts. I don’t think that its actually going to open a flood gate because there are cases that we’re dealing with of a similar nature. If an individual is born to a Bahamian father in as much as the Bahamian man has signed for that child and he’s in possession of a birth certificate to show that, then tell him to make the application for citizenship of The Bahamas. What it does, it means now the Cabinet, the Immigration Board, which is the Cabinet, will review that case and in many cases it isn’t so much so where you are born, that is just one component, we want to see your ties to The Bahamas.”
