Human Rights In The British Virgin Islands
In practice, basic human rights are broadly respected in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Reports of repression of freedom of speech, interference with democracy or the rule of law, and arbitrary arrest and torture are virtually unknown. The BVI have been described as “generally free of human rights abuses” and its government has been characterised as taking “a strong and proactive approach to the protection of human rights.”
However, the laws in the British Virgin Islands do openly discriminate against people who do not hold what is called “belonger status.” This form of discrimination is expressly preserved in the BVI constitution, which excludes non-belongers from the full scope of its non-discrimination protections. Belongers and non-belongers enjoy unequal rights to employment and to the right to purchase property, and in certain cases non-belongers are made subject to higher rates of taxation. Also, non-belongers in certain professions are subject to exploitation and abuse which their status makes it more difficult for them to challenge
Read more about Human Rights In The British Virgin Islands: Constitutional Human-rights Protections, Human Rights in The Criminal Code, Orders-in-council, Human-rights Conventions and Covenants, HRRCC, Belonger Status and Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Human-rights Efforts
Famous quotes containing the words human, rights, british, virgin and/or islands:
“[The Settlement House] must be grounded in a philosophy whose foundation is on the solidarity of the human race, a philosophy which will not waver when the race happens to be represented by a drunken woman or an idiot boy.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to women’s rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.”
—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)
“But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest:
Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven’s youngest teemed star,
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“What are the islands to me
if you are lost
what is Naxos, Tinos, Andros,
and Delos, the clasp
of the white necklace?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)