People crippled by debt should not be sent to jail, according to Opposition MP Wayne Furbert.

He has tabled a bill in the House of Assembly to outlaw a practice branded “barbaric” by campaigners.

“What we’re saying is that the courts should not have the power to lock people up for debt,” said Mr Furbert.

“There are other tools like garnishing wages or going after property that can be used.”

He said the taxpayer also had to pick up the tab for the cost of imprisoning debtors, for what was often private debt.

“The responsibility should rest with the creditors. It’s not up to the Government to go around collecting their debts.

“People are locked up and the taxpayer is footing the bill.”

Mr Furbert said figures on the number of debtors jailed were hard to establish, but that his research suggested more than 100 people had been locked up for unpaid debts since 2011.

“We are much better than that. If someone has no assets and no wages to garnish, you can’t just be locking them up.”

Mr Furbert was backed by Sheelagh Cooper of the Coalition for the Protection of Children and Centre for Justice chief Venous Memari, who is also a lawyer.

Ms Cooper said: “It’s completely barbaric — we’ve been lobbying for the past ten years to tighten up the legislation that allows for that to happen.

“We think this is a good move and one we would support.”

Ms Cooper said in most countries there was legislation allowing people to declare themselves bankrupt. She added that, while bankruptcy could be declared in Bermuda, the route was “so complicated” that she had never seen one of her clients declare themselves bankrupt.

And she said prison time for debt had a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable people in society.

“It’s commonly used as a threat. A week does not go by that two or three women come into our office and say they have been told they’re going to jail,” she said.

Ms Cooper explained that the existing law did say that people who can’t afford to pay a debt should not be imprisoned, but that was open to interpretation during court proceedings. Although she said there was “some evidence that courts were more willing to listen to these women’s pleas and a drop in the number sent to prison.”

She added: “That doesn’t mean the problem is fixed. They are still being threatened with jail, which is a highly stressful situation for a mother and her children.”

Ms Memari said the issue was already on the Centre for Justice’s radar and that preliminary talks had been held with other organisations with a view to petitioning Government to end the threat of prison for debtors.

“Our preliminary view is that it does not accord with human rights principles to send people to jail because they own money,” she said.

She said the practice of sending fathers who defaulted on child financial support to prison had been abandoned by family court because “they didn’t see any sense in sending father’s to jail when they should be working to pay child maintenance.”

Ms Memari pointed out that jailing a debtor made it even less likely they would be able to pay what they owed.

“The question is whether punishing someone who is in debt helps the person who is owed money.”