According to a recent survey from the National Committee for Families and Children, the commercial sexual exploitation of children is one of Belize’s dirty little secrets. Thirty C-SEC victims, as they are called, were interviewed and they told tales of being forced to perform sexual favors in return for money. And what’s worse – is that in most of the cases the ones setting them up to do it are the parents. According to the survey, that’s mainly because of poverty, which is what a new pilot program from the Youth Enhancement Services will tackle.
It’s funded by the International Labor Organization and its aim is to equip parents of potential C-SEC victims with employable skills so that they can work and their children won’t have to. Project Coordinator Lorna Cayetano told us more.
Lorna Cayetano, Project Coordinator
“Yes we do have children who are sexually exploited here in Belize and this exploitation is being done by men and women in this country. It is done through cruise tourism and even land tourism as you are aware we have tourism coming in from land, air, and sea and we have people who are intermediaries who would facilitate things like this.”
Keith Swift,
How widespread is the sexual exploitation of children?
Lorna Cayetano,
“This is a country wide thing but there were studies done. Why it is based in Belize City is that there were studies done in Cayo where there’s prevalence because of the border and Belize City because of the cruise tourism and the airport.”
Keith Swift,
Who are the bad guys here. Who are the ones sexually exploiting these children?
Lorna Cayetano,
“Well we have people because of poverty, we have mothers, we have other people who would have their children out there selling their bodies, if I am being bold in saying that, who have their children out there fending because of poverty instead of mothers or people trying to get jobs but because of lack of education and lack of self-will, will have their children out there to be exploited in that manner.”
Keith Swift,
What’s going to happen over the next four months?
Lorna Cayetano,
“Over the next four months we’re going to be working with the immediate families and we’re not only working with families, we will also be working with people at risk of C-SEC because during that period we will be working not only with the victim or the persons at risk, we’ll also be working with families where we try to work with families to ensure that at the end of the day they become self-sufficient. We work on self-esteem where they’ll realize that this is not the best for their children. What we’re looking at is we are trying that at the end of this project we should be working with people to try our best to eliminate sexual exploitation of adolescents and children.”
The 14 month project is being piloted in Belize City and Cayo. It will be implemented jointly by YES and the Department of Human Development.
