Last night we told you about the sexual abuse allegations that emerged on social media from a number of women against Belizean gospel artist Mervin Budram. We followed up today with an expert who specializes in providing sensitization training for churches and schools on sexual offenses. She says that there is an ongoing pattern of these offenses in churches across Belize. Jomarie Lanza reports.
So far, a handful of girls have claimed they were betrayed, abused and traumatized at the hands of a well entrusted member of their church, and family friend. Those girls are women now who decided that they could no longer be silent about the pain and shame they endured all these years, or much less sit back and watch it happen all over again to other girls.
And the man they are speaking out against has been a prominent and vocal member of his church where he is described as a worship leader.
Mervin Budram, The Gospel Youth Fest 2022
"See there's a nation that is lost, there is young people. You know I've been watching the news."
Mervin Budram
"You got to start to build your network, so that also means be careful of who you bring into your circle. You don't want to have people that will suck you and drain you or lead you down the wrong path."
Mervin Budram, Our Father's Day Panel | With Kenroy Elijio, Tom Sharp, Mervin Budram & Johan Vanrensburg
"Within our church community we have a weekly men accountability time and its interesting because I think from I was 19, we've been doing that when I think about that."
So will Budram now be held accountable for his alleged actions? According to a source, prior to one of the victims' making a public post, Budram was brought before the leaders of several ministries, and he was stripped of his titles that connected him with the church.
One of the women - who is the daughter of a prominent pastor - claims that he was part of her church group when the first incident happened. At the time, she says she was 11 and he was over 20 years old.
In response to this first post, another female claimed that Budram inappropriately touched her when she was 16, alleging that he took her to a deserted area in Belmopan one night and sexually assaulted her.
Another female also came forward yesterday evening claiming that Budram molested her friend when she was 13 years old during the time that he served as a youth leader in Roaring Creek village. She claims that she walked in on Budram sexually assaulting the child in the kitchen of their family home.
According to social media posts, 5 women have indicated to one another that they experienced the same type of encounter with Budram.'
As for Budram - a self styled motivational speaker and a gospel artist who maximizes use of social media platforms to spread his message - he has deactivated his Instagram and facebook pages. He has also not responded to our requests for a comment.
It would appear that there is an ongoing pattern of sexual related offense in churches across Belize. At Least that's what the The Executive Director for the Child Development fund Diana Shaw told us today, and what her organization is doing to address this.
Diana Shaw, Executive Director, Child Development Foundation
"The work that we did with churches and community organizations was to sensitize them to the fact that even though you are a church organization you cannot have them thinking that everybody who comes to the church is a safe person for children because that is not the case. Perpetrators actually look for those kinds of places where they know that they may not have much of a sight. Where they know that there probably aren't very good screening protocols because nobody is checking their background where they know that if they show up and they are kind and benevolent that people will readily accept them. So churches are vulnerable to perpetrators because of that we have a lot of churches in Belize that depend on the benevolence of the people in the community as well as missionaries and volunteers who come in to do work in the church. and churches are not always as vigilante to screen those persons because they assume that they are coming with good motives but that is very often not the case."
"What I will say that all of the churches admitted that this was a growing problem and that the church needed to do much better to protect children."
The CDF has trained and worked with approximately 300 church leaders and community organizations on how to screen and monitor adult interaction with children. Nevertheless Shaw stresses that it is crucial for victims to come forward and file a report regardless of how much time has passed since the incident unfolded - if nothing else, to create a record of a pattern of behaviour:
Diana Shaw
"Belize is in the beginning stages of revising the sexual offenders registry so this is a good time to look at that, to see how do we capture those older cases to ensure that those persons are documented so that if they commit other crimes now because not all sexual offenders commit crimes regularly sometimes there's a long break in between the crimes that they commit. so if we are not capturing the crimes that they are committing ten years ago we may not be tracking their activity and could potentially be putting other children in danger."
"So I don't have all the details of all of the victims and their experiences, but it is possible to make a complaint about any kind of sexual assault, if you can go to the police to make a complaint. What they may not readily be able to determine is if whether that complaint will result in a charge."
"Even if the DPP says that there will be no charge because it is important to document in the system that allegation was raised against this person because if other allegations continue to come forward then it creates a pattern that makes it easier for the DPP to give direction to prosecute those cases. because then some corroborated evidence may be available from other victims. So people need to come forward and make the complaint and not be afraid that even if ten years have passed and the police is going to say no even if no charge is brought, you documenting the complaint is still going to be helpful to help some other victim."
According to the DPP there is NO statute of limitations for Carnal knowledge offenses committed against girls who are under the age of 16.
