Yesterday was marked as the day to end domestic violence against women. In the afternoon, activists gathered in the Battlefield Park in downtown Belize City to thunder against the pervasive social ill. And while they did that, little could they have known that they were making those righteous speeches in what has become the backyard of a woman who is the victim of another sort of violence: economic violence. Today we went to the park to find Bernadine Fitzgibbon, a woman who's run out of options and living on the tender mercies of a society already fatigued by grief and hard luck stories. But this is one story, we maybe all have to hear, about a woman stuck in the last place anyone would want to raise two little girls. Alfonso Noble reports.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
This scene of these two sisters playing on the open greens at the Battlefield Park may well be the definition of happiness. But for 9 year old Natalie and 3 year old Molisha playing in the park is anything but bliss, because they live in the park. 41 year old Bernadine Fitzgibon says she and her two daughters have been forced to live in the park in downtown Belize City because she has nowhere else to go.
Bernadine Fitzgibbon, Living in Park
"I don't anywhere to bathe so my babies are dirty. I smell bad. Where I live there nowhere to bathe. I have a whole pile of dirty clothes I would to show you because I can't even wash. I can't wash and do nothing for myself. The lady goes on a way with her house. I am out here because I have nowhere to live me and my two kids. That is why I am out here. I come out here after I drop my daughter at school and I am out here all day and sometimes in the night."
[Sobbing] "I really am taking a licking me and my two baby."
She's been living like this for the past three weeks after her previous landlord threw her out of the house she was occupying. Now she is out on the street, she does not have a job; she does not have a house; and for now she can't see a future for herself or her children unless she begs.
Bernadine Fitzgibbon,
"I am not shame to beg sir. You know what I am shame of? To thief and sell my body because a lot of sickness is out here and you don't' know who is sick with the virus right now. Maybe it could be me. Maybe it could somebody else and I don't know. I am not shame to say I am begging. I am ashamed to say I thief and have policeman taking me with bangles on my hand. You know why I am not ashamed to beg? Because I have two daughters to live for and instead of I put them on the street to beg or go sell, it is best I go do it myself because there are a lot of chance takers out here. All I need is a house for me and my two baby because it is two little girls I have and I don't want Social take them away because when Social takes them away it will be a problem for me to get them back. So I am asking to please help me with a house. Please I need a house for myself and my two babies. When I am not out here, I am out there at the other park sitting down all night sometimes until the morning and I've gotten tired of it. I've tired of it because my little girls are getting big."
And that is her biggest worry because while for now Natalie can do her school work on the park's benches, what happens if this is the only home she ever knows?
Anyone wishing to help Fitzgibbon, can find her in the park or at her other rest spot in the Constitution Park.