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As we near the end of 16 days of activism against gender based violence, a youth panel, organized by the Belize City Council was held today at the Biltmore with numerous stakeholders and students in attendance. The purpose of the forum is to give youths a chance to share and discuss their concerns among their peers when it comes to gender based violence and human trafficking. Jomarie Lanza was there and has this report:
The Belize City Council along with UNFPA, RET Belize, and other stakeholders held its annual Youth panel discussion on Gender based violence, violence against women and girls and human trafficking to give youths a chance to voice their opinions and concerns on these issues.
This is the third year the forum is being held with youth representatives from across the country.
Tisa Grant, Head of office UNFPA
"So this started three years ago this was the brainchild of the Belize City Council. They reached out to us to partner with them and having this youth panel at the time, it wasn't planned to be an annual event, but the first one was very successful. We have young people, sharing their perspectives on the issue of gender violence, we thought it was an important part of the 16 days of activism. You know there are a lot of activities happening, but how many of them actually target towards young people to hear from them what it is that they feel gender-based violence is all about and how it affects them personally, and their families and their friends."
"So today allows for us to have a wider perspective. Previously the youth panel discussion was primarily made up of young people from Belize district and from Belize city. So they would be coming with an urban perspective with these specific perspectives. Now we have a wider representation in the room and we think that is critical so they get to talk among each other. They get to discuss what their own experiences are, and to hear from each other on the issue of gender based violence and human trafficking."
Prior to the event, panelists received training and took part in informative sessions about gender based violence. Community engagement officer Jenean Sabal told us more about the training.
Jenean Sabal, Community Engagement Officer
"With this event here today, it has been months in the making. RET has been doing training across the country in all nine municipalities with high school students and out of school students teaching them about human trafficking. What does it affect? How do I identify and how to report all of the panelists that you are hearing here and just to get spark you know that knowledge and that information as it relates to human trafficking and how it relates to gender-based violence and violence against women and girls."
"So it's only right for us to hear their perspective to understand what they think that these issues are, and how they are affected by these issues, because the way adults are affected we might be surprised that these young people are affected the same or different based on the setting or the environment that they are in."
