And just as this heinous act has stunned and outraged Orange Walk and the wider community, UNICEF today released its report on the children and adolescents of Belize. And the findings suggest some answers as to why we're seeing such outrageously indecent sex acts involving children.
The report shows that the well-being and development of a great number of Belize's children are at risk because of social and economic inequity. How many children? Well for example, two out of 5 children do not have their basic food and non food needs met, only one in four children who are poor attend secondary school, and one in every five teenagers has had a pregnancy in the last five years. In a society where one out of every three people are statistically poor, these products of poverty are the status quo, but it's also an emergency. And UNICEF's new country representative Rana Flowers says it's her organization's job to ring the alarm, but it's everyone's job to respond to the emergency.
Rana Flowers, UNICEF Country Representative
"It signals clearly where there are problems, it highlights disparities, and it highlights those geographic, ethnic, gender, and economic disparities on which we need to focus. What the report highlights is that cghi9ldren and adolescents bear the burden poverty, that as high as two in every 5 children, in general in Belize, and that as many as four in five, in some communities, are living in abject poverty. And that is a situation that we shouldn't be tolerating and that we need to stand up and address.
When you read the report you get a sense of the economic exclusion, you get a sense of a child whose growing up largely without hope, who doesn't have a sense of a life in Belize, and who needs to have access to an education, which is a quality education. We're seeing the children whose nutrition status is poor, they can't access health care in the same way that other Belizeans do. We see children who are exploited and abused in their own homes by those trusted by them. So we need to give that child, ensure that all those rights of that child, and I'm talking every child, is protected and that we address those. And it's not UNICEF alone, its UNICEF in partnership with. We are not pretending that we come with a magical cure but we're also not standing by and criticizing, we are a genuine partner and we will work with the community to address the issues.
We need to focus on those exploited populations so that the whole country is developing, not just a small percentage. Economic growth doesn't necessarily translate into rights for the whole community, development for the whole community, and in some cases it can see a widening of inequities and disparity and that certainly is the case in Belize. We're talking about two Belize: those who develop and the excluded population who we need to be addressing."
Jules Vasquez,
This is a country whose debt has grown four fold in the last six years. Isn't there an indictment in there somewhere for those who have increased the debt so much, yet who have obviously failed to address critical human development issues?
Rana Flowers,
"I think its a lesson that a lot of countries have learnt, that a focus on macroeconomic reform, that misguided policies, lead to a turn back in development because if we invest in education, and we make it a quality education, if we invest in those areas that are key to the development of the child, then we will see an overall experience in development of the country."
Jules Vasquez,
For those seeing us speak in a detached and scientific way about their lives, what do we say to them, to inspire them with some hope that this isn't it?
Rana Flowers,
"The hope is that they have rights and that we will defend their rights and that we will listen to them demanding their rights. And I think that it is not at all detached, UNICEF as I said is not standing back and just trying to stir up some discussion. We're actually in their doing the work, we're in the communities; we're working with the communities to find a solution. UNICEF as an organization is a partner, it's a partner to the government and it's a partner to the community groups who work with exploited populations, who work with poverty, education, health, child protection issues. It is here for the long haul, it has been here for a long time."
The report also shows that juvenile offences are sharply on the increase. 256 such cases went to the Family Court in 2003, compared to just 43 in 2001. That rise in what some might call miscreancy is widespread and later on in the news we'll take to a city street corner with some youths who say that smoking marijuana on the street may be unlawful, but it's not wrong, in fact, they way they see it, it's almost their right. We'll have that story for you later on, but first.
