Last year there were 334 reported cases of sexual abuse against young women and girls; 213 in the Belize district alone. And if you think that's bad well just since may of this year there have already been 90 such cases against women and girls reported. Sexual abuse is a problem but the Youth Enhancement Services says sexual exploitation is even bigger and they say its time for a change. Today they offered solutions.
Keith Swift Reporting,
On TV, on calendars, and in general sexually charged images of women sell. But is what passes as commercial currency in the marketplace, really just exploitation of the female sex? And does that exploitation or objectification ultimately lead to the sexual abuse and violence against women? That’s the argument being put forth by Y-E-S, and the advocacy group says the problem has now reached epidemic proportions in Belize.
Karen Cain, Director Y.E.S.
“We feel that sexual abuse is on the rise. As we have some people have said young children as young as age 9 and we’ve heard age 5 where there is full penetration of these young girls and so we feel that sexual abuse is an epidemic and it has to stop.”
And so at the Radisson Hotel with a captive audience of a Cabinet minister, 4 government CEOs, the Ambassador for Women and Children, a Magistrate and other NGOs, YES, formally launched what it claims will be an aggressive campaign against sexual abuse and exploitation of young girls and women.
Karen Cain,
“Public awareness and public attitude has to change. We feel that we need to bombard the media, bombard people on the street generally just to let them know that sexual abuse is happening and it must stop. One of our biggest challenges is going to be changing public attitude because somehow men in general see young women as sex objects and they go target these young girls. So that is going to be our biggest challenge to change men’s attitude about women.”
And to do that, YES is calling on its partners who packed this morning's press conference to join them. The biggest call was to government and Minister of Human Development Sylvia Flores was there to answer.
KS: Now YES says they aren’t sure if GOB is with them. As a Cabinet Minister are you with them?
Hon. Sylvia Flores,
“I don’t see how government’s position would be that we are against them. This is the future of our country, the young people, we could never be. We are supportive of what they are doing. Certainly there are problems and we continue to work. It is a work in progress. Whatever is happening in our society is an ongoing matter and all of us are trying to meet these responsibilities of addressing these problems.”
But Y.E.S. says its fight to stop the exploitation and sexual abuse is really against organizations actively working against the effort. Pulling no punches, names were called.
Karen Cain,
“Well for example why I would say the church well you know the church is in the business of keeping the family together and by right we have no qualms with that. What I am trying to say though for those families where the perpetrator is the father who is maybe doing sexual abuse in the family, that is not a viable family unit. And so sometimes the priest or father would say to the family try and work it out. But that is at the expense of the child that is being abused in the family. Business and the media, sometimes you know sex sells and they use women bodies to promote products which again is exploitation.”
And whether its exploitation or abuse, the consensus was that starting this morning, these folks will work towards putting an end to it.
Y-E-S has received initial funding from the Europena NGO, Hivos, for the project. A list of those companies or persons WITH or AGAINST the group’s advocacy campaign is listed in a handbook distributed locally.