As of Friday the 13th of July, no child under the age of 16 will be allowed on the streets of Belize City after 8 pm without a parent or guardian. Yesterday the Ministry of Human Development announced that government will be reinstituting a curfew. It is a directive from Cabinet and will be enforced in tandem with NOPCAN, the National Organization for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, and Youth Enhancement Services. The Community Rehabilitation Bureau is one of the implementation agencies and director Fermin Olivera says patrol teams comprised of social workers and police officers will patrol the streets to enforce the curfew.
Fermin Olivera, Director - Community Rehabilitation Bureau
"In the form of conducting patrols, we will have a team of social workers along with the police patrolling the streets of Belize City around the hours of 9 to later in the night and essentially trying to identify kids who meet those conditions or are in violation of those conditions and then they will be processed if picked up. This will involve going to their homes, asking questions to the parents, that kind of thing and the possibility is if a parent cannot be located throughout the course of that night then that child will be brought into care."
Keith Swift,
Isn't the age a little high?
Fermin Olivera,
"Honestly I don't recall what the age limitation was during the last curfew but what we do know is that the legal definition of a child is anybody under the age of 18. However Keith I think our primary concern here has to do with the protection and welfare of the children. Obviously there is room for discretion on the teams that are patrolling and essentially I think that will be one of the main concerns; are these children, the ones that they meet, are they potential victims, can they benefit from some kind of protection. I think those will be the considerations and then the teams will, I guess, decide who they will pick up in the end.
This is not an imposition or a rights violation. It is a preventative protective kind of mechanism and where children are suitably accompanied by adults, doing what families do then there should be no problem there."
Keith Swift,
What's going to happen to the parents of a child who is caught on the street?
Fermin Olivera,
"Well there is always the possibility that charges can be levied against that parent for neglect or something and I guess the parties, the concerned parties, are prepared to take that measure if it is necessary. We are hoping that that will be a last resort however where children are in danger, and likely to be harmed then clearly that would be one of those considerations."
The curfew will run indefinitely, or so they say. Hate to be the skeptics on this one, but in March of 1999, at the height of the girl killings, Cabinet similarly ordered the institution of a curfew. It lasted a good while and then faded away. Again, it was resurrected in October 2004, and in time, a rather short time - that one faded away too. We'll see how this one goes.
