Belize Launches Unified Child Protection and Justice Committee

Belize is taking a new step to better protect children and strengthen justice for young people. Today in Belize City, officials launched the Child Protection and Child Justice Steering Committee, a national body that brings key agencies together under one umbrella. The move follows a 2024 assessment that found serious gaps in coordination and accountability. The committee is being led by the National Commission for Families and Children, the Ministry of Human Development, and UNICEF Belize. Attorney General Anthony Sylvestre told us why this new body matters.

 

Anthony Sylvestre, Attorney General

“It’s very important to address issues with respect to child protection and child justice from a coordinated approach. And so what has been done is that through the auspices of the National Commission for Families and Children, there were two committees that addressed it. You had a child justice committee, and you had a child protection committee. They were bifurcated. So, experience has shown over time that it’s best to have a collaborative effort. And so you have stakeholders from various agencies, whether it be law enforcement, whether it be the court, whether it be in social service, all coming together to address the issue of child protection and child justice. And so,this newly formed subcommittee, which is just called the Child Protection and Child Justice Committee, it has developed a work plan, a 2026-2031 work plan. And, I have to give them tremendous  kudos and commendation for the, the invaluable work that they have done to put together various, outcomes and plans geared towards an aim towards ensuring that we have a better and more oriented approach to addressing child protection and child justice. There are various areas that, that they will be targeting and one of the things that that they’ll be doing is that they’re providing to the government certain recommendations with respect to policies that, that need to be revamped, that need to be tweaked and a part of, the membership on this committee includes the Attorney General’s Ministry, and so that helps in terms of ensuring that in a more timely manner we’ll be able to have legislation which touch and concern families and children, that those are able to be addressed. And again, in a more timely manner we’ll be able to tackle the concerns.”

 

By bringing key stakeholders under a single framework, the newly consolidated CPJSC will immediately begin implementing a five-year strategy aimed at providing a faster, more coordinated, and child-focused response to cases of abuse, neglect, and exploitation across the country.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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