“Child Protection is Everybody’s Business”

A string of recent arrests involving sexual violence against children has shaken communities across Belize, and advocates say the moment calls for more than outrage.

This morning, staff from the Yarborough Community Resource Center took part in a training session at the Department of Youth Services as part of the UNICEF-led Blue Teddy Bear Campaign, a nationwide effort to equip everyday Belizeans with the knowledge to recognize child abuse and report it. The campaign is being run in partnership with the National Commission for Families and Children and the Ministry of Human Development.

Lead consultant Carla Alvarez said one of the biggest obstacles to protecting children is not a lack of concern, but a fear of getting involved.

“Sometimes we see things, but we are afraid to report because there’s that fear that we’re gonna be exposed as the reporter,” she said. “But I think that we have reached a point in our society where we know that our children are exposed from an earlier age to things that perhaps us as adults when we were that age were not exposed to, because of technology and so on.”

Alvarez was direct about who bears responsibility for keeping children safe, pushing back against the idea that child protection is someone else’s job.

“Child protection is everybody’s business. It’s not just the business of the police or community-based organizations or UNICEF. It’s everybody’s business,” she said.

The training also challenged a common assumption about where abuse happens. Alvarez said participants were reminded that child abuse does not only occur in low-income households or troubled homes. It cuts across every level of society, which is part of why it so often goes unspoken.

She also broadened the definition of what abuse actually looks like, stressing that it goes far beyond physical or sexual violence. Psychological harm, emotional abuse, and neglect are just as real and just as damaging, but far less likely to be recognized or reported.

“There has to be that talk and that dialogue about what exactly is child abuse and violence,” Alvarez said. “One of the goals of this training is to ensure that everybody understands the ramifications of what encompasses abuse and violence.”