The first national symposium on the commercial sexual exploitation of children was held today. It's an effort to get society at the official and the unofficial level to confront the awful reality that this type of sexual abuse is too common to turn a blind eye.
And while you may not know what commercial sexual exploitation is, you may be familiar with situations where adults - most times parents - permit sexual abuse of children to occur or persist in exchange for money.
This is often the kind of thing that happens in private, so there are no hard figures, but there is the certain knowledge that it is happening in Belize, and in hard times, it is sure to be happening even more frequently.
That was the backdrop for today's first national symposium on the commercial and sexual exploitation of children, which was held under the patronage of the prime minister's wife, Special Envoy for Women & Children, Kim Simplis Barrow who took a vocal lead.....
Kim Simplis-Barrow
"We cannot sit in silence and ignore the cries of our children when we have the power to do something about the situation. Children are our future but perhaps more importantly they are our present. Time is of the essence because whatever we do or whatever we do not do, affects them now as well as shapes their future."
A desperate appeal on behalf of the hundreds of sexually exploited children of this country by Special Envoy for Women and Children, Kim Simplis Barrow. And who better to draw attention to such a plight, than the wife of the Prime Minister.
Kim Simplis-Barrow
"Until recently many people did not want to acknowledge CSEC is a horrific rights violation that many Belizean children were and are actually experiencing, so for much too long we ignored this phenomenon. It remained as the Spanish saying goes, 'un secreto a voces.'"
Belize like the rest of the region has seen a increase in the numbers of its young being commercially sexually exploited, and while poverty in the Americas is seen as the primary motive, a sexist culture, social tolerance of the problem and outright impunity on the part of the exploiters are some other factors that perpetuate and socially legitimize the exploitation.
But above all these there is still an even more insidious contributing factor.
Hon. Peter Eden Martinez, Minister of Human Development
"In the Belizean scenario the majority of victims are not found in the brothels and street corners. The unfortunate and might I say the unacceptable truth is that many of the young people involved in CSEC are involved with either the direct or indirect complicity of parents and guardians."
Kim Simplis-Barrow
"Seeing something occur repeatedly may have desensitized us to a certain extent. But not because something appears to be customary, occurring for generations in some cases means that it should be allowed to continue."
Many boys, girls and adolescents, regardless of their sex, age, economic background or race, are trapped in CSEC, which exists precisely because there is a demand on the part of adult men and women, for sexual activities with persons under 18, either for satisfying their own personal pleasure or for obtaining financial gain for these acts.
In a study conducted on commercial sexual exploitation in Belize, over one hundred fifty people, including men, women, children and adolescents from a cross section of the communities in three districts, namely Belize, Cayo and Orange Walk, confirmed the occurrence of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents. Thirty of those same respondents were themselves victims.
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