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UNICEF along with the Belize Family Court has collaborated on a manual named “Child Rights training Manual for Belize Family Courtâ€￾. It was drafted about 6 months ago and was completed earlier this year. 

And the manual was put into action at a training session today at the Biltmore.  The idea is to educate court officials and other stakeholders on how to handle sensitive cases involving children. Here is that story.

Children 18 years and younger are a vulnerable group. Many children suffer several forms of abuse and violence.

While others get caught up in gang life and crime. But there are many other issues affecting youth.

And today the Belize Family Court along with their partners discussed how they can better respond to these concerns.

Dale Cayetano - Director, Belize Family Court
"The focus of this training is for the stakeholders to be together which is the staff of the family court, Magistrate court, magistrates, police department, human development, community rehabilitation officers and so we are here and we have manual that was written by two consultants which is funded by UNICEF our partner and now what we are doing is that we are going through that manual to train the stakeholders as to what is the best way of protecting our children. Main topics are we look at the way you interview a child. We ensure that the child has not  been traumatized or that the child probably did not come in front of the system before an had a bad experience so you have to ensure that when you speak to a child, that child will feel comfortable and she will not feel that he or she is being re-victimized."

To ensure that the child’s rights are being respected, there are standard procedures in dealing with cases involving children.

Dale Cayetano
"If someone is sexually abused within the household it is normally a social officer who would go to the house and the remove that child from there probably if the child needs medical attention take the child to seek medical help and then the court would step in and give the human development what we refer to as a care order. This care order would then give the human development the authority to keep this child away from the home until the investigation is concluded."

But Cayetano admits that there are shortfalls and loop holes in the system and sometimes these procedures are not followed. This care order

Courtney Weatherburne
"Based on your experience have you seen a breakdown in procedure that have impacted the child negatively in these cases."

Dale Cayetano
"Yes, I don’t want to get specific but I don’t think that as community, I don’t think we have not done enough to assist our young people and it is obvious what we have noticed recently with these children, in certain institutions, so I guess  as an institution we need to focus more in helping those children."

Aside from breakdown in procedure, there are other setbacks.

Dale Cayetano
"Some of the challenges is that sometimes we don’t get cooperation from the parents so they make it difficult for the system to help these children and some other challenges is when we place the children or child in certain institutions, probably we don’t have the expertise to assist them in the type of problem they are facing so that could be a challenge for the court also."

Cayetano says this workshop should help stakeholders get on the right track

Dale Cayetano
"This is a very good start for all of us, that is where we want to head so we can assist those young people."

Joshua Dankoff - American Consultant
"I think that Belize like many other countries certainly including the US where I am from can benefit from improved knowledge and attitudes around children’s rights and making sure that practices are in line with or are being done in best practice so I would say it is really important."

The training concludes tomorrow evening.