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NCFC Says Cops Violated UN Convention In Wild Arrest Scene
posted (September 27, 2019)
For the last two nights we've been reporting on the viral video of a teenaged girl being subjected to a humiliating physical beating at the hands of police in board daylight on a busy street. Yesterday her parents told us how horrified they were to see how the police treated their daughter.

Today, the National Committee for Families and Children issued a Press release saying, quote, "The manner in which the situation was handled resulted in the child being disrespected and demeaned publicly."

Today, NCFC's Communications Officer told us that while the situation demonstrated a lack of police training, it was also a specific violation of article 19 of The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of A Child.

Ava Diaz Sosa, Information, Education, and Communications officer - NCFAC
"Article 19 speaks to the rights of a child not to be mistreated and if you looked at that video the child, she was being mistreated, not only physically but also her underwear was exposed and all that."

"When we looked at the video it was very disturbing on several levels because our role is to protect the rights of children and we take that very seriously now we're not an implementing agency so we work with partners to ensure that the rights of children are respected and when you look at the video you saw that the rights of the child was being violated. Now that's not to say that we're condoning the actions of the child because we keep saying that with rights come responsibilities and respect so we're not condoning the actions of the child, however, we believe that as law enforcement officers those officers out there lost control of the entire situation at some point and we believe that with proper training the situation could have been handled differently."

"We need to be careful and remember that at all times you must respect the child's rights. We conduct trainings on the convention of the rights of a child regularly."

"Whenever something like this comes along it raises a flag for us because obviously it shows that there is much more need for education and awareness in situations like these."

"We would hope, and we're planning to get in touch with the commissioner of police because that situation, earlier this week, shows that there is a need for officers to be trained and that is extremely important."

"We know that being a police officer in this time is not easy we accept that because we know that they are facing a number of challenges that we can't even begin to understand but from our end we always have to keep thinking about children that's the core of what we do. For us we have to keep looking at the welfare of our Belizean children."

THE NCFC will continue to provide training for their various partners and continue in their mission to ensure the well being of Belizean children.

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