Abuse hotline opens

Those fighting child abuse have a new weapon: the Child Abuse Reporting Hotline. Today the Department of Human Development opened the twenty-four hour hotline, which will be operated from the Family Services Division. It will be answered by a social worker from eight in the morning to five in the evening and the line will be transferred to the police during the night. Social workers in Belize City and all the district towns will be equipped with pagers in order to provide support and advice. According to the Director of the Human Development Department, Roy Bowen, all information discussed on the hotline will be kept in the strictest of confidence.

Roy Bowen, Director, Dept. of Human Development

“A couple of months ago when the Minister was about to sign the Child Reporting Regulation we called B.T.L. and they offered to put in a free hotline where someone can call from anywhere in the country and report child abuse. We are setting in the infrastructure today.”

Q: “What type of training will the police officers who take over at night get?”

Roy Bowen

“We will train them to fill out the forms and how to handle people who call because the nature of child abuse cases is different from any regular criminal case they normally handle.”

Rosemary Fieth, Country Representative, UNICEF

“The role UNICEF is playing in this is we needed to be able to contact staff and they needed pagers. We were happy to provide provision for the pagers. I think B.T.L. will maintain them but we made the purchase.”

The hotline toll free number is 0-800-PROTECT or 0-800-776-8328.