40% of Belize’s Children Suffer From Poverty

Approximately forty percent of children in Belize suffer from poverty, preventing them from accessing education, justice, security, and health. This figure was revealed during the UNICEF mid-term report on Monday. The report outlines the organization’s work in Belize since 2017.  The report includes the achievements made in protecting the rights of a child but as UNICEF Representative Susan Kasedde and Minister Wilfred Elrington explained, there is much more work to be done.

Susan Kasedde

Susan Kasedde, UNICEF Representative

“We have forty percent of the population of Belize continue to live in poverty. We continue to have extremely high levels o f violence and children affected by violence in the home, community, in school. So we know we need to continue to work on that. We also know that we aren’t fully leveraging the potential of young people through effective high level of completion of secondary school, for example, in tertiary education. So we have continued challenges related to the three years but we also know there have been significant changes reach all political dimensions resulting in migration outward from Belize of some of the best talent that we have that effects service delivery, that effects the capacity that we have for full use of the resources that we have in the different sectors supporting children.”

Wilfred Elrington

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“Our children have many problems really. The report from the UNICEF suggest that as many as fifty percent of our children suffer from serious poverty and our young people. So there is poverty and extreme poverty creates all kind of problems. It affects their capacity to learn. It effects their capacity to maintain good health. It affects their capacity to get justice, to have proper housing. It is terrible situation so that every effort has got to be made by the government or by our international partners to help to enhance and improve the conditions of our children. That is what has been going on with UNICEF as the forefront UN agency to help revive the necessary assistant both in justice, health, nutrition, education and the likes.”