Are you concerned about the number of children begging on the streets?
Just about everyone who has been downtown or elsewhere in the City has been approached by the large number of persons begging for some change. Initially that profession was confined to the homeless but that has changed significantly with unemployment and school children on vacation. Tonight we ask: Are you concerned about the number of children begging on the streets? Get involved by emailing your comments and responses to questions@channel5belize.com or by sending a text, using SMART phones only, to 8686. You can also participate in our online poll at www.channel5belize.com.
Where are the children parents?
These children on the streets are coming from poor famalies, with one parent. A lot of the time parent sent their kids out on the street to beg and in the process have to face sexual and physical abuse, and even murder.
The police need to start picking up those kids from off the streets take them home and arrest their parents for negligence, it is summer time, these kids should be in a summer program, associating with kids their own age, and being kids, not out on the strrets begging for money for their parents, it is a parent responsibility to take care of the kids that they brought into this world.
Belize is fallen apart by the hem.
Most of the time those children begging are the ones becoming gang members……killing for what they believe is survival!!!they need to be dealt with now…..
These kid have to find a way to survive as system is set in a way to keep the poor, poor and the rich gets richer. Our government need to set up and do what they are elected as times are harder and people need to survive. I prefer to see the kids begging which is far better than stealing or killing for the basics of life. Poor people have to eat as well!
This subject is a profound situation that we have to deal with as an collective body because it can or will effect all of us end of the day
I ask the government to kindly do something about this. I know some parents are trying their best by working. A lot of our parents don’t have a good paying job to help their children. JOB AVAILABILITY!
I ask the present GOB to assist organisations that can prepare these children with job skills or other positive life skills.
Begging is no “profession”!
Linna your comment is not true, where are the facts behind your statement??? You are simply of the opinion! You need to look up social issues in the Caribbean (crime, violence, abuse, etc.), read the Socioogy for the Caribbean and see where things really start. It’s good to visually look around but looks are deceiving, what you may be hearing may not be in fact what you think is true. I was a social science major and I have read many research papers conducted right here in belize as well as the Caribbean and let me tell you… the majority of gang members started out from poor families indeed, a few were from the middle class, which was a bit hard for me to accept, but true… they got involve in gangs due to peer pressure and an overlooked aspect of revenge “an eye for an eye” because they are watching the possibility and conviction rate of communities as to whether they would be able to get away with committing a crime(s), they felt marginalized, dependent and powerless amongst other things as well… Rarely, did the children (beggars) become a part of a gang. With the way our society is; anything can be possible in the future but it’s best not to start stereotyping these children because there’s such a thing as repeating to a child over and over that they are something until literally they start believing that what you are saying is true so therefore they actually become it. (Forgot what the term was for this).
And maddy, there are not enough free places to host all the children of the country let alone Belize City itself some require that you pay, and money many poor families are not able to pay… many times it’s catch and kill for them (and this is a fact). And one cannot simply arrest the parent, if the parent is taken away who will be their guardian? And don’t even bother to suggest Dorothy Menzies Children’s Home becasue as it is already…it’s very crowded (in my opinion “overcrowded” would be best)! Some parents have little control over their children, you tell them to do one thing and they do another, thinking that they are adults. We as citizens need to stop giving them money on a whole, if a child sees that they are begging and they are not receiving anything, then will in the process get tired and decided to quit because simply it’s useless. Discouragement for this kind of issue (begging) is the best option I believe then we won’t have to be asking the question “Are we concerned about the number of children begging in the Streets!
We NEED ACTIVE SOCIAL SERVICES. WE need to help those who can’t help themselves. NGOs should take the lead and drag government into it.
the term is called “Self-fulfilling prophecy”(Sociological term)- the prediction that if you tell a person something good or bad about themselves or what they will become they will believe it and may just well become what you said they would be.
I remember being a kid in my primary school uniform coming out of my parent’s car and walking across the parking lot to Save-U and having these kids my age or younger coming up to me and my folks and asking for money. I remember feeling so uncomfortable, embarrassed, guilty even.
Not everyone have parents with car and money.Some people are not that fortunate. Some of these same kids begging today could someday be productive citizens if given a chance.If not they will be your killers of tomorrow,so instead of feeling embarrassed , and guility do something to make a difference.
Instead of buying expensive suvs for ministers and flying first class to conferences, the goverment of Belize should be investing these same monies into meaningful social programmes aimed at alleviating poverty.
get the money from musa to feed these so call street children.he still can’t give account of it but barrow can’t or don’t want to do nothing about that.if these politician stop stealing then only then we might have some money to spear.
This is not just negligence on the part of parents; it is also considered child abuse. It all boils down to the poverty that much of our citizens are suffering in these times. One can draw many conclusions from this. What are the root causes of this situation? Let’s look to the Government for solutions; our natural resources are to be used to alleviate this suffering of our people, and not to make the elite more elite.
Conflict theorist says “We as citizens need to stop giving them money on a whole, if a child sees that they are begging and they are not receiving anything, then will in the process get tired and decided to quit because simply it’s useless”; however this may cause steeling and robbery in the end. Many of these children are out there because they are hungry, if they give-up and quit begging then starvation sets in, then what? Many of these children are now adults in jail, dead or running from the law, some of them in the end turn out to be decent citizens. ??????
Jah Seh, feed my children!
Opposite of Sav U, (where there’s always a large number of kids begging), are certain high ranking political figures drinking in front of Brads’ shop, playing dominoes, and watching these 7 to 12 year old kids begging, often times during school hours.
Begging children are common in developing countries. Poverty is an issue but selfish parents & grandparents play a bigger role. Most of us had extended families or adults we looked up to who lived in our neighborhoods & kept a watchful eye while our parents were at work. Many Belizeans still have that, the others need to turn off the TV. I don’t understand why people who cannot afford food can pay for cable TV & cell phones. Priorities!!!
Remember dipping hot tortilla in coconut oil & washing it down with rain water, when a half a pound of pigtail seasoned the beans & fed a family, when we would settle for the cheaper fish the fisherman had left over & boil cake filled the void in our stomachs. It was not a shame to grate your own coconut & squeeze the milk. Maybe it was not the most nutritious but it was tasty, cheap & filling. We have empty lots around the city & outside the city, if the government needs to house the kids, require the parents to work in a community garden that grows food for their children to eat or pay child support.
The CHURCHES and the NGO’s need to STEP UP!!! Forget about the government for now.