Trying to salvage a dying culture or language can sometimes be easier said than done, particularly because youths are often adapting to other more modernized ways of communicating and interacting. So when we heard that the introduction of Garifuna language in government schools in the south has not only drawn the interest of the students who are Garinagu, but also those of other ethnicities, it showed that teaching that language in those schools may be the way to retrieve that part of the rich Garifuna culture that we all celebrate. C.E.O. in the Ministry of Education, Dian Maheia told News Five today that there is good news to report in that regard.
Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education
“This is a program that they are piloting with nine schools between Stann Creek and Toledo District – primary schools, correct. And the idea is to, of course – this initiative is intended to save the Garifuna language, to ensure the continued use of the Garifuna language. Language is living when you use it, right, so they want to make sure that happens. They have a full program that includes support for teachers. It’s a planned program for rollout in the schools, and the work that has been happening over the past few months shows that it’s been successfully received. It’s being well implemented, even in students who are not Garinagu students. So that’s been an interesting component to look at, right? So we were really happy to learn more about it, to engage. What we see suggests that have we every reason, every confidence that this can be well rolled out, implemented. And yeah, we’re looking forward to seeing this bring more holistic development to the students who are impacted.”
A study done by UNICEF and the Statistical Institute of Belize five years ago revealed that only twenty-four percent of Belize’s children have the support of their fathers as they grow up. The study shows that a mother’s presence is not guaranteed as well, with only sixty-eight percent caring for their children in their first year of life. Established in 1998, the Families and Children Act provides a legal framework for advancing the rights of children, with their best interest as its main priority. From its inception, a man has been required to maintain the children of any of his children, under certain circumstances. That portion of the act is not as commonly known as the part that mandates a man to maintain his own children. But, it became the center of a heated debate inside the Senate on Thursday. The questions everyone now asking are, should grandparents be required, by law, to maintain their grandchildren in the absence of the biological parents, or should this section of the act be repealed and replaced? News Five’s Paul Lopez reports.
Paul Lopez, Reporting
On Thursday, members of the Senate debated a controversial amendment to the Families and Children Act.
Michael Peyrefitte
Michael Peyrefitte, Lead U.D.P. Senator
“The biological father or the biological parents of a child under no circumstance should be relieved of the responsibility of maintaining their children and putting it on the shoulders of someone else.”
The legislative amendment was encouraged by a High Court ruling back in September, 2023. The court ruled that Section 48, Subsection 1 of the Families and Children Act was discriminatory.
Magali Marin-Young
Magali Marin-Young, SC, Attorney-at-law (File: September 7th, 2023)
“That section is discriminatory because it imposes a liability on a man to maintain not only his children, but also to maintain the children of his wife who are living with him at the time, whether are those children are his biologically or not.”
With the High Court ruling in favor of the unconstitutionality of that sub section, an amendment was necessary to reflect the judgment. But, a section that may not be common knowledge also exists under section forty-eight of the act. Section (b) states that every man is required to maintain his own child and the children of any child of his.
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development
“The point of the matter is that the law is there, the Families and Children Act in order to ensure that the child is maintained. That is the first and foremost, responsibility that the act is putting on people, adults, when you are in a family situation. You could adopt a child, fostering a child and that child becomes what you call a child of the family.”
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, the Minister of Human Development, explained that the obligations to a child falls on the either the paternal or maternal grandfather under special circumstances.
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia
“But here is the thing that was mentioned, why would you place responsibility on a grandparent? We are not saying that elderly people should be minding picni, but if you read the thing carefully, and that is why I say, some of them just like to argue, if you read the thing carefully it is saying that you look at the responsibility only where the biological parent, mother or father, they cannot be located, they are ill or they are able to maintain themselves.”
Notwithstanding the fact that this has been enshrined in the laws of Belize for many years, Michael Peyrefitte, the Lead U.D.P. Senator, argued on Thursday that parliament has an opportunity to make certain changes.
Michael Peyrefitte
“The court is the court and if the court has made a decision, if they interpret the law in such a way as it has written and it comes with a result that we do not accept or like. With all due respect to the court, we are parliament and they can make a decision in the High Court, but we in Parliament, we make the law. This is an opportunity, Madam President to make a law that is sustainable to people and makes sense.”
Paul Lopez
“Would Cabinet consider changing this approach if there is a great deal of public concern that warrants such?”
Dolores Balderamos- Garcia
“I would not say so, we have rich discussion in Cabinet about the social issues of our country and we have many people, all I would say, who are very concerned about our social issues. But I wouldn’t say we should prolong the conversation. I say and I repeat the best interest of children has to come first.”
And, concerns did not only come from Senator Peyrefitte. Other senators raised issues of unfairness.
Kevin Herrera
Kevin Herrera, Business Senator
“I know there seems to be an effort to secure the wellbeing of children and I think that is a noble effort. But I think in the instance in the grandparent where it becomes mandatory where their children are unable to, whether through lose lifestyle practices; I think it is extremely unfair.”
Elena Smith
Elena Smith, NTUCB Senator
“I look at for example my own father who passed away a year or so ago. He was ninety-two. So just imagine my brother had children he didn’t take care of, my grandfather who was ninety-two, based on this law, this was the law back then, could have been held accountable for any child my brother didn’t take care of. So, how then could my poor father, the grandfather of these children, not working anymore, being ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two take care of these children.”
On Thursday, the Senate also debated legislation that seeks to establish the National Women’s Commission as a legal body. Lead U.D.P. Senator, Michael Peyrefitte, argued that while the legislation seems like a noble effort on the surface, it gives the minister undue discretion for appointments. He further contended that the commission is a way for the government to employ political cronies.
Michael Peyrefitte, Lead UDP Senator
“This government likes to bring legislation that on the face of it seems noble. But when you really analyze it is anything but noble. It is like when you bring a budget or a supplemental and you have ten things that are ridiculous but one thing is in there that you can’t object to, because they will say oh you object to the supplemental. Unu think unu smart and we stupid. The National Women’s Commission, thirteen members appointed by the minister. If that nuh bad enough, the minister has to appoint the executive director too, for money to be determined quite possibly by that same minister. They put it as prescribed. We have an office or a person in an office that is Special Envoy for Women and Children. We have offices to deal with these issues. WE have a Ministry of Human Development which deals with man and woman, are we saying these people are not doing their jobs, that we need this for what? This is a way to find jobs for the government’s cronies and lackeys while you already cannot find money for the current public officers who are suppose to get their increments and pay.”
Today, we received a response to Senator Peyrefitte’s comments from Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, the Minister of Human Development. She outrightly rejected the notion that the commission is being used as a means to employ political cronies. Here is how she puts it.
Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development
“I was disappointed to year the lead opposition Senator say why do you have a National Women’s Commission and all the members are appointed by the minister. Well, this is the administration that is in the office. And why wouldn’t the minister appoint to the National Women’s Commission which is so important on gender issues. And let me point out for the record, it is not jobs for cronies. It is not jobs for cronies. Every single member of the national Women’s Commission, which is now a statutory body, serves without pay. It is a completely voluntary thing. So it is not jobs for cronies. The chairperson gets a small stipend for the responsibility, what you call the responsibility allowance. And of course, if a member of the commission has to come from Toledo or Corozal, you will cover the food and transportation, but it is on a voluntary basis. I am sure that Senator Peyrefitte wasn’t worried when in the time of the UDP, everybody was appointed by the UDP government. I can think of some very good persons, Ann Marie Williams, Esther Ayuso, many people serve with distinction and I will never put down those women because they had the gender issues of our country at heart.”
A 2022 Inter-American Development Bank study on children in the care of the state in Belize found that sufficient data on the total number of children under care or custody order does not exist. The study did, however, find that close to five hundred children were placed under the care of the state between 2019 and 2021. Approximately the same amount of children exited the care by that age. Interestingly, sixty-eight percent of the children who entered state care in that time period were between the age of fifteen and eighteen. Minister Dolores Balderamos-Garcia explained that while the state has an obligation to care for children in the absence of family members, or by a court order, it comes at a cost to tax payers.
Dolores Balderamos Garcia
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Human Development
“Children get into the hands of the state and becomes wards of the state, number one through a court order, but where a social worker will affirm that there is either abuse or neglect, right. Like for instance, the very sad occurrence in Willows Bank where the mother was murdered. The little child was in and of water and therefore had to be taken in by the state immediately. Those are the cases where Human Services and social workers step in. Let me take this opportunity to commend all of them because we have many children in care, either in the care of government institutions, like the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Center or in private facilities that are sanctioned by the state, for example LOL down in Toledo. They have children and then our inspector of social services institutions make sure they have proper amenities, makes sure the children won’t be abused when they go into care. There is a lot of oversight that we have to do.”
Residents of the Bay Shore Drive area in Corozal Town have voiced concerns over the extent of the environmental impact that a project can have in their community. The project is the construction of a jetty that extends several hundred feet into the Corozal Bay. Whether or not the property owner has gotten the requisite environmental permits to carry out the construction, the residents say they have already begun to see changes in the sea immediately next to where the construction is taking place. They shared with News Five their concerns about the project and its impact on the ecology in their community.
Voice of: June Hartley
Voice of: June Hartley, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town
“We just had a small breakwater a very small beach here, and with the advent of this wall, you can see that the whole tide has changed. Number one, the water is deeper on the other side of the wall than it is in this harbor, and the sand is building up. Sand is building up inside that area and sand is coming over when the tide is high, it’s coming over and filling out this rocky area here.”
Marion Ali
“Which is right in front of your property?”
Voice of: June Hartley
“That’s correct, yes. I know this wasn’t the finished product. This is intended to be a wall as tall as the one on the other side and I can’t really imagine what that will do then to the water; what we will get environmentally when that whole area is blocked off.”
Voice of: Edward Hartley
Voice of: Edward Hartley, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town “I live right next door, so it directly impacts me in every way you can think of and of course, we’ve had a lot of problems with noise, with the construction, with large trucks, unloading boulders, with backhoes, with an excavator, you name it, we have had it. I used to have a view of the lights of Corozal. Now I have a view of a brick wall going out into the ocean and it probably impacts the value of my property.”
Voice of: William Hedlund
Voice of: William Hedlund, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town “Why do you need that big of a breakwater? I could understand if somebody wants to put a breakwater out 50 feet. A lot of these shoreline properties have breakwaters put out to stop erosions, but they all had environmental impact statements done. And this one, by chance or happenstance, doesn’t have anything done to it. It’s about 400 feet out into the bay. And so when you do that – why are you going to do that? Are you going to turn it into a water ski arena? Are you going to turn it into a jet ski arena? What are you going to do? There’s no reason for doing the development like they’ve done it.”
Voice of: Ty Stephens
Voice of: Ty Stephens, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town “Just with the ecology of the sea out there, everything from algae to big fish, everything from algae all the way to the big fish that come through here is going to be affected by it. So detrimentally, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think it would be positive. I love Belize. Obviously, I think Belize is beautiful along with his people. I love everything about it. And I’m just really cautious when it comes to any sort of big man-made situations that we’ve got over here.”
While the residents of the community are concerned about the project that they believe will cause significant environmental damage to the sea and marine life in their residential community, they are probably right. The Chief Environmental Officer at the Department of the Environment, Anthony Mai told News Five that they have given the owner no permission to build the jetty, which sits in the Corozal Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Mai says the department had issued a stop order on the project and that order was violated.
On the phone: Anthony Mai
On the phone: Anthony Mai, Chief Environmental Officer
“The Department of Environment is aware of the construction of the jetty the Corozal Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. In fact, we had received an application for the construction of the jetty. The owner of the jetty started the jetty, in terms of construction a few months ago, and so, a cessation order was issued for the activities to stop in terms of the construction. So we were in communication with the owner of the property on the jetty and we were looking towards settling violation. And then we informed the owner that he would have had to go through a process before the DOE considers whether to grant clearance for the jetty or not. It is unfortunate that during the discussion in terms of settling the matter, the owner went ahead and continued with the construction. So, there has been no permit from the Department of Environment that allowed the construction of the jetty.”
Marion Ali
“What would have to be done now? Obviously, the work has already begun and it extends into the sea.”
Voice of: Anthony Mai
“Yes, so currently, the activity is a violation under the environmental laws, and so the owner will be held responsible for that violation.”
When Jane Ifeanyichineke died of stage four colon cancer a few years ago, her husband applied to the Social Security Board for widower’s pension, believing that he was eligible to collect those benefits. His application was denied and he subsequently sought the counsel of attorney Orson Elrington in a claim against the S.S.B. According to Dozieh Ifeanyichineke, he hired a lawyer to pursue the matter with a view to collect what was due to him under the Benefits Regulations. But instead of resolving the matter in the court, a settlement was reached between the Social Security Board and the widower’s lawyer, one that he says he never agreed to. Ifeanyichineke also contends that the sum that was settled upon was far below what he could have received had they taken the matter to court. Tonight, he is suing Elrington & Company. Here is what the disgruntled widower explained to News Five happened when S.S.B. deposited the settlement funds into his lawyer’s account.
Dozieh Ifeanyichineke
Dozieh Ifeanyichineke, Disgruntled Widower
“On March 22nd, 2022, I submitted a letter of application to the Social Security Board for my wife’s pension to assist us in these, to put it in street language, hard times, tough economic times. On April twenty-ninth, I received a letter from the Social Security Board denying me of my claim. Being convinced, based on my conviction and the legal opinions that I received, I made the decision to challenge the decision of the Social Security Board at the Supreme Court of Belize. That was a decision that I took. And then on May 17th, 2022, I obtained the legal of services of a Belize City attorney to represent me at the Supreme Court in my case against the Social Security Board. What he did was that in that conversation, he explained the provisions of the SSB Act unlawfully discriminates against me because of my sex which is a violation of my rights under Section 16 of the Constitution of Belize. We all know the constitution is the highest law in the land. I think we all know that. Now having explained what my options are he asked what recourse I would take. I explicitly, there was no if and but, I explicitly instructed him to file a constitutional lawsuit at the Supreme Court against the Social Security Board. In that way, by way of a legal victory, I would then seek relief in respect of my wife‘s pension and vindicatory damages. It was on October 18th, 2023, at about 2:24 p.m., I received a telephone call from the attorney informing me that he accepted the settlement from the Social Security Board. To be honest with you, when he mentioned that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.”
Isani Cayetano
“Kindly pause for a minute and let me ask you the following question. When you said he received the settlement, what quantum are we looking at? What are we talking about in terms of the actual dollar amount?”
Dozieh Ifeanyichineke
“Well what I saw was a draft and I want to emphasize that it was a draft, that’s just it, a draft, and on it was written forty-six thousand, five hundred, eighty-eight dollars. That was what I was shown on a draft.”
Attorney Says Claim Against Him is Driven by Greed
News Five contacted attorney Orson Elrington for a response to the claim being brought against him. While Elrington told us that the matter is before the court, he did mention that the matter was initially taken on as a pro bono case which he believed was a landmark case for gender equality. He explains what created the disagreement with his former client.
On the phone: Orson “OJ” Elrington, Attorney-at-law
“We effectively did the matter almost on a pro bono basis, on a contingent basis because the person said they essentially had no money to bring this claim. But I often tell people that I went to law school not to gain any money but because I want to do what is just and what is right for people. So what it is essentially is that we brought a claim on behalf of Dozieh [Ifeanyichineke] based on the fact that a provision in the Social Security Act discriminated against men. Effectively, a provision in the Social Security Act treated men differently than it treated women. It had a higher threshold where there were persons where their wife would have died, were treated differently than a woman if their husband had died. And so, we thought that the matter had very good merit and therefore we took the matter to the court on behalf of Dozieh. However, when the date that the matter was supposed to go before the court, Dozieh contacted us and effectively said that how he no longer wants to accept what he had already accepted because he discussed with his family. That is the crux of it. We informed Mr. Dozieh that that is simply not something that we can do. We informed him that the matter was completed, that we had entered into a consent agreement based on his instructions and, therefore, we could not simply just go back and say we no longer want to accept what he had already accepted. And so, that is where the issue lies. We thereafter told him that he could provide us with his banking information and he subsequently said that he wanted not only the sums which the Social Security had settled on, but he also wanted for us to surrender what would have been our agreed portion and so for me it seems and I believe it is nothing more than greed.”
On February second, the Belize City Council issued a letter to the Christian Workers Union informing them of the implementation of a Consensual Workplace Agreement. The Belize City Council claims that it was created to avoid discrimination, exploitation, favoritism, and harassment. The document is to be signed by both parties involved in the relationship, as well as a witness, and it states that, “while a social relationship continues between them, neither of them will request, apply for, seek in any way, or accept a direct supervisor or reporting relationship with the other”. Here’s what president of the CWU, Leonora Flowers, had to say on the matter.
Leonora Flowers
Leonora Flowers, President, Christian Worker’s Union
“The feedback from the union has to be that our members were never consulted on that. It was never brought to CWU. All we got was the document that said, this is a consensual relationship agreement. At first glance, and I’m no lawyer, but at first glance for the common man, the reasonable man will look at that and say, we cannot go ahead, I cannot sign on to this. So we’ve indicated to our members, give us your feedback, did you have any input, and there has been no input from our members to the council. So we’re at a loss as to why or where that originated from. But, CWU will not have any of our members signing on to such an agreement.”
Reporter
“So you expect that, having sent that letter to the union, at some meeting, it’s going to be raised by the council?”
Leonora Flowers
“We don’t know what to expect. To me, it should be a dead issue because that, that is something illegal to me. You cannot go ahead asking people to sign away their rights when a CBA exists. The most the council can do is to create a policy to say we will not allow fraternizing, and if fraternizing has happened, these are the pitfalls and this is what the council will do. But you cannot say you can sign on to a consensual relationship agreement between persons working under this establishment. We cannot bring like that.”
Reporter
“When you say sign away their rights, you are talking about privacy rights, for one.”
Leonora Flowers
“Privacy rights, and you may be in a relationship, so you’re going to make it, put it in an agreement for the council to, to do what? You cannot have people sign away that kind of rights.”
