ORT has formally challenged Belize Tourism to a social media duel. The Belize Tourism Board Action Plan 2010-2012 relies heavily on the deployment of social media marketing to draw international tourists. Unfortunately, social media is only a vehicle and not...
Belize has removed the muzzle from its news media, letting them report on the latest big narcotics and human trafficking busts in that country. Why is that? There are many things in the air over Belize, none of it good. All of it leads back to what...
It’s can be fatal to openly gay in Belize. Call it a product of this country’s deep-rooted macho culture or the so-called “anti-buggery” laws that remain on the books, but it is not a safe environment for gay travelers or those who live there in silence and...
opinion by bettyAphilips | 1 year ago | updated 1 year ago 454 views | 2 recommendations | 3 comments
It’s illegal to sell condoms in Belize, a country with the highest rate of HIV in Central America. More than 2 percent of the population is HIV or AIDS-infected, which is the same rate as Ethiopia and Angola. While condoms are widely available for sale in...
*A 22-year-old female Honduran reported to Police, in the presence of a Human Service Officer, that sometime between May1, 2010 and May, 31, 2010 a female known to her as Tanisha Tucker recruited her by false promises and transported her to Belize through the Western...
There is no bottom to the abyss to which crime has plunged. Six persons were murdered in the weekend’s wave of terror; four in the city and two in the west. How do you top this new record? There is yet no official comment, but there is general public outrage at the...
I am an Honduran national who was taken to Belize when I was 17 on a promise of work and hope for my family. Most of the stories you hear about women like me are about how we are voluntary prostitutes and that we came to Belize of our own free will. This is hardly the case....
opinion by bettyAphilips | 1 year ago | updated 1 year ago 353 views | 1 recommendation | 0 comments
My real name is Elvira I had a laugh you wouldn’t forget My street name was Maria I’ll never laugh again He took me from my village With a promise of decent work Drove me across the Chetumal border In the trunk of his father’s Merc I laughed when I tasted sea-spray As...
A few weeks ago, the Belize government contacted me to start talking about how our organization could work with them to begin addressing human trafficking issues. I was encouraged that a high-placed government official had made the initial overture and I agreed to begin...
opinion by bettyAphilips | 1 year ago | updated 1 year ago 146 views | 0 recommendations | 0 comments
By Albert Ciego - Staff Reporter A police detachment from Belize on special assignment to San Pedro has arrested a 24-year-old Guatemalan woman and charged her with human trafficking. Four other Guatemalan women, ranging in age from 19 to 23, have been arrested...
This is the story about Charlie. She never had to consider herself a total whore like a lot of the girls. She had been trafficked from Nicaragua two years before we met her. We found her working in an Orange Walk ficha bar and because she was very tall and not...
Under Belize law, bar owners are supposed to be penalized if prostitution is found on their premises. This law is never enforced in Belize. The following is taken directly from BELIZE INTOXICATING LIQUOR LICENSING ACT, CHAPTER 150, REVISED EDITION 2000 (SHOWING THE LAW AS...
Everyone is a victim Everyone Thinks This of Trafficked Women Over the last four months our campaign to expose the human trafficking tragedy in Belize has been challenged by some. I have been called an opinionated blogger. I can assure you I offer a great deal more...
The trial is a consequence of a national police raid on three ficha bars in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye. This was a raid that saw the chief of Belize’s criminal investigation branch refer to a hardcore human trafficking ring in this tourist area. And he also said...
created by bettyAphilips | 1 year ago | updated 1 year ago 339 views | 0 recommendations | 0 comments
Belize is showing positive signs against the battle they face on Human Trafficking. Mrs. Kim Barrow August 26, 2010 Today is the second day of the first national symposium on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Belize. Representatives from a wide cross...