LEGISLATION
10
The rights of Belizean children are embedded in several international conventions and declarations and national laws, policies and plans. As a signatory to the conventions and declarations shown in Table 10.1, Belize has an obligation to ensure that these legal frameworks are translated into national laws, policies, plans, and activities so that all children enjoy all their rights. The major challenge for Belize to fully achieve the provisions of these conventions and declarations is the lack of resources which is manifested more in rural communities where the population is widely dispersed than in urban communities. For example, children in rural areas have less access to preschool education, services from NaRCIE, and medical services than those from urban areas. In both rural and urban areas transportation is a limitation to get children with mobility impairments to school. For example, at the Special Education Center in Dangriga in 2011 had a bus that was transporting children with disabilities to school but sometimes parents did not have the $.50 to pay the fare. The bus is currently not running which cause some children not to be in school because most parents cannot afford other means of getting their children to school. Another case is a child with Downs Syndrome in San Jose village who is not attending school because he lives more than a mile away from the closest primary school. Legislations exist to protect these children but they are not fully enforced. The Family and Children Act 173 of 2000 assert that “The State shall take appropriate steps to ensure that children with disabilities are afforded equal opportunities to education.� (p. 20) According to IDRM (2004) Belize was the only country in the Americas that had no legal protections specifically for people with disabilities and Belize and Guyana were the only two countries without an official definition of disability. Most of the international conventions are embedded in the country’s laws. For example, the CRC stipulates that all children with disabilities have the right to education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreational opportunities and these rights are enshrined in a general manner in the
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