Belize has not yet signed on to the Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities and the ILO Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Convention. Other countries in the Caribbean have signed on to and/ or ratified these two conventions. The Dominican Republic is the only Caribbean country that has ratified both conventions. Ratifying a convention makes it legally binding to the ratifying State and signing of a convention indicates the support of the country for the principles of the convention. There are provisions in the conventions that Belize signed on to and or ratified that are not reflected in the country’s laws. Owen (2003) made the following observation: “Unfortunately disabled children have been largely overlooked by the laws of Belize (notably no mention is made of disability in the Belize Constitution Act).” (p. 7). The only mention in the constitution about disability is regarding discrimination where it states the following in the Part II Section 16 (Protection from discrimination on the grounds of race, etc.) Subsection (3). “Unfortunately disabled children have been largely overlooked by the laws of Belize (notably no mention is made of disability in the Belize Con
In this section, the expression “discriminatory” means affording different treatment to different persons attributable wholly or mainly to their respective descriptions by sex, race, place of origin, political opinions, color or creed whereby persons of one such description are subjected to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of another such description are not made subject or are accorded privileges or advantages which are not accorded to persons of another such description.
The International Disability Rights Monitor (IDRM) (2004) concluded that there are no national laws that specifically protect persons with disabilities. This was further echoed by Owen (2003) in an analysis of the compliance of laws of Belize with the Convention of
the Rights of the Child in which he made the following observation.
“Despite the length and clear importance attached to this Article [CRC], there has been a lack of specific legislation in Belize dealing with the status of disabled children and their rights (to support, health, education, development, training, rehabilitation, recreation and care).” (p. 7)
For NaRCIE and other NGOs and GOs the rights of persons with disability are embedded in Part II – Section 3 of the Constitution of Belize even though it does not specifically mention disability. Part II caption is Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Laws have gone from fleeting to specific detailed provisions for children with disabilities to enjoy their rights in the last five years. There are several modifications to the Families and Children Act that are pending ratification including screening, detection, therapy and treatment of a child with a disability, a definition for disabled child, and incl usive education. See Appendix 5. At the next highest level to laws is policy and national plan of the country for which there are a few that currently make provisions for CSN. Stakeholders working for and behalf of children are increasingly discussing the rights and situation of CSN so provisions are accelerating being made in more policies and national plans in Belize. Even though there are no policies for children with disabilities there are other policies that make provisions for CSN. As an example, the draft Early Childhood Education Policy which should be ratified soon has a section entitled ‘Care for Children with Disabilities’ that makes provisions for CSN as shown in Box 7. NaRCIE, which is a government department that is responsible for education of CSN, is mandated to advocate for and facilitate the process for all CSN to receive preprimary, primary, and secondary education. The Five Year Plan (2010-2015) of NaRCIE states that the organization philosophy is as follows.
Page 47