7 News Belize

Study On Youth In Conflict With the Law
posted (July 10, 2012)
Youth at Social Risk and in Conflict with the Law - it's what makes the headlines every night - and now it is the subject of a new study.

Today marks the end of a 5 month long consultation on violence prevention which was done by the International Peacebuilding Alliance. Interpeace, in collaboration with SICA and the Italian Cooperation, conducted these consultations with stakeholders from 4 Central American countries, including Belize.

It's a proposal which they plan to present to the authorities of Belize, but today, they invited the media to the unveiling of their results.

Here's what the coordinator told us about the origin of this proposal, which is expected to be adopted as policy by Belize:

Isabel Aguilar, Coordinator for Interpeace
"We are presenting here a national public policy proposal for the prevention of youth related violence in Belie. This proposal has been develop by Interpeace in a joint effort with the Central American Integration System, The Central America Social Integration secretariat and United Nations Population Fund. All this efforts are in the frame of a regional initiative because youth related violence is a major concern in many Central American countries."

"We developed these proposals in the frame of consultation process here in Belize in which more than 160 people participated from experts in security and preventions, academia, state institutions, civil society organizations and of course we also took into account the youth people because we believe that we are sure that we cannot create or proposed solutions without hearing their voice."

"We have from structural problems like poverty, inequity, discrimination, stigmatization of youth to specific risk factors that can put youth people at risk or high risks, it depends on the combination, but we have the risk factors for example; the lack of education coverage. We have observed many countries that have a higher rate of drop out."

Their findings show that the triggers for at-risk youth violence include the ease of access to drugs, alcohol, firearms, and the lack of a healthcare system which is tailored to adolescents.

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