Building a safer Belize for every child
2025 Annual Report
UNICEF is strengthening national systems to protect children through laws, coordination, diversion, parenting support, and child participation
Belize is taking bold steps to ensure that every child grows up safe, protected, and able to thrive. In 2025, UNICEF Belize worked closely with government ministries, justice actors, and communities to strengthen the national child protection system making it more coordinated, more preventive, and more responsive to children’s needs.
Across legislation, social workforce strengthening, parenting support, diversion programmes, and meaningful child participation, UNICEF’s system‑level work is reshaping how Belize prevents violence, delivers justice, and upholds children's rights.
A more coordinated, preventive, and child‑centered system
Through stronger laws, better‑coordinated justice institutions, expanded parenting support, and active child participation, Belize is building a child protection system that is:
Prevention‑driven
Prioritizing early intervention and family support to address risks before harm occurs, including strengthening parenting programmes and community-based services that promote safe, nurturing environments for children.Evidence‑based
Guided by data, research, and national analyses to inform policies, improve service delivery, and ensure that interventions effectively respond to the realities faced by children and families across Belize.Multi‑sectoral
Bringing together social services, education, health, and justice sectors to deliver coordinated, holistic responses that address the multiple and interconnected needs of vulnerable children.Child‑centered
Placing children’s rights, voices, and best interests at the heart of decision-making ensuring that services are responsive, inclusive, and designed to protect and empower every child.- Sustainable beyond project cycles
Embedding systems, capacities, and partnerships within national institutions to ensure long-term impact, continuity of services, and resilience beyond individual programmes or funding cycles.
UNICEF’s consistent advocacy, technical leadership, and partnership with government and civil society are helping Belize move closer to a future where every child grows up safe, supported, and protected.
Stronger laws and policies to protect children
In 2025, Belize reached a milestone by advancing the Families Bill - a comprehensive modern legislation that strengthens how the country protects children and supports families. UNICEF played a critical role on the Policy and Legal Reform Committee, helping move the bill forward.
The legislation introduces major reforms, including:
- Establishing a Family Court
- Introducing care and supervision orders for children at risk
- Recognizing a child’s right to counselling
- Updating adoption rules
- Strengthening protections for children with disabilities
- Enabling recognition of parent‑child relationships in succession matters
Together, these reforms modernize family law, improve response mechanisms, and ensure that children’s best interests are at the heart of judicial processes.
A national action plan to End Violence Against Children (EVAC)
A breakthrough achievement in 2025 was Belize’s launch of its first comprehensive national EVAC Action Plan, following the country’s pledge at the Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children. UNICEF was instrumental in:
Miestones
UNICEF’s support to the development of Belize’s National Action Plan to End Violence Against Children is grounded in a whole-of-system approach that brings together the health, education, and child protection sectors to deliver a coordinated response. By aligning these three critical ministries, the plan ensures that prevention, early identification, and response to violence are integrated across the services that children and families interact with most. Schools become safe spaces for detection and support, health services play a key role in identifying and addressing signs of abuse, and child protection systems provide the necessary care and legal safeguards. This integrated approach will strengthen collaboration, reduces gaps in service delivery, and ensures that children at risk are identified earlier and supported more effectively helping Belize move toward a more unified, preventive, and child-centered system.
UNICEF’s support to the development of Belize’s National Action Plan to End Violence Against Children has been instrumental in aligning priorities across the health, education, and child protection sectors to deliver a more targeted and strategic response to violence. By bringing these three critical ministries together around shared goals and evidence-based interventions, the plan ensures that efforts are focused, complementary, and mutually reinforcing. This alignment enables each sector to play its distinct role, while working toward common outcomes, strengthening prevention, improving early identification of risks, and ensuring that children receive timely and appropriate support. The result is a more coherent and effective system that addresses violence against children in a coordinated and targeted manner.
Ensuring the plan used the INSPIRE strategies and focused on prevention. In partnership with the government, this represents a major systems‑level shift, placing Belize on a clear path toward coordinated, multi‑sector action to end violence.
Reaching the most vulnerable migrant and trafficked children
UNICEF has worked to strengthen systems that support migrant and displaced children in Belize, recognizing them as one of the most vulnerable groups. In alignment with the Joint UN Migration Workplan for children, these efforts focus on improving coordinated, child-centered responses that ensure protection, access to services, and respect for their rights. Through this approach, UNICEF is helping to build a more inclusive and responsive system that safeguards the well-being of every child on the move. In 2025, UNICEF:
Milestones
Upgraded a government facility into Belize’s first migrant family shelter, this initiative reflects a strong commitment to upholding children’s rights during times of displacement. By retrofitting the space to meet the needs of families, the shelter ensures that children can remain with their caregivers, recognizing that family unity is essential for their protection, emotional well-being, and development. In line with UNICEF’s focus on child-centered protection, the shelter provides a safe and dignified environment where children can access care and support, helping them stay together and continue to grow and thrive even in challenging circumstances.
Child migrant shelters are essential to ensure that children and families on the move are protected, supported, and treated with dignity, especially in vulnerable and uncertain situations. Supporting a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for safe, coordinated shelter management helps to standardize operations, ensuring consistent quality of care and accountability across all services. By putting clear systems and protocols in place, the SOP strengthens protection measures, safeguards children’s rights, and ensures that shelters operate in a structured, child-sensitive manner that prioritizes safety, well-being, and appropriate support for every child.
With approximately 12% of Belize’s children being migrants, this intervention protects family unity and ensures safe, dignified care. In partnership with the Ministry of Human Development, Family Support and Gender Affairs and with funding from the United States Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM), this support reinforces the principle that every child, regardless of where they are born or where they are, has an equal right to protection, safety, and care. By strengthening systems that uphold these rights, Belize is taking important steps to ensure that no child is left behind, and that all children are treated with dignity and supported to thrive.
Enhanced diversion programmes and a more coordinated justice sector
Belize strengthened its child‑justice system in 2025, improving coordination, clarity, and accountability. UNICEF supported the government through:
Participation in the Policy and Legal Reform Committee
Investment in a nationwide diversion tour, engaging justice actors across the country
As a result, Belize:
Streamlined child‑justice governance bodies
Expanded diversion programmes for children in conflict with the law
Advanced justice reforms to protect adolescents of nearly 70,000 young people aged 10–19
These improvements ensure that children receive support rather than punitive responses, and that justice institutions work together more effectively.
Parenting support to prevent violence at home
Violent discipline remains widespread in Belize, underscoring the need for better support to families. UNICEF worked with the Government to pair policy reform with practical tools that shift social norms. This included:
Milestone
UNICEF supported the development of a national parenting policy aimed at strengthening and standardizing support to parents across all parenting programmes. This policy helps ensure that parents receive consistent, high-quality guidance and resources tailored to their needs, regardless of where they access services. By promoting positive parenting practices and strengthening parent–child relationships, the policy contributes to creating nurturing home environments where children can grow, develop, and thrive.
UNICEF supported the update of the national parenting manual to serve as a standardized, practical toolkit for both service providers and caregivers. This revised resource offers clear, evidence-based guidance to help ensure consistency in the delivery of parenting support across programmes, while equipping parents with accessible tools to nurture positive parent–child relationships. By strengthening the capacity of those who support families, the updated manual helps create more cohesive, responsive, and child-centered approaches to parenting support nationwide.
The updated guidance promotes positive parenting and non‑violent discipline, rooted in evidence‑based INSPIRE strategies. These actions help families build safer, more nurturing environments where children can thrive.
Child participation at the centre of system strengthening
UNICEF ensured that children were not just beneficiaries but also active contributors to shaping the system that protects them. In 2025:
The National Children’s Parliament (fifth cohort) deepened partnerships with national governance bodies, allowing children to influence public dialogue.
Adolescents took a bold step by tabling a bill advocating for their right to access preventive health services without parental consent, receiving commendation from the House of Representatives.
These actions show that Belize’s child protection system is increasingly listening to and elevating children’s voices.
Looking Ahead
UNICEF will continue to support Belize in translating these strong policy and system gains into sustained results for every child, with a focus on expanding prevention services, strengthening implementation of the Families Bill and the national EVAC Action Plan, and deepening coordination across sectors.
Efforts will prioritize scaling parenting support, enhancing diversion and child justice mechanisms, and ensuring that the most vulnerable, including migrant and at-risk children, receive timely, integrated care. At the same time, UNICEF will continue to elevate children’s voices in decision-making and strengthen national capacities to deliver inclusive, evidence-based services. Building on the progress of 2025, these actions will help ensure that Belize’s child protection system not only responds to harm, but actively prevents it; creating a safer, more protective environment where every child can grow, thrive, and reach their full potential.
