COVID 19 Impact on LGBT Belizean

16/04/2020

The first COVID-19 case was confirmed 23rd, March, 2020 , in San Pedro, a Caye over one hour, off the coast of Belize City. Immediately, the government of Belize declared a state of emergency for 72 hours. As COVID expanded to Belize City and San Ignacio, that partial state of emergency was extended to the entire country starting April 1st after the 3rd case was confirmed by the Belize Ministry of Health.

Enter, colleague, Elisa Castellanos, with hurricane force winds who called me by whats app and peppered me with questions about helping sex workers with food for their children and LGBT sex workers in the northern part of the country. I had no answers!  Obligation and a need to find answers prevailed, as  I began to assess all things COVID-19 and plaster the information on social media for Belizeans to read. I began crossing the L.G.B.T isle to look at persons with disability and promptly engaged the president that head this population as well. Sharing  the food pantry and COVID-19  links, two separate program. I shared the links with our L.G.B.T colleagues with, Our Circle, leading the way, a LGBT family focus non-governmental  organization that produced a flyer with simply statistics. The link was shared to my pool of 5,000 people on facebook with the hope that our communities will see it and actual apply for the short-term food help.

I received the message, "am very hungry can't handle it any more." I immediately shared the food pantry form by messenger and encouraged him to complete and submit the form. I found out later a fellow who has family in the southern part of the country use the link to fill out the food pantry form. Today, I can report that  forms for COVID relief and food pantry has been circulated by facebook, and personal message. I can report our colleagues at PETAL are offering mental health support and our colleague at TIKKUM Olam has been doing her part to increase access to the forms among sex workers and a few from the L.G.B.T community. To be clear COVID-19 offers, assistance up to$150 Belize for three months to those who have lost their jobs due to  COVID-19 in the tourism and construction sector. If unemployed persons do not qualify for assistance, the food pantry program offers hope. 

The food pantry and COVID-19 forms  both are is straight forward, allowing a cell number to be recorded for a quick response by text. The latter form asks for a bank account to speed up payment should an individual  get approved or not in the system. To encourage persons from the LGBT population to use the system,we leveraged data from the Our Circle organizations which  pointed out that  44% claimed to not have tried in anyway shape or form to access government resources with only 9% L.G.B.T participants utilizing the state food distribution and relief program. This is problematic, as taxpayers, living with non-existent social safety net and even less legal protection. For sex workers and LGBT sex workers they are especially vulnerable to the limitation of the state of emergency and COVID-19 infections as their services require close contact. More importantly, income-generation is done day to day, they generally, don't pay into the social security system. They are in essence part of an underground economy who provide services that can be severely, disrupted by national disaster or a pandemic.

We discovered many, don't have a bank account;  ability to access online forms, remain inaccessible due to data availability, caused  due to lost of income triggered  by the Belize State of Emergency declared for April 1st; many are not part of the tourism sector which does not help when sex work is a day to day service. Over 59,000 applied for COVID-19 assistance relief, so far, in an economy that generated 44.9% of Belize GDP from tourism in 2018. With 23,000 approved for assistance, the curious question is how  many LGBT Belizean were part of the approved pool. We know at least two. One lesbian women said, "On Monday, April 6, 2020 I applied for the unemployment relief assistance as I am a Tourist Guide. Today, one week later, I got a message that I was approved and my application was sent to Social Security Board for payment.."

Complementing the national response are efforts of assessments through the Equal Rights Coalition CSO Core group, dialogue with LGBT activist in the Caribbean and conversations about impact of COVID-19 through the Commonwealth Equality Network, Human Rights Campaign and regional partner like Caribbean Vulnerable Communities, but assessments, do not translate into actual action on the ground immediately for LGBT or sex worker populations. In simply terms. hungry LGBT Belizeans cannot wait for trickle down effect of a transnational response in Civil Society response. In addition, in response to US measures to re direct much needed materials like ventilators and mask to their response Doctor Marvin Manzanero say, "We are aware that the U.S. has put a place policy to restrict exportation of PPEs and other items to combat COVID19. ...there was a delay with the ventilators getting here and that is causing a further delay in further ventilators getting here...., we are looking at avenues of where we can reroute items that would be coming routinely through the U.S. so that they can get here in the time that they are needed. We are not only sourcing outside only from the U.S., but we are sourcing from Central America, Mexico, China as well.”

Nationally, the government of Belize offered COVID relief, quickly, but the global pandemic is slowly pushing the country towards the economic edge. At the end of 2018, Belize's foreign debt stood at $3.58b Belize and Mayors asking for grants for their Council operations is pushing central government to the edge of financial stress. Adding lost of revenue, the Prime Minister announced, that $100m is expected to support the Boost program and that persons approved in the pantry food assistance will be transferred into it because the program will last a bit longer. He added that government is prepared to extend support for seven more months as needed and that 4000 households have been approved for the food pantry program affecting 17,000 Belizeans. This is good news for ordinary citizens in the short term,

COVID-19 has limited state services in our Judiciary, criminal and Civil Rights cases that The United Belize Advocacy Movement has supported is being pushed back due to shifting operational time of our court. We saw  the freezing of our Equal Opportunities Bill because of COVID 19, along with community meetings  that affected project implementations designs. But  work is under way to open a conversation about adjustments.

As to my colleague Elisa Castellanos, who continues with her work with marginalized women, Our Circle continue to use their virtual platform to educate about COVID and LGBT families; UNIBAM continuing to circulate health research articles virtually about COVID-19 to our audience of 5,619 persons, document cases of rape and immigration virtually and translate data into recommendations for resources and seek opportunities at the months progress. The S.O.E or State of Emergency was only for 30 days, but its already feels like its been years in the making. With 18 cases and rising, we shall see how the infected and affected survive. In the mean time, this experience will be the greatest test of our humanity. Only time will offer the results!

Source:
https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2020/04/13/tracking-the-detection-and-history-of-covid-19-cases-in-belize/

Food pantry form
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNSXrU-xBiBlHDnrImEdkQIDWU6B4bg_nLPMEpscrxv-6GVQ/viewform

COVID 19 assistance form
https://portal.covid19.bz/individual/index.php

US measures
https://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/201323

San Pedro State of Emergency
https://amandala.com.bz/news/state-of-emergency-declared-san-pedro-under-covid-19-lockdown/

National State of Emergency Declared
https://www.sanpedrosun.com/business-and-economy/2020/03/31/national-state-of-emergency-declared-for-belize-prime-minister-addresses-the-nation/

approved so far:
https://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/201406
Foreign Debt
https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2019/02/22/belizes-foreign-debt-hovers-just-below-100-of-gdp-average-belizean-now-owes-approximately-9-thousand-dollars/

COVID Assistance Relief
https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2020/04/09/over-59000-belizeans-apply-for-covid-19-relief-assistance-payments-processed-for-1400-people/