Claims of Sexual Abuse at Primary School

A teacher of an Anglican school in Belmopan is speaking out against what she describes as sexual assault against one of the school’s staff. The teacher wrote an email to media houses and officials from the Ministry of Education in which certain claims were made against a male teacher. The teacher says the email was sent because no one is doing anything about it. Today we asked Education Minister Francis Fonseca if he is aware of the allegations. Here is how he responded.

Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education: “Just yesterday evening because as you know we had a long meeting yesterday with the unions, when I came out of that meeting the CEO messaged me and told me that there was an incident she wished to brief me on today. I have no had that opportunity as yet but I’m aware that there was an incident there and I’m hoping to get a briefing later today to find out what has happened but I have made it very clear that there must be zero tolerance for that type of behavior in our education system and it’s very important that as soon as these things are uncovered that it is reported to the Ministry of Education. We have found in too many instances that the schools try to deal with it internally for whatever reasons and it’s not reported in a timely manner to the Ministry of Education. So that we have to make sure that that does not happen, there must be zero tolerance at every level and we must take- we must all take these matters very seriously. So the managements have to take them seriously. No it should not be that you’re transferring the problem to another school they have to take it seriously and we have to deal decisively with individuals obviously they are allegations, there’s due process but we have to take these matters very seriously.”

Information to Love News is that the male teacher has been transferred to another school in Belmopan. We’ll keep following this story.