UN committee calls on Belize to strengthen its missing persons system

Belize recorded 892 missing-person reports over the past several years, and a United Nations committee is now calling on the country to improve the way those cases are tracked and investigated. The committee also wants Belize to account for people who remain missing, create a more reliable national record and update the law to specifically deal with enforced disappearance.  Between 2019 and 2023, police recorded 589 missing-person reports. Of that number, 304 people returned and 17 were found dead. The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has asked Belize to explain what happened in the remaining 268 cases.

For 2025, Belize reported 99 missing persons. Forty-five percent were found safe, 47 percent of the cases remained under investigation and four percent involved people who were found dead. Belize admitted that its record-keeping and follow-up system needs work. One of the problems is that people may return home, but the police record is not always updated. The Government says it is now sorting through the information and expects to have a more reliable police database by the end of this year.  The committee also wants Belize to make enforced disappearance a separate crime. This refers to a situation where someone is taken into custody by the State, or by people acting with its approval, and the authorities then refuse to say where that person is or what happened to them.  Belize told the committee that there are no recorded cases of enforced disappearance in the country. Kidnapping, abduction and unlawful detention are already crimes, but the committee says those laws do not cover everything that would be involved in such a case.  Belize joined the international convention in 2015, but more than ten years later, it has still not been fully written into local law. Cabinet approved that process in June 2025 and instructed the Attorney General’s Ministry to prepare the necessary legislation. That work is expected to begin in June 2027.  The committee also wants police and other officials who handle people in custody to receive specific training on enforced disappearance. At present, officers receive general human-rights training, but the subject is not covered on its own.  One part of Belize’s system was praised. A missing-person report can be made immediately; families do not have to wait 24 or 48 hours before going to the police.  The review does not mean the UN has found that Belizean authorities are responsible for making people disappear. It means Belize is being asked to account more clearly for unresolved missing-person cases, improve its records and close gaps in the law.