Belize

3 Kidnapping, Abduction, Forced Marriage, Abandonment and Incest

57. Forcible Abduction for Marriage

Every person who takes away or detains against her will a female of any age with intent to marry or carnally know her, or to cause her to be married or carnally known by any other person, shall be liable to imprisonment for thirteen years.

58. Compulsion of Marriage

Every person who by force or duress causes any person to marry against his will shall be liable to imprisonment for two years.

59. Special Provision as to Abetment

Every person who, knowing that any of the crimes mentioned in sections 54 to 58 has been committed in the case of any person, abets the unlawful detention of such person, or otherwise abets the execution of the intent with which that crime was committed, shall be deemed guilty of that crime.

74. If a female be compelled to marry another person by such force or duress as avoids the marriage or makes it voidable the marriage is of no effect for the purposes of Part I with respect to consent.

3. Kidnapping, stealing a person and abduction-Definitions

77.-

(1) A person is guilty of abduction of a female who, with intent to deprive of the possession or control of the female, any person entitled thereto, or with intent to cause her to be married to or carnally known by any person-

(a) unlawfully takes her from the lawful possession, care or charge, of any person; or

(b) detains her from returning to the lawful possession, care or charge, of any person.

(2) The possession, control, care or charge, of a female by a parent, guardian, or other person, shall be held to continue notwithstanding that the female is absent from his actual possession, control, care, or charge if such absence be for a special purpose only and be not intended by the parent, guardian or other person, to exclude or determine such possession, control, care or charge, for the time being.

(3) A person is not guilty of abduction by taking or detaining a female unless he knew or had grounds for believing that the female was in the possession, control, care or charge, of some other person.

TITLE XVII Bigamy and Unlawful Marriage

317.

Every person who performs or witnesses as a marriage officer the ceremony of marriage, knowing that-

(a) he is not duly qualified to do so;

(b) any of the matters required by law for the validity of such marriage has not happened or been performed;

(c) the marriage is void or unlawful on any ground, shall be liable to imprisonment for seven years.

318.

Every person who in any declaration, certificate, licence, document or statement, required by law to be made or issued for the purposes of a marriage, declares, enters, certifies or states, any material matter which is false shall-

(a) if he does so without having taken reasonable means to ascertain the truth or falsity of such matter, be liable to imprisonment for one year;

(b) if he does so knowing that such matter is false, be liable to imprisonment for five years.

319. Every person who endeavours to prevent a marriage by pretence that-

(a) his consent thereto is required by law;

(b) any person whose consent is so required does not consent,

(c) there is any legal impediment to the performing of such marriage, shall if he does so knowing that such pretence is false, or without having reason to believe that it is true, be liable to imprisonment for two years.

Belize Criminal Code (Rev 2000) – NATLEX – English (PDF)

Article 2 Interpretation

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires –

…

“exploitation” means –

(a)        Keeping a person in a state of slavery;

(b)        Subjecting a person to practices similar to slavery;

(c)        Compelling or causing a person to provide forced labour or services;

(d)        Keeping a person in a state of servitude, including sexual servitude;

(e)        Exploiting another person by using such person, directly or indirectly, as a prostitute;

(f)         Engaging in any form of commercial sexual exploitation, including pimping, pandering or procuring prostitution, or profiting from sexual prostitution, maintain a brothel, or engaging in pornography or strip tease dances where females or males dance nude r in a state of semi-nudity; or

(g)        Illicit removal of human organs;

…

“practices similar to slavery” has the meaning assigned to it in the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; and includes debt bondage, serfdom, forced servile marriages and delivery of children for exploitation;

“servitude” means a condition of dependency in which the labour or services of a person are provided or obtained by threats of harm to that person or another person, or through any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause that person to believe that, if the person did not perform, someone would suffer harm;

“slavery” means the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised;

“trafficking in persons” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by means of threat or use of force or other means of coercion, or abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or abuse of a position of vulnerability, or by the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control of or over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Article 11 Offences of Trafficking in Persons

(1)        A person who engages in, conspires to engage in or attempts to engage in, or assists another person to engage in, or organizes or directs another person to engage in, trafficking in persons commits an offence and is liable on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term of eight years.

(2)        Where the victim of the offence of trafficking in persons is a child, the offender is liable on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term of twelve years.

(3)        The recruitment, transportation, harbouring, receipt of a child, or the giving of payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a person having control of a child, for the purpose of exploitation, constitutes trafficking in persons irrespective of whether any of the elements of the definition of “trafficking in persons” is present or not in any case.

Article 14 Offence of Facilitating Exploitation etc

A person who, for the purpose of trafficking in persons, causes, encourages or facilitates a child, to participate in an activity, whether sexual or not, by way of exploitation, for which that person receives remuneration or compensation from a third person, commits an offence and is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term of eight years.

Article 15 Offence of Profiteering from Trafficking in Persons

A person who knowingly profits from the exploitation of a victim of trafficking in persons commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of eight years.

26. The legal age of consent to sexual intercourse or to marriage is not a defence for an offence under this Act.

Belize Trafficking in Persons Law 2013 – English (PDF)

 2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:-

…

“infant”, for the purpose of this Act, means a person under the age of eighteen years;

4.-(1) A marriage solemnised between persons either of whom is under the age of fourteen shall be void.

(2) Nothing in this Act shall affect any marriage solemnised or contracted before the passing of this Act, and any such marriage shall be or become valid in any case where, if this Act had not been passed, it would have been or have become valid.

5.-(1) Subject to this section, consent to the marriage of an infant shall be obtained in accordance with the following provisions-

(a) if both the infant’s parents are alive and living together, consent shall be obtained from both parents;

(b) if the infant’s parents are living apart and the infant is living with one parent, consent shall be obtained from the parent with whom the infant is living;

(c) if the parents are living apart and the infant is not living with either, consent shall be obtained-

(i) from both parents in any case where they are, or have been married to each other, unless the consent of one parent is dispensed with by a magistrate;

(ii) from the mother, in any case where the parents have never been married;

(d) if one of the parents is dead and the parents had at any time been married to each other, consent shall be obtained from the surviving parent or any other person who is the legal guardian of the infant;

(e) if both parents are dead and they had at any time been married to each other, consent shall be obtained from any person who is the legal guardian of the infant;

(f) if the infant’s parents had never been married to each other and one or both of them is dead, consent shall be obtained from the mother if she is alive or from any person who is the legal guardian of the infant if the mother of the infant is dead.

(2) Where the marriage of an infant, not being a widower or widow, is intended to be solemnised after the publication of banns of matrimony, then, if any person whose consent to the marriage is required under this Act openly and publicly declares or causes to be declared, in the registered building in which the banns are published, at the time of the publication, his dissent from the intended marriage, the publication of banns shall be void.

(3) Persons who may have attained the age of eighteen years and widowers and widows may marry without the consent of others.

6.-(1) If-

(a) the person whose consent is necessary to a marriage is non compos mentis, or absent from Belize, or otherwise incapable as aforesaid of consenting, or refuses his or her consent; or

(b) there is no one capable of consenting, the person wishing to marry may apply by petition to a justice of the Supreme Court, who is hereby empowered to proceed upon the petition in a summary way.

(2) If upon examination, the marriage proposed appears to be proper, the judge shall judicially declare that the marriage is proper and order that it be solemnised forthwith.

(3) Every marriage duly solemnised in pursuance and under the authority of any such order shall be as good, valid and effectual to all intents and purposes whatever, as if the consent had been given by the person whose consent is required.

(4) Rules of court may be made for enabling applications under this section, and shall provide that, where an application is made in consequence of a refusal to give consent, notice of the application shall be served on the person who has refused consent.

55. No person who performs a marriage under this Act after due publication of banns as aforesaid between persons, both or one of whom, not being a widow or widower, are or is at the time of the marriage an infant, shall be answerable or responsible, or liable to any pain, penalty or proceeding for having solemnised the marriage without the consent of the parents or guardians, or other persons, if any, whose consent is required by law, unless those parents or guardians, or other persons, or one of them, forbid the marriage and give notice thereof to the marriage officer before he has solemnised the marriage.

65.-(1) Every person who knowingly and wilfully-

(a) solemnises or performs marriage at any other time than between the hours of five in the morning and nine in the evening, except in the case mentioned in Part VII; or

(b) solemnises or performs marriage, except as aforesaid, without due publication of banns of matrimony, or licence of marriage from the Minister or person authorised by him, or certificate from a magistrate or the Registrar General first had and obtained; or

(c) solemnises or performs any marriage, except as aforesaid, more than three months after the last publication of banns, or the issue of a licence by the Minister or person authorised by him, or the entry of a notice of the marriage by a magistrate; or

(d) solemnises or performs, or professes or attempts to solemnise or perform, the marriage of any infant, not being a widower or widow, without the written consent of the person required under this Act to give such consent; or

(e) solemnises or performs, or professes or attempts to solemnise or perform, the marriage of any infant, not being a widower or widow, under a consent given by a person not required to give it under this Act; or

(f) solemnises or performs, or professes or attempts to solemnise or perform, any marriage in any case contrary to, or without compliance with the provisions of, this Act, commits a misdemeanour, and on conviction thereof on indictment shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, or to both such fine and term of imprisonment.

(2) All prosecutions under this section shall be commenced within three years after the offence was committed.

66.-(1) Every person who-

(a) wilfully marries any infant, not being a widower or widow, whom he or she knows to be an infant, without previously obtaining the consent required to be obtained prior to the celebration of marriage with an infant; or

(b) induces, or endeavours to induce, any marriage officer or other person to celebrate or perform such marriage;

or

(c) knowingly abets or assists any person to commit an offence under paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection, commits a misdemeanour, and on conviction thereof on indictment shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, or to both such fine and term of imprisonment.

(2) All prosecutions under this section shall be commenced within three years after the offence was committed.

67.-(1) Every person who forges, or assists in forging, or procures to be forged-

(a) any consent purporting to be a consent of or by a person whose consent is required by this Act to the marriage of an infant; or

(b) any certificate purporting to be a certificate under this Act; or

(c) any copy of a writing purporting to be issued by the Registrar General under this Act, commits a felony.

(2) Every person who utters, or assists in uttering, or procures to be uttered, knowing the same to be forged, any such consent, certificate or writing commits a felony.

(3) Every person who signs, or transmits to the Registrar General, any such consent, certificate or writing which to his knowledge contains any false statement therein commits a felony.

(4) Every person who is guilty of felony under this section shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

68. Every person who knowingly and wilfully makes any false declaration, statutory or otherwise, or signs any petition, notice, statement or certificate required by this Act which is false in any material particular, for the purpose of procuring any marriage, shall be deemed guilty of wilful or corrupt perjury and shall be liable to be prosecuted and punished accordingly.

69.-(1) Every person who-

(a) knowingly and wilfully makes a false declaration, or signs a false notice under this Act, for the purpose of procuring a marriage under the Foreign Marriage Act, 1892; or

(b) forbids a marriage under that Act by falsely representing himself to be a person whose consent to the marriage is required by law, knowing the representations to be false, shall be liable to the penalties for perjury and may be tried and dealt with in the same manner in all respects as if he were tried for perjury under the Criminal Code.

(2) Every proprietor, editor or publisher of any newspaper published in Belize who wilfully publishes, and every person sending for such publication, any fictitious or false statement of the marriage of any person knowing it to be fictitious or false shall be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty dollars or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding three months.

70. Every magistrate or senior justice of the peace who knowingly and wilfully performs, or permits to be performed, in his office any marriage in this Act declared to be null and void commits a misdemeanour and on conviction thereof on indictment shall be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years.

71.-(1) Every person who enters an objection with the Solicitor General or magistrate against the grant of any licence or issue of any certificate, on grounds which the Minister or a judge declares to be frivolous as well as being such as ought not to obstruct the grant of the licence, shall be liable for the costs of the proceedings, and for damages which may be recovered by plaint or action by the party against whose marriage the objection has been lodged.

(2) For the purposes of enabling anyone to recover costs and damages in any action as provided by this section from any person who has lodged an objection on frivolous grounds, a copy of the declaration of the Minister purporting to be signed by him, or a copy of the judgment of the judge, shall be evidence that the Minister or judge has declared the objection to have been lodged on grounds that are frivolous as well as being such as ought not to obstruct the grant of the licence or issue of the certificate, as the case may be.

74.-(1) In no case whatever shall any suit or proceeding be had, in any court, or before any jurisdiction whatever, to compel the celebration of any marriage by reason of any promise of marriage contract made, or by reason of seduction, or any cause whatever which arises after the commencement of this Act, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.

(2) Nothing in this section shall prevent anyone aggrieved from suing for or recovering damages in any court, or by any proceedings wherein and whereby damages may be lawfully recovered for breach of promise of marriage, or for seduction, or other cause aforesaid.