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Mrs.
Kim Barrow
First Lady Government of Belize

MRS. KIM SIMPLIS BARROW Mrs. Kim Simplis Barrow is the wife of the Prime Minister of Belize, Honorable Dean Oliver Barrow, and mother to her only child, Salima Barrow. She is Belize’s Special Envoy for Women and Children, a founder member of the Commonwealth Group of Experts pioneering for the reform of sexual offense laws, and Chair of Spouses of CARICOM Leaders Action Network (SCLAN), which is dedicated to addressing Caribbean priorities including the reduction of teenage pregnancy; cervical cancer; HIV including mother to child transmission; and violence against women and children, including human trafficking. She is also the Founder and Director of the Lifeline Foundation, which raises thousands of dollars to aid disenfranchised children. Her two major projects as Special Envoy for Women and Children are a Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (PICU/NICU) constructed at Belize’s National Referral Hospital, the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital and the Inspiration Centre which offers healthcare and therapy for children with disabilities. Her efforts to raise public awareness on the commercial sexual exploitation of children includes successfully advocating for the passage of two pieces of legislation to strengthen protection for victims of sexual violence and human trafficking as well as an amendment to the Criminal Code for harsher penalties for perpetrators of sexual offences. As a result of her efforts, Belize is recognized as one of the few commonwealth countries that have reformed their criminal code over the past few years. She has co-written two booklets on sexual abuse prevention and produced accompanying multilingual videos. She hosted national and international conferences including a conference geared toward ending violence against children and a conference to improve the situation of women entrepreneurs in Belize. She also hosted a global first ladies conference in New York. Through SCLAN, she continues to host yearly conferences “Ensuring Access and Equity for Adolescents, Children and Women’s Health within the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. Under her 20,000 STRONG Women’s Empowerment banner, Mrs. Simplis Barrow held two national rallies to uplift women and unveiled her 20-4-20 Women’s Economic Development Program in 2016. In 2017, she founded the SHE for BELIZE Foundation to highlight the need for women’s economic health, family life education in schools and in the media, the need for information on sexual and reproductive health, the need for creative means of distributing contraceptives; the development of an educational campaign around HIV/AIDS prevention through the use of prophylactics; and the need for universal health coverage and access to integrated health and social services. Mrs. Kim Simplis Barrow is currently advocating for further reform to Belize’s Criminal Code for harsher penalties levied against perpetrators of hate crimes and cyberbullying.

All photos are courtesy of speakers or their affiliations unless otherwise indicated.