THE ALARMING rise in the incidence of carnal abuse will have to be tackled from various fronts in order to eliminate this scourge from the Jamaican society.

This is the view of National Security Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips, who attributes the 40 per cent increase to date, when compared with last year, to a crisis in social relations.

Dr. Phillips told the media a day following his contribution to the sectoral debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday that the problem could not be effectively addressed by the police alone.

Pointing to a wider social problem, Dr. Phillips said Jamaica has the largest number of children born out of an unstable family environment in the world. This, he said, was at the root of many of the problems that the country is currently facing, including carnal abuse.

"Many of the persons guilty of carnal abuse are persons who are in positions of trust within a household. That requires a solution which is not strictly speaking a policing solution," he emphasised.

However, the National Security Minister said the police, as part of its community security initiative, would try and reach out to non-governmental organisations and other groups, including the Child Development Agency, to renew social relations at the level of family and schools.

CONTRIBUTING TO PREGNANCIES

Recently, Dr. Grace Kelly, head of the behavioural science department at Northern Carib-bean University, noted that incest was one of the factors contributing to the high number of pregnancies in the under-15 age group.

Between 1992-2004, the incidence of incest jumped by 62 per cent, according to police statistics.

"It's unfortunate that even some of the real fathers wait until the opportune time when their wives are not at home to make the children into their wives, and these are common events. It happens when the children do not know they are in danger of being pregnant," she told The Sunday Gleaner.