ALTHOUGH THERE has been an emergence of children's rights groups in Jamaica during the last decade, many Jamaicans say child abuse remains a big problem in this country.

A Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll found that 58 per cent of 1,008 persons interviewed on June 18 and 19 in the 14 parishes, strongly agreed when asked the question: It is said that there is too much child abuse in Jamaica, do you agree?

There was a fairly large gender gap, however, as, of those women polled, 68 per cent strongly agreed while 49 per cent of the men strongly agreed.

The poll had an error margin of plus or minus three per cent.

The margin between persons who agreed was considerably smaller, with women accounting for 33 per cent of the respondents. Twenty-eight per cent of males agreed.

Too much child abuse

Six per cent disagreed that there is too much child abuse; two per cent strongly agreed.

Three per cent said they did not know enough to comment.

Betty-Ann Blaine, chairperson of Hear The Children's Cry, said many of Jamaica's children suffer at the hands of predators.

"We are hearing more cases of rape and carnal abuse, but there's definitely a gap in cases being reported and not reported," Ms. Blaine said. "Cases on the books really do not reflect the true picture."

On June 12, the first annual report of the Office of the Children's Advocate showed there were 1,185 cases of rape of young girls and carnal abuse in Jamaica in 2006.