Sex crackdown
Published:Friday | July 16, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
FACED WITH a massive carnal abuse problem, the St Thomas police are raiding adult entertainment spots in the parish and removing underage patrons.
The police have also been busy prosecuting persons who they believe have been molesting these minors.
"One of our biggest problems in the parish is carnal abuse," Superintendent Mervin McNab told The Gleaner this week.
Since the start of the year, 39 persons have been charged with carnal abuse in the parish. Another 14 have been charged with rape. These numbers are consistent with the figures for the corresponding period last year, which saw 12 cases of rape being reported to the police and 37 incidents of carnal abuse.
"We have been trying everything to reduce the incidents of carnal abuse. We have been raiding dances, and where we find children, we take the parents in and charge them pursuant to the Child Care and Protection Act."
Specific data on the number of parents arrested were unavailable up to yesterday.
The Child Care and Protection Act places a responsibility on all adults to report to the police any incident of child abuse or even the likelihood of children being abused.
Public-education efforts
"We hope that our actions of arresting persons, as well as our public-education efforts, will be of some value so that we can have a reduction in the number of carnal abuse (cases) in the parish," McNab said.
Statistics from the Registrar General's Department show that, outside of the Corporate Area, St Thomas had the second-highest occurrence of teen births in Jamaica in 2005, with 1,228 births to mothers aged 15-19 years old.
Thirty-six of those births were to girls under 15, while 95 were to 15-year-olds. Only 355 of the girls actually lived in the parish, but compared to its small population of just over 9,000 girls, the rate of teen birth is still considered among the highest.
As at July 11, the number of islandwide carnal abuse cases reported to the police was 209.