U.S. warns of sexual assault in Caribbean

The U.S. State Department has warned tourists for years about a pervasive sexual assault problem in Jamaica, where two Detroit women were raped at gunpoint in September.

Over the last seven years, 78 Americans have been raped in Jamaica — that’s roughly one U.S. citizen raped a month — though sex crimes aren’t unique to the island.

While statistics about American rape victims in other Caribbean countries are hard to come by (the U.S. State Department doesn’t have crime statistics for each country), it has issued multiple warnings about sexual violence in several Caribbean islands.

The Bahamas has been cited several times for sexual assault issues. In a January 2018 travel advisory, the State Department warned travelers to “exercise increased caution in the Bahamas due to crime,” noting that “sexual assault is common, even during daylight hours and in tourist areas.”

Barbados and Grenada also fell under the government’s radar this year for sex crimes. In a 2018 report, the State Department wrote: “Some American tourists alleged that they were the victims of ‘date rape’ drugs, slipped into their drinks or food in furtherance of criminal activity.”

Similar complaints were cited in the Dominican Republic, where anecdotal reports provided to the U.S. Embassy “indicate perpetrators sometimes used daterape drugs in the commission of sexual assaults,” states a 2018 State Department report.