Sex policy in Jamaica

THERE ARE fewer issues in Jamaica about which we have more double standards than in the area of sexual behaviour. Nominally, Jamaica is a Christian country, which means that the official moral standard is that sexual intercourse should be reserved for husbands and wives within marriage; but that has never been the observed norm in terms of what we practise.

More than 80 per cent of babies born in Jamaica are born out of wedlock. And that has been so for more than 300 years. And here, I do not refer only to the behaviour of Jamaicans of African origin.

To say that the profile of the typical Jamaican criminal is that he is born out of wedlock is statistically trivial. The profile of the typical Jamaican lawabiding person is that he is born out of wedlock. The typical Jamaican is born out of wedlock. And this has never really bothered us. As an economy and society, we have never really incentivised marriage. And ‘no more bastard no deh!’

The Church may have succeeded in making marriage the accepted norm, but has failed miserably at making marriage the normative practice.

LAW IN CONTEXT

At Independence, we inherited a law setting 14 years as the age of consent for girls. Never mind what the Church said, the law in colonial Jamaica was that a girl in grade nine of an all-age school could legally have sexual intercourse. But then, at Independence, most Jamaican girls (and boys) were not expected to stay in school beyond grade nine.

After Independence, we raised the bar, trying to provide secondary education up to grade 11 ( age 16) for all. And so in 1988, Jamaican law was changed to raise the age, of consent for girls up to 16.

This law is largely ignored; the 2008 Jamaica Reproductive Health Survey found that for females aged 15-19, the average age of first sexual intercourse increased from 15.2 in 2002 to 15.3 years in 2008 (during grade 10). This means that the first sexual experience of the average Jamaican girl is statutory rape; and since as many girls are below the mean as above, more than half of Jamaican women aged 15-19 years in 2008 were victims of statutory rape. I doubt whether this has changed much over the years. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of Jamaican women and girls.

Does this bother anyone? I have heard no expressions of outrage about this widespread sexual abuse of our young girls. Does this mean that the majority of Jamaican boys are statutory rapists?

I have heard of no effort to arrest and charge statutory rapists, of whatever age. This law has been brought into profound disrepute. Jamaica’s sex policy is failing!

KEEP IT QUIET

And yet when video footage appears of Jamaican schoolgirls cavorting and having sex, there is widespread public outrage. I guess that, as long as the underage girls keep their antics off camera, no one’s delicate sensibilities will be offended.

But the question remains: Is it a problem that the majority of Jamaican girls begin to have sex below the legal age of consent? What is to be done about it? What is the policy of Jamaica with regard to sex offenders? Even if the age of consent is put back to 14, there will still be those who have sex with underage girls.

Parents and teachers are partially to blame. While there is outrage at early sexual activity, there is delight and applause at sexually precocious behaviour, like ‘ daggering’ dance moves, and wining, and I shake my head at some of the dance moves children are taught for school concerts.

Social engineering, in terms of values and attitudes formation, has not kept pace with Jamaica’s highly sexualised music and dance, promoted by cultural activists. The truth is that the sexual irresponsibility of the older generation is successfully passed on to the younger ones. And no one wants to change.

While outrage is lacking at widespread underage sexual activity, there is plenty of outrage at the high incidence of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections ( STIs). The 1997 Jamaica Reproductive Health Survey found that 40 per cent of Jamaican women had become pregnant at least once before the age of 20. Tremendous effort has been put into making contraceptives and abortifacients available to young girls, and this has led to a reduction in the incidence of teenage pregnancy leading to birth.

By observing government actions, we can deduce that Jamaica’s national sex policy is to encourage sexual activity as ‘ culture’ while introducing contraception and abortion technology to avoid or negate its natural consequences.

At this rate, not only will contraceptives be made available to schoolgirls by their school, but so will abortions. To bread and circuses we must now add orgies.