There has been a near 50 per cent drop in reported carnal abuse cases over the last eight years, but social workers who confront the physical and emotional damage done to abused children are not impressed by the statistics.

The decline, they say, is not because fewer children are really being molested. It is simply that cases are not being reported.

“There is a tendency for people to cover up in communities. especially when the crime is committed by a friend or relative,” explains Sydney Grant, who heads the Western Region of the Child Development Agency (CDA). “So the figure is not necessarily down, but more of a cover-up.”

According to police data, carnal abuse reports slumped from 745 in 1997 to 377 last year. The 2003 figure, though, was a relatively robust up-tick on the previous year’s number after several years of decline.

For instance, 540 cases were reported in 1998, but this declined to 477 or 12 per cent the following year.

The reported cases dropped further in 2000, to 434, then slipped to 306 reports in 200 and 270 the next year. Last year’s reported cases, therefore, represented a 29 per cent jump on 2002.

But many social workers, including Grant who has been at it for more than a quarter of a century, take such statistics with more than the proverbial grain of salt.

They understand only too well the reality.

Although carnal abuse is a serious crime, Grant said, social workers – and even the police themselves – face an uphill task in bringing perpetrators to justice.

“The police sometimes just get stuck and can’t get anywhere,” he told the Sunday Observer. “Sometimes when we get the reports, we turn up to the scenes, only to find out that the children were removed overnight and the perpetrators have mysteriously disappeared.

“The children are sometimes threatened, put under duress, they are just not free to speak. And other persons who know of the situation are often tight-lipped, because they are scared of the implications.”

Inspector Grace-Ann Gordon of the police’s Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) confirmed that the police sometimes have a hard job making arrests.

“In order for us to effect an arrest, we would need a complainant and without that, we don’t have a case,’ she explained.

“It is true that things will happen and people don’t talk,” she added.

According to Jamaican law, carnal abuse is defined as “having carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 15”, says the CISOCA. Men who abuse young boys are charged with buggery while female abusers are charged with indecent assault – a rarely reported occurrence as the perception is that these older women are simply teaching these boys about sex. The indecent assault charge, which also applies to cases where minors are fondled by adults, attracts short sentences from three to four years, but persons found guilty of carnal abuse can face 10 to 12 years in prison.

Carnal abuse is condemned by the majority of Jamaica’s 2.7 million population with offenders being labelled as “cradle robbers”, “infant killers” among other names that are too graphic for print.

At present, the age of sexual consent is 16 years old, but many have argued that the age should be increased to 18 to curb sexual abuse against children.

Many horrid tales of carnal abuse have made the headlines over the years. Only last month, a 74 year-old man was accused of impregnating a 14 year-old girl; and in August, a 34 year-old teacher was accused of having sex with a 12 year-old female student. Prior to that, a man was sentenced to 15 years after being found guilty of infecting his seven-year-old daughter with the dreaded HIV disease.

But far more horrible tales are often kept quiet.

“One of the worst cases we had was the sexual abuse of a six-month-old baby girl by her stepfather,” said a female social worker at the Child Services Division of the Family

Court who did not wish to be identified.

Such realities, the social worker said, cause emotional distress for those who have to wade through the cases of what sometimes seems like a never-ending quagmire of despair.

“It is troubling for you as an individual and makes you very protective of children, even those who don’t belong to you,” she explained. “Some persons even get bitter, but you can’t allow that to happen but try to maintain a sense of professionalism.”

The act of carnal abuse, according to the case worker, is not isolated to poor families in deep rural communities – a perception held by many – but is committed by adults from all layers of the society.

“They come from all sections of the society, from the rich to the poor,” she told the Sunday Observer.

She noted, however, that the low- to middle-income group accounts for the majority of the cases that go through the Family Court.

“The more affluent may choose private services,” she said.

But while social workers agree that many cases go unreported, they also acknowledge that many reports, once investigated, turn out to be false.

“Some reports turn out to be false because once we had a father who actually coaxed his daughter into lying that her step-dad had molested her,” she disclosed.

She too believes that there are far more cases than what the police statistics reflect.

“I don’t think that reflects what is really happening, I believe there may be more,” she said.

Each year, Child Services removes many children from homes where abuse has occurred, assigning them to places of safety. Officials opted not to supply the number of cases where this occurs, but according to principal social worker Alma Bailey-Morris, removing a child from his home is the last resort.

“We do this when the home is declared as an unsafe zone, where there is both sexual and physical violence,” she told the Sunday Observer. “It is easier to get the offender out because what we find is that it’s double abuse for the children when you remove them from their families and put them into homes.”

Morris agrees that there are far more cases of carnal abuse to be reported but sought to explain why there is a tendency to hide the problem.

“This sort of abuse happens to children mainly by family members and sometimes family friends, normally people whom they know and trust,” she explained.