Based on statistics from the Ministry of Health and Wellness, hundreds of men in Jamaica are wearing ‘jackets’ that do not fit.

The government agency reports that as many as 23 per cent of children born in the country are not assigned to the biological father.

The startling rate of paternity fraud (known as jacket in Jamaica) does not surprise artiste Dawya Ranks, whose latest song,
Dawya Pickney, is a humorous look at what has become a phenomenon.

The song is produced by Lloyd Shaw for Los Angeles-based Issachar Musik.

The veteran deejay empathises with men who have been duped by wives and lovers.

“It’s about a girl who get pregnant for me back in di day, but she never told mi an’ give [the child] to a next man. But di truth come to light an’ mi realise dat is my pickney, so as a real father, yuh jus’ own yuh youth,” said Dawya Ranks.

From the Tower Hill area of St Andrew, Dawya Ranks has been recording music for over 30 years.

He said women have been giving ‘jackets’ since Biblical times.

“If yuh check it out, dem seh Mary (in the Bible) get pregnant without having sex. Di word of God seh, man an’ woman come together an’ bring forth a youth, so at di end of di day it mus’ be somebody who breed Mary,” he charged.

There has been a major jump in paternity fraud in Jamaica during the past 10 years. Last April, health minister Dr Christopher Tufton wrote that: “A widely cited figure from Polygenics Consulting, a Jamaican DNA testing firm, suggests that 70 per cent of tests conducted since 2017 have returned negative paternity results.”

Many of those tests are mandatory when husbands file paperwork for their children to settle permanently in Canada or the United States.