Jamaica Trafficking Routes Jamaica is a country of origin and transit for trafficking in women and children. Women are trafficked from Jamaica to Europe, the United States, and to Cuba. Women from different parts of Latin America and Asia are trafficked through Jamaica to Europe and the United States. There is also trafficking in women and children within Jamaica. Factors That Contribute to the Trafficking Infrastructure According to one study, there are numerous factors that compel Jamaican children to seek employment in the sex industry. Those factors include poverty, unemployment, limited job opportunities, poor parenting, poor family values, peer pressure, early sexual exposure, limited education, and weak monitoring of laws. The children are exposed to newspaper advertisements that seek girls for work in massage parlors, and there is little monitoring to ensure that children are not used to fill the positions.1 Forms of Trafficking Jamaican women are usually trafficked abroad to work in the sex industry.2 Jamaica faces documented problems with the plight of street children and trafficking in children.3 One report claims that boys and girls may be recruited to be drug couriers across international borders.4 There are a number of sex tourism facilities in Jamaica employing the services of young girls, including facilities at Kingston, Montego Bay, Negril, and Port Antonio. Montego Bay has facilities for cruise berths, yacht clubs, and commercial and tourist development, which have contributed to an increase in sex tourism in the area. Ocho Rios, where cruise ships dock every day, is reported to be the fastest-growing tourist spot in the country and has a growing sex tourism industry. Both Western men and locals are clients. Children are also reportedly trafficked from one tourist resort to another.5 Prostitution of children ages 10 to 18 is reportedly widespread in Jamaica; it is found in 6 of the island’s 14 parishes. The majority of children involved in prostitution are girls, but some boys are also involved. Most of the girls operate from established brothels, but some operate from bars, massage parlors, or clubs. Children are also solicited for sex in shopping malls, food courts, fast-food restaurants, cruise ship ports, and beaches.6
1
―Child Prostitution Widespread in Jamaica: Study Shows Even 10-Year-Olds Involved,‖ Jamaica Observer, 21 July 2002. 2 Covenant House, ―Trafficking in Children in Latin America and the Caribbean,‖ July 2004, http://www.casa-alianza.org. 3 ―UN Report Raps Government for Child Rights Abuses,‖ Gleaner, 17 June 2003. 4 ―Human Cargo! Modern Day Slavery, or What?‖ Gleaner, 14 September 2003. 5 End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking (ECPAT) International Online Database, 30 March 2004, http://www.ecpat.net. 6 ―Child Prostitution Widespread in Jamaica: Study Shows Even 10-Year-Olds Involved,‖ Jamaica Observer, 21 July 2002.
―Romance tourism‖ exists in Jamaica. Single, urban American women in their mid-40s will travel to Jamaica for sex and companionship with local men. Women will pay as much as US$100 for a session with a so-called Jamaican beach bum. Most of these women travel to Jamaica in the winter. Some will return regularly to their ―island boy‖ with gifts of jewelry and designer clothes.7 Government Responses The Towns and Communities Act prohibits loitering in a public place or soliciting any person for the purpose of prostitution.8 Similarly, the Criminal Code prohibits soliciting for prostitution in a public place.9 The Criminal Code also prohibits living off the earnings of a person in prostitution.10 It states, ―Where a male person is proved to live with or to be habitually in the company of a prostitute, or is proved to have exercised control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute in such a manner as to show that he is aiding, abetting, or compelling her prostitution with any other person or generally, he shall, unless he can satisfy the court to the contrary, be deemed to be knowingly living on the earnings of prostitution.‖11 Similarly, a woman may be charged with pimping if she has exercised control, direction, or influence over the movements of a person in prostitution for personal gain.12 Trafficking in women and children is also prohibited. It is illegal to induce or procure women and children to enter into prostitution in Jamaica or elsewhere. Moreover, it is illegal to procure a female for purposes of common prostitution or to induce her to leave her usual place of abode—or to leave Jamaica—with the intent that she become an inmate—or frequenter—of a brothel elsewhere.13 The use of threats, intimidation, false pretense, false representation, or drugs to procure any female to have unlawful carnal connection is similarly prohibited.14 The code also prohibits the unlawful detention of any woman or girl against her will with the intent that she have carnal knowledge, whether in a brothel or on any other premises.15 It is illegal to patronize a female under the age of 18 for the purpose of prostitution.16 Encouraging the prostitution of a girl under the age of 16 by any person having the custody, charge, or care of such a girl is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment of up to 3 years.17
7
Annan Boodram, ―Sex Tourism,‖ Caribbean Voice, 1–15 August 2001, http://www.caribvoice.org/Travel&Tourism/sextourism.html. 8 Section 3(R). 9 Section 63. 10 Section 63. 11 Section 63(3). 12 Section 63(4). 13 Section 58. 14 Section 59. 15 Section 61. 16 Section 58(1)(a). 17 Section 64.
According to the Criminal Code, no person can be convicted of any trafficking offense on the basis of the evidence of a witness, unless that witness’s testimony is corroborated by material evidence implicating the accused.18 The code punishes an offense of ―forcible abduction‖ by imprisonment for no more than 14 years, with or without hard work.19 Anyone who abducts a girl under the age of 16 is subject to punishment of imprisonment for no more than 3 years, with or without hard labor.20 The same punishment applies to anyone who abducts a girl under the age of 18 with the intent to have unlawful carnal knowledge.21 Procuring defilement of a girl under the age of 18 is punishable by imprisonment for no more than 3 years, with or without hard labor.22 The code punishes every owner or occupier of premises for inducing or encouraging the defilement of a young girl on his or her premises. 23 If a girl is under the age of 12, punishment is imprisonment for life, with or without hard labor.24 If a girl is between the ages of 12 and 16, punishment is imprisonment for no more than 5 years, with or without hard labor.25 The Money Laundering Act of 1996 provides for the tracing of assets derived from trafficking in narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances and from such other offenses as may be prescribed. The act further provides for the imposition of appropriate sentences on anyone who has sought to acquire, conceal, convert, or transfer those assets.26 The Corruption Prevention Act of 1993 prohibits public officials from taking gratuities, other than legal remuneration, that could influence the exercise of their official functions. Nongovernmental and International Organization Responses The Jamaican Foundation for Children runs a child hotline. The Red Cross and Children First both run recovery and rehabilitation programs for children ages 10 to 14.27 Multilateral Initiatives In 2003, the International Organization for Migration and the Inter-American Commission of Women of the Organization of American States began a regional countertrafficking initiative in the Caribbean financed by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration. The project, called Counter-Trafficking of Women and Children for Exploitation Purposes in the Caribbean, aims to achieve further cooperation among concerned governments in the antitrafficking arena. A variety
18 19
Articles 58 and 59. Article 56. 20 Article 57. 21 Article 60. 22 Article 45. 23 Article 51. 24 Article 51(a). 25 Article 51(b). 26 Preamble to the Act No. 30 of 1996. 27 ECPAT International Online Database, 30 March 2004, http://www.ecpat.net.
of initiatives will be carried out during this year-long project, including initiatives to raise awareness, to disseminate information, to perform research, to build capacity, and to provide training for governments and civil society. A national seminar and training workshop will be held in each country, and the project will present a regional seminar. Participating countries, in addition to Jamaica, include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.28
28
―Spotlight Regional Counter-trafficking Project in the Caribbean,‖ IOM News (North American and Caribbean Supplement), no. 4 (2003), http://www.iom.int.