Research reveals shocking statistics on Missing Children in Jamaica

Startling Statistics were released  in Jamaica on Wednesday, by the Jamaica's Missing Children's Support Programme an offshoot of Hear the Children's Cry Committee.  They revealed that 1,206 children in that Western Caribbean nation, 18 years or younger had been reported missing between January and September. This number represented 69% of all the persons reported missing for this 9 month period and significantly more than the 960 children reported missing in all of 2008.

Of the 1206 who were reported missing, 676 had returned home, however head of the Hear the Children's Cry Committee, Betty Ann Blaine raised concern that some of the children reported missing have returned home pregnant, while others had sexually transmitted infections.

She further raised several questions; "Are those children victims of sexual or other types of violence? Are those children victims of a sex trade? Are they victims of human trafficking? Are there child abduction rings operating in Jamaica? Do we have pedophiles amongst us and if we do what do we know about them? Do we know anything about the profiles of pedophiles in Jamaica? Do we have serial killers in Jamaica who target children? These are all questions that we ask and the problem is that we don't have any of the answers," she said.

Some 43% or 537 of the children were still missing and three were confirmed as deceased.

Shockingly, in each of the 9 months at least 100 children had been reported missing with a spike over summer, peaking at 184 in July.

Facts about Jamaica's Population:

Population: 2,825,928 (July 2009 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 31.4% (male 451,310/female 436,466)
15-64 years: 61.1% (male 851,372/female 875,132)
65 years and over: 7.5% (male 94,833/female 116,815) (2009 est.)