Of the countries globally, and with the 2010 national report of rapes, Jamaica ranks 22nd with 24 rape incidents per 100,000 citizens. The JCF recorded approximately 6600 rape incidents between 2011 and 2020, with about 3250 clear up. (The clear-up rate refers to all cases disposed of from the court’s active records (guilt, innocence, dismissed, or thrown out) divided by the total cases presented for that period). In that period, 2012 recorded the highest number of 948 incidents of rape.

This article issue is written on the background of a video recently released by Queen Ifrica, who announced that her biological father sexually assaulted her. That is called incest. Eve for Life (EFL) has reported that incest is islandwide, but the hot spots are in the parishes in three parishes: Westmoreland, St. Ann, and St. Thomas. These statistics include children reported by the Jamaica Observer, where 36 of 46 complainants in the Trelawny Circuit Court are child sexual offenses. It should be understood that these numbers are only the ones the police know about; many situations are unreported.

The United Nations Women — Caribbean defined rape as when a man has sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent, knowing she does not consent or is reckless about whether she consents. Each country has its own continuum of sexual violence; the rape statistics above would be completely different in Jamaica if measured against the definition of rape in the…