By Nadine Wilson-Harris
Approximately 15,000 children went missing between 2010 and 2020 in Jamaica, and while there was a dip in numbers during the pandemic, officials have sounded the alarm that the numbers are again on the rise.
General reports have often cited the fact that some of these children have run away, but with several of them being found dead and hundreds still unaccounted for, at least one senior pastor believes that some of these children have been sacrificed or have become victims of human trafficking.
Bishop Omar Ricketts, who pastors the Harmony Gospel Chapel in March Pen, St. Catherine, said the sacrificing of children is a part of baal worship, which is practised by some groups.
“Persons who indulge in rituals do use blood. There is also a connotation out there that if you have sex with a child, this ritual provides a cleansing,” he said.
He noted that parents in the past would tell their children about the “black heart man,” who would take away those who were unsupervised.
With more than 360 children reported missing in Jamaica since the start of this year, Bishop Ricketts said children going missing is not a myth or a folklore, but a reality that parents need to take seriously.
“We used to tell our children, ‘If you see a motor vehicle come up and men are inside, do not communicate with them; cry out loud and don’t go in any vehicle with them,” he advised.
“Not all of these missing children I believe are missing because of something sinister. I do believe some run away from home because of abuse,” he noted.
According to Hear the Children’s Cry, approximately 15,000 children were reported missing in Jamaica between 2010 and 2020. The group was launched by children’s advocate Betty Ann Blaine in 2009, following the 2008 abduction of 11-year-old Ananda Dean. The organisation formed a multi-faceted Missing Children’s Support Programme and remains the country’s only non-government entity providing support services for missing children and their families.
The group said the issue of missing children “continues to create tremendous pain and trauma for children, as well as serious social concerns and ramifications for families, communities, and the wider society.”
In 2021, which was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamaica reported the lowest number of children missing. But of the 893 children reported then, 27 were found murdered, and more than half had still not been found up to April 2022. This was revealed by the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA).
In April 2022, there was a ceremony to mark the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the CPFSA and other partner agencies for the Ananda Alert System.
“Over the years, we have continued to record worryingly high figures of missing children,” noted Annadjae Roberts, Ananda Alert officer at the CPFSA, during the event.
In 2019, more than 1,500 children were reported missing, and in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, a total of 1,066 missing children reports were filed. The year 2013 accounted for one of the highest numbers of missing children in the last decade, as there were 2,206 cases reported, 14 of whom were found dead.
Bishop Ricketts said the possibility of these children being recruited for their organs or being trafficked should not be ruled out. The US Department of State, in its 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report for Jamaica, confirmed that some of these children were trafficked.
“Many children are reported missing in Jamaica; traffickers exploit some of these children in forced labour or sex trafficking,” the Department of State said.
“Sex trafficking of Jamaican women and children, including boys, reportedly occurs on streets and in nightclubs, bars, massage parlours, hotels, and private homes, including in resort towns. Local observers believe sex trafficking operations have become more clandestine as a result of the pandemic. Traffickers increasingly use social media platforms and false job offers to recruit victims; local experts report the pandemic has accelerated this trend, as traffickers have adapted by seeking methods to recruit individuals, especially children, in their own homes,” the report stated.
The US Department of State found that traffickers subjected children to forced begging and women and children to domestic servitude. Girls, with the co-hersion of family members, were sometimes subjected to sex trafficking by men who provided monetary or material payment to the girls or their families in exchange for sex acts.
Law enforcement officials have often pointed to dons targeting young girls in some inner-city communities for early sexual initiation. Bishop Ricketts noted that while sex is often seen as just a physical act, it is also spiritual.
“It is a transfer of energies. It is a transfer of emotions, and that is from a Christocentric definition. So if you have sex with an angry person, that angry spirit is transferable,” he noted.
“The spiritual transfer is real. I know of persons to date, when they are in their bed, they feel like the person is having sex with them, all when the person dead,” he explained, while pointing out that there are psychological effects that the experts can better speak about.
Education Minister Fayval Williams recently appealed for Jamaica’s children to exercise caution in light of the rising numbers of youngsters being reported missing.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing an increase, again, in missing children,” Williams stated during an Ananda Alert Youth forum at the Altamont Court Hotel in New Kingston on May 25.
While the majority of those going missing annually are girls, the whereabouts of hundreds of boys are also unaccounted for.
“Gang members may exploit children in forced begging or in forced criminal activity, including as lookouts, armed gunmen, or couriers of weapons and drugs; there were reports that criminal organisations exploited children in forced criminal activity in lotto-scamming,” the US State Department found.
