By Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter 
An elated Patricia Hibbert kisses her seven-day-old son, Khaleel Samuels, outside her home last week. Khaleel had been kidnapped from his home in Portmore, St. Catherine on Wednesday, February 5. - Rudolph Brown Photo
NATALIE SMITH remembers the woman who took her child in January of this year as a "nice" person, kind, almost family.
Certainly not a disturbed, evil person who would resort to stealing an eight-month-old infant.
The baby, Patrice Powell, was reportedly taken by a woman who used to work at the house as a helper, Ms. Smith reported to the police.
Miss Smith, 23, who is unemployed, reported that she and Patrice were visited at home by the helper. She said that at about 4:30 p.m. she left to go to a shop. On her return, she said, both the baby and Brown were missing.
"She love baby but she is a tief, mi neva expect that from har," Miss Smith said, with her two-year-old son adding, "a girl tief me sista. De one weh always give me money."
The family helper for several years, Natalie claims that the relationship between the two had been so good that she never once suspected her to be likely to steal her child. The woman had even been 'friends' with one of Smith's male relatives.
While the typical child stealer is often described as a 'regular Jane' by those who fall victim to them, psychiatrists describes baby stealing as anti-social behaviour, the work of an 'emotionally deprived person' and a sick mind.
"It is clearly abnormal," psychiatrist Dr. Anthony Allen says. "This could be a person who is sexually repressed, someone who finds it difficult to form a fulfilling relationship. The person may be dealing with feelings of insecurity, depression, isolation and may try to compensate for these feelings by having a child, so the child becomes the object of attachment."
Ultimately, he says, such a person would not be a good parent to any child as this behaviour is often reflected in someone who has egocentric tendencies enough to breach society's moral codes.
"The child then becomes just like a toy."
Reverend Al Miller, pastor of the Fellowship Tabernacle in Half-Way Tree, says there may be situations of desperation also where a person may be pushed over the edge by her longings.
"A person can be driven to abnormal behaviour from normal desires, it is possible people can get that desperate. Some women for example have to work through the issue of envy and frustrations at not being able to have a child."
But Dr. Allen maintains that such a person was "clearly unbalanced, and of an anti-social personality."
Agreeing with him, Dr. Maureen Irons-Morgan, said that a person who would resort to stealing a child could fall into one of several other groups.
"They may be women with frustrated maternal longings, in that they want desperately to have a baby but can't get pregnant. Usually these women are in a relationship where the male puts pressure on the female to produce a baby. There are those too with mercenary intentions, basically involved in criminal behaviour and would be involved in selling a child to make a money."
But Ms. Smith is willing to dismiss the idea of a sick compulsion being responsible for the woman stealing her child.
"Not a thing wrong wid har, she wicked, mi hate her. Is like she plan fi tief de pickney fi gi har boyfriend whe a come from foreign. My baby coulda pass fi the boyfriend own because she brown and have pretty hair like him, so is something she ah try but it neva work."
The baby was reportedly recovered in May Pen at the businessplace of an acquaintance of Ms. Smith's a few weeks later.
"I had spotted the helper in the day, and pointed her out, so she ran with the baby over the business place of a woman who know me and lef' de baby there. The police nuh catch up to har yet, but when mi see har again, mi and har ah go have it out," she warned.
The theory of using a child conveniently in a relationship is not unusual but part of a larger cultural pattern, says Dr. Glenda Simms, researcher and director of the Bureau for Women's Affairs.
"It's the nature of male/female relationships and how children are used as pawns in a dangerous game," she explained.
"The woman has been socialised to feel that unless she has a child for the man he will not stay or support the relationship. So that children in Jamaica have become the essential 'bargaining chip' in male and female relationship to the point where many women now feel that unless they can produce a child the relationship is not valid.
"It's not about the relationship anymore. It's about procreation. In this context, a woman who steals a child is not abnormal, she simply fits into a pattern that is consistent with her socialisation, and a jobless economy.
"The Jamaican man wants his 'youth', which is his value, and the woman wants to have a child to secure the relationship. It's like a production line."
In other situations, she says, the female resorts to having numerous babyfathers to guarantee financial security or else aims to have a child for the man she considers most influential or successful.
"The big farmer is usually one target, or there is the successful shopkeeper," one social worker suggested. "In other instances, there is the man who flaunts his wealth and achievements, for example if he travels overseas, he is also considered another good option."
She describes it as cultural problem which forces women into a situation of financial dependence on the male.
"Some have been so deeply brainwashed that they don't know when they're doing themselves in," she says.
But the hurt often goes way beyond the emotional pain of loss, doctors agree.
"It is very stressful for the victim, its terrribly traumatic. And part of the trauma is in cases where there is no closure so that the parents are constantly living on the edge." Dr. Irons-Morgan says.
"Persons could suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, many are guilt-ridden or have to deal with the reaction of other persons, suspicion, or ridicule."
Long-term effects, she says, may include other disorders associated with stress. Some may never want to trust again, and may become hyper-sensitive in situations similar to the one she experienced.
Dr. Allen says that the child who has been stolen also suffers from the event.
"There is always the trauma of separation, whatever the age. The child too may later have to deal with identity problems, some experience emotional deprivation and if he happens to finds out later on it could be disastrous, clearly how could he respect that person?"
Still persons may be guided through a healing process, Reverend Miller says.
"The principle remains the same, (for Christians and non-Christians) that of restoring a sense of selfworth or value, understanding our purpose in life and encouraging the person to consider other options, including adoption."
In recent times, Jamaica has had several reports of infants stolen or going missing from homes or hospitals. At least three were formally reported missing or stolen between July 1997 to May 2000.
Two have been reported since January. The most recent was the kidnapping of a five-day-old infant from its home last month. While the child was retrieved, the kidnapper, herself a mother of six, pointed to sentimental and economic reasons as her motive for stealing the child.
The woman claimed to have taken the child because she had told her partner, and sole breadwinner for her family, that she was pregnant. This was supposedly to be his only biological offspring, and would have ensured his continued support.
But there have been other reasons given for baby-stealing. In some instances infants have been used in drug smuggling rings as drug 'couriers'. In July 2001, 35 persons were arrested in Chicago in what police described as an 'international drug-smuggling conspiracy' where the drug ring used female couriers with infants.
The couriers carried baby formula cans filled with liquid cocaine, using their own infants or babies rented from their real parents as a cover for their illegal activity. According to the United States federal authorities, some of the defendants lived in the U.S., in Canada and Jamaica.
But while law enforcement officials here have not ruled out possible narcotics involvement as a motive to recent baby stealing incidences, they caution that it is 'still early days' yet.
"It would be a worthwhile investigation because the drug trade is very dynamic, and people will use various means. They'll use disabled persons, children, they will stuff drugs into babies pampers, body cavities and suitcases among other things, so it is not something we're ruling out," Superintendent Gladstone Wright, of the Narcotics Division, explained.
Still the main reasons given for persons stealing infants according to reports from the Constabulary Communications Network (CCN) are that of filling an emotional need (replacing a lost child, or inability to have a child) or for economic advantage.
