Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Writer

Girls are often in a marriage or a common-law union before adulthood, a STATIN survey reports. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

One in every 10 Jamaican women is married or in a common-law union before her 18th birthday, and approximately one per cent are doing so before age 15.

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica's (STATIN) Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, which monitors the situation of women and children, reports that while the occurrence of legal child marriages might be low in Jamaica, girls are often in a union at an early age, many of them in unions with men up to 10 years their senior.

Six per cent of the number of women engaging in early marriages/ unions are from rural Jamaica, while those in urban areas represent four per cent.

The lure, experts believe, is due to economic reasons. The teenage girls are forced into these relationships by a marginally employed single mother who cares for several other children.

Stephanie Richards, manager of the Myrtle Ferguson Skills Training Centre for Girls, suggests the lack of father figures in the home is a major part of the problem. Just about 45 per cent of households in Jamaica are headed by mothers.

"They crave for this father-like figure and I think that is the reason for them shacking up with these older men," Richards argues.

Furthermore, she points out that many girls are being pimped by their mothers to older men. The result is often detrimental to girls, and they frequently become sex slaves.

"They (older men) want slaves because of the kind of things that they want the girls to do. You can (expect) a 15-year-old to wash clothes and press and that kinda thing?" she asks. "And they can't leave home to go anywhere and don't come back within a certain time ... I've had many of them come here with different-colour faces the next day because of all those things. And we are talking about girls under the age of 16," she adds.

Head of gender studies at the University of the West Indies, Dr Leith Dunn, acknowledges that economic need is often a great part of the reason these early unions happen.

"Some of it is individuals having children they are unable to look after. So, you have a child (who) has needs, and if you are unable to provide for those basic needs, having an older male playing the breadwinner role is something some families evolve into," she explains.

Basic needs

She says while parents know their children have rights, when their basic needs are not provided by the core family, a surrogate father sometimes, steps into the picture. Sometimes, there are also emotional needs, she explains, and when these are not met by the family, the child goes looking elsewhere.

She notes that peer pressure also contributes to teenage girls shacking up. "If the norm in your community is that this is an option for survival, you then would find girls getting into these relationships because these are the strategies they were taught and continue to use," states Dunn.

Richards is of the view that only good parenting will make the difference. "We need to take back our role as parents, and until we can do that, these problems will never go (away)," she says.