CUT BUT NOT TO FIT- IN JAMAICA

Jackets: Made In Jamaica
Published: Wednesday | May 25, 201110 Comments

At least 10 per cent of Jamaican men did not father children they filed for, data show
DNA tests required by the US Embassy in Kingston as a vital part of its immigrant visa process have turned up embarrassing figures of the number of women ascribing paternity of their children to the wrong man.

One in every 10 men who turns up at the Liguanea offices of the US Embassy is told the DNA test proves that he is not the biological father of the child he is filing for.

The data were contained in a sensitive diplomatic cable sent from the US Embassy in Kingston to its headquarters in Washington.

The diplomatic cable, a copy of which was obtained by Wikileaks and accessed by The Gleaner, also suggested that the percentage of men filing for children they did not sire – colloquially called ‘jackets’ – could have been higher if some applicants had not abandoned the paternity process in midstream.

“Approximately 10 per cent of all cases where DNA is done result in no biological relationship. This percentage does not include those applicants that choose to abandon their case rather than undergo DNA testing,” read a section of the missive that was penned in early October 2009.

Every year, thousands of Jamaicans apply for non-immigrant and immigrant visas.

In April 2010, Laurence Tobey, chief of the visa section at the US Embassy, told The Gleaner that in addition to the 110,000 applications for non-immigrant visas last year, the US Embassy also processed 11,000 applications for immigrant visas, which allow persons to reside permanently in the US.

Successful immigrant visa applicants are given the famous green card, which, ironically, is no longer green but white, and has been that colour for a while.

name missing

The embarrassing information on the number of jackets was contained in a diplomatic cable captioned ‘fraud summary’ and covered the period March 2009 to August 2009.

According to the leaked diplomatic cable, the US Embassy in Kingston “often requests applicants to undergo DNA testing because their fathers’ name is either not on the birth certificate at all, or was added many years after their birth”.

In the summary on the “use of DNA testing”, the Americans also noted, “In many cases, these fathers have never lived with their children or played a role in their lives until they go to immigrate.”

The diplomatic cable also stated that the embassy’s fraud-prevention unit was working with the Immigrant Visa Unit to update its DNA procedures as a result of the processing change.

The pervasiveness of misattributed fatherhood in Jamaica is not new.

Data from a study conducted in early 2002 by Dr Sonia King in the Pathology Department at the University of the West Indies revealed a rate of one in three.

In other words, 33 per cent of all men tested were not the biological father of the child or children in their family.