Who’s the daddy?

More Jamaican women are reportedly requesting paternity tests than Jamaican men.

And these are not necessarily doubtful mothers, but vexed aunts, sisters, and girlfriends hell-bent on proving that their loved ones – or lovers – are victims of paternity fraud.

In many cases, these are the saving grace of some Jamaican men.

A recent cross-sectional study by the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) revealed that 76 per cent of male citizens have been prodded to do a DNA test by their loved ones and that only 32 per cent of Jamaican men were confident enough to request a DNA test on their own.

The same study revealed that 67 per cent of Jamaican females said they knew of another woman who had committed paternity fraud; and that 26 per cent of Jamaican fathers who took part in the study admitted that they had been victims of paternity fraud. St Thomas and Trelawny are the parishes with the highest number of self-reported victims, the study said.

“Believe it or not, men want the test, but most of the calls that we get are not from men; they are from the men’s new girlfriends,” shared Gavin Oliver, chairman and director of Who’s the Daddy, a genealogical testing outlet in Kingston.

“They (new girlfriends) are trying to eliminate the old girlfriend. So it is a case of ‘she has a child for my boyfriend, I’m telling him that the child is not his and he won’t hear me. So I want the test done’,” Oliver told The Sunday Gleaner. “This is especially the foreign girls. They start dating a Jamaican man and the first thing they want to do is a DNA test on the kids. They fear they will be sending money to a kid who has nothing to do with them or the father.”

Oliver recalled one woman living overseas who tested 10 children for her spouse. One turned out not to be his.

“We also get the ‘Jerry Springer’ cases, where the woman comes in and swears one man is the father then we test him and he is not, so she brings several other guys for tests. Luckily, for this one particular girl, the fourth one she tested was the father,” he shared, noting that there are about 30 to 70 requests for DNA tests monthly, dependent on the time of year.

Requests are heaviest at Christmas and summertime, presumably, when fathers and their loved ones are asked to shoulder heavier costs for gifts and school supplies. On average, about 70 per cent of the tests determined the child is not for the given father, Oliver said, noting, however, that these men had already had a doubt, thus the number cannot be generalised islandwide.

Olivia McKnight, director of Polygenic Consulting, agreed that Christmas is particularly busy. Many requests often precede immigration filings so as to save the parties the embarrassment before the process begins, she theorised. She, too, is seeing more requests from females.

“We get more calls from women, but most times from the wives. Sometimes [it’s] from the mothers and sisters of the alleged fathers,” she offered, recalling a case where a wife and her husband wanted to take the man’s four children abroad. “So he did the test with all the children and it turned out that none of them were for him.”

DEADLY CONSEQUENCES

Studies have suggested that close to 25 per cent of Jamaican males are currently raising children that they did not produce biologically. In 2021, the matter sparked much controversy when St James Central Member of Parliament Heroy Clarke indicated his intention to bring to Parliament a motion calling for mandatory DNA paternity testing at birth. Researchers warned this may increase intimate partner violence, including murder-suicide cases, on the island. Paternity fraud is said to be the second most popular reason for murder-suicides locally as men take the embarrassment and deceit seriously.

NCU’s studies dubbed the Perspectives and Practices of Women on Paternity Fraud in Jamaica and The Male Perspective on Paternity Fraud in Jamaica during the Post-COVID-19 Era canvassed 1,067 females and 1,068 men, respectively, and both had a three per cent margin of error. The majority of both Jamaican men and women believe paternity testing should be mandatory in Jamaica.

They marked socio-economic challenges and fear among the main reasons why females commit paternity fraud locally.

Last week, McKnight was slow to chastise females who find themselves in such situations, noting that many are confused and deserve sympathy.

Paul Bourne, acting director of Institutional Research at NCU, was not so forgiving, however.

“There are some women who were deliberately committing paternity fraud. Those were just 12 per cent, but then there is 35 per cent of them who say that they are not going to do a DNA test because they are fearful. So by and large, about 65 per cent of men in Jamaica are getting the right child,” he posited. “But when we asked the women, ‘will you tell the man if the child is not his?’, they said no, they won’t tell them.

“Additionally, 13 per cent of women who are over 60 years old admitted that they have committed paternity fraud, and 18 per cent of those who are 54-59 have confessed that they have committed paternity fraud,” he continued.

By comparison, 4.8 per cent of male respondents said that if they found out they were not the biological father, they would become verbally or physically abusive to the mother; 4.9 per cent said they would commit homicide or suicide; and 33.5 per cent said they would continue supporting the child.

The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) could not immediately say last week the number of paternity cases that have come up for question or for correction of the father’s name, but representatives explained the tediousness of the process and urged women to give children their own surnames when uncertain who the father is.

“We would ... refer them to the Family Court and there the judge usually orders a DNA test and then those results are then sent to us. So we take our instructions from the courts. We can’t just take somebody’s word that the father on the certificate is not the right person,” explained Nicole Whyte, marketing and planning manager at the RGD. “But this is something that is not uncommon.”

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com