Jackets, child-shifting and the Family Court

Below are summaries of two presentations which were delivered yesterday at a pre-Father’s Day event titled ‘Daddy Matters, organised by Fathers Incorporated in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of the West Indies, Mona.

For decades, Jamaican men have used the ‘jacket’ phenomenon to get back at the women who present them as full-time perpetrators of our social ills. However, both sides are wrong to continue this war of blaming. Once we are aware of the realities of paternity fraud, we might actually become empathetic to all involved.

1. The data on jackets are exaggerated because most of the samples used have focused on working class or poor urban people and/or are contextual. These contextual figures range from 70 per cent of these who suspect and do the DNA test to a third of the children fathers try to take abroad. The most experience-near figures would be about 20 per cent found in The Faculty of Social Sciences Male Fertility Preliminary results.

2. Women commit paternity fraud primarily to give the child the best chance in life. This means that the most socio-economically stable father will be the target. For this reason, the poorest, youngest, and most violent are the least likely to get a jacket – as well as the richest, who will immediately do a DNA test. However, the lower middle class is the target.

3. Jackets can cause immense domestic violence, including murder-suicide (11 per cent of attempts). More than a half of jackets feel mistreated by their ‘fathers’, and many who discover their real father are devastated. However, 62 per cent of jackets acknowledge that they got a more socio-economically stable father, and two-thirds have better life chances than children from very poor families.

4. We wish to commend the 67 per cent of men who are taken before the Family Court and discover that the child is not theirs but proceed to care for the child; but we plead with people to plan their lives better.