St. James cyberbullying network leads to three student arrests as Jamaica weighs digital child safety

Police in St. James are investigating a coordinated cyberbullying operation that has spread across multiple high schools in the parish, targeting students and their families. In the most recent case, social media posts falsely claimed that a teenage girl was being sexually abused by her father; the family says the allegation was entirely fabricated. Three students have been taken into custody for questioning in connection with the ongoing probe.

One mother told reporters she has been closing her business daily to escort her daughter to and from school, and waited outside an examination centre while the child sat CSEC papers because she feared what might happen otherwise. The principal of one affected institution said, "Our approach to bullying is just not enough. We don't have the resources to fight what is happening." Officers became aware of the network last year; mediation sessions were held and attacks subsided before resuming over the Father's Day weekend. A victim's mother described pages being created month after month with her daughter's name and photographs, including a recent post linking the girl with her father and alleging molestation using images scraped from a church group. She said the harassment has left her daughter isolated, with classmates unwilling to associate with her.

Priscilla Duhaney, spokesperson for the advocacy group Hear the Children's Cry, said cyberbullying can reach further and cause deeper harm than traditional bullying because digital content is difficult to erase and can follow children beyond the school gate. She warned that harassment may worsen during the summer holidays when students spend more time on devices at home, and called on the Ministry of Education to enforce cyberbullying policies, provide schools with greater resources, and partner with the Ministry of National Security under the Cybercrimes Act.

In a separate development, Jamaica Customs has confirmed that more than 34,000 MDMA tablets have been intercepted at the country's borders since January of last year. Superintendent Row, director of the Firearms and Narcotics Investigation Division, said more than 7,300 tablets have been seized so far this year and warned that Molly, often marketed as a party drug, may contain fentanyl or other dangerous chemicals. The division also reported seizing more than 11,000 pounds of cocaine valued at approximately $3 billion since the start of the year, with traffickers using ports, the postal system, and commercial shipments to move drugs through Jamaica toward overseas markets.

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