Jamaica: Relationship murder-suicide rate among highest in the world

Last updated: November 13, 2017 at 8:41 am

Jamaican men are killing their spouses and then themselves at a higher rate than men in the United States and most other countries in the world, according to a recent study.

This has led to a local researchers theorising that a pervasive cultural belief that a woman is a man's possession for life is to blame.

In the last 10 years, 27 Jamaicans have been killed by their intimate partners, who then committed suicide.

That figure is made up of 26 women and one man, who was murdered by his male partner.

Clinical psychologist Dr Audrey Pottinger, who was part of a three-member team that studied these cases, said the prevalence rate on intimate partners murder-suicide in Jamaica was 0.92 per 100,000 between 2007 and 2017 – higher than the international rate.

"To put it into some framework or perspective, in the US it is typically between .20 and .30 per 100,000," she said.

"In some states in the US, it can go as high as .50. South Africa is one of the higher ones, and that was .87, and we are high above that."