The Ja­maica Gov­ern­ment says it is in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports that stu­dents are be­ing ex­posed to sex by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa vic­tims who are still shel­ter­ing in some schools.

Ja­maica’s Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dana Mor­ris Dixon said the al­le­ga­tions are of such grav­i­ty that they must be treat­ed with ut­most ur­gency and speci­fici­ty.

“Any al­le­ga­tion of in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour in a shel­ter en­vi­ron­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly where chil­dren may be af­fect­ed, is a mat­ter of the great­est se­ri­ous­ness,” the min­is­ter stat­ed. “I was shocked to hear the pub­lic al­le­ga­tion from [Dr Mark] Mal­ab­ver [Pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (JTA)] for the first time by way of a pub­lic ad­dress. I hope he made for­mal re­ports to all rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties be­fore do­ing so.”