Children in Fiji are increasingly being harmed by family members, not strangers, and are turning up at hospitals and support centres with worrying regularity, Empower Pacific social worker Adi Selai Ritova warned at an International Women’s Day outreach in Banisucu, Labasa. Ritova’s comments provide a frontline update on how family-based abuse is presenting to service providers and underline the steady demand for survivor support across the north of the country.
Speaking at the mini outreach, Ritova outlined how Empower Pacific works alongside the police sexual offence unit, hospitals and Ministry of Social Welfare to respond when children are identified as victims. “Children are brought to the hospital by the sexual offence unit of the police. Medical care is provided, and Social Welfare refers the case to the organisation for counselling,” she said, describing the referral pathway that sees survivors moved from emergency medical treatment to longer-term social and psychological support.
Ritova told the gathering that while cases are not daily occurrences, Empower Pacific is seeing referrals or walk-ins nearly every month. The organisation offers social work support, trauma-informed counselling and practical assistance to navigate legal and medical systems — services Ritova said are critical to helping survivors and their families begin to rebuild. She stressed that abuse frequently involves people within a child’s household or extended family, not strangers as is commonly assumed.
The social worker’s account adds a local service-provider perspective to a mounting body of official concern about family-based offences. National statistics and prosecutions reported recently by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions showed a rise in sexual offences occurring within family units earlier this year, and government ministers have urged communities to strengthen village-level safeguards for vulnerable people. Ritova’s observations on the ground reinforce those warnings by detailing how cases move through response systems and the support needs that follow.
Empower Pacific’s role, as described by Ritova, is both immediate and long-term: providing crisis counselling at the point cases are referred, supporting survivors through medical and legal appointments, and delivering social interventions intended to halt cycles of abuse. She said the organisation also aims to empower families to protect children and to encourage reporting so perpetrators can be held to account.
The International Women’s Day outreach in Banisucu was used to raise awareness about these services and to remind communities that protection and recovery require coordination between health providers, police, social welfare and non-government organisations. Ritova urged continued collaboration, noting that a joined-up response increases the likelihood that survivors receive timely medical care and that allegations are properly investigated.
Her remarks underline an evolving picture in Fiji: while headline prosecutions and calls for policy reform continue at the national level, social workers on the ground are encountering steady monthly demand for child-focused interventions. That sustained caseload, Ritova and other service providers say, points to the need for greater prevention efforts at the community level and enhanced support for organisations delivering counselling and legal navigation to survivors.
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