Fiji’s Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Sashi Kiran, emphasized the troubling data on child sexual abuse as a national shame during her end-of-week statement in Parliament on Friday. She shared the latest statistics from the Fiji Police Force concerning reported cases of child sexual abuse from 2021 through June 2024.
In 2021, there were 729 reported cases, which increased to 1,034 in 2022 but slightly decreased to 844 cases in 2023. In the first half of 2024 alone, 324 cases have already been recorded. Kiran pointed out that rape is the most common crime affecting children in Fiji.
In detailing the current year’s figures, she reported the following breakdown of the 324 cases: 215 involved children aged 13 to 17, 94 involved children aged 6 to 12, and 15 involved infants aged 0 to 5. Kiran highlighted that within this year’s data, there have been 104 cases of rape, 71 cases of indecent assault, and 60 cases of sexual assault, with females being the predominant victims, making up 297 of the total.
Despite a slight decline in cases, Kiran noted that the statistics only tell part of the story. She called on all Fijians to confront the serious issues of child sexual and domestic abuse. Kiran stressed the importance of addressing the shocking data released by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), which reveal the ongoing failures to protect children in Fiji. Alarmingly, the average age of the youngest victim of child sexual abuse over the past six years is just two years old, with the youngest recorded victim being six months old. UNICEF reports suggest that five out of six children in Fiji experience abuse or neglect within their families. Kiran urged the nation to take these issues seriously.