According to the US Department of State’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report, the government has been critiqued for not operating a unique hotline specifically for trafficking cases. Instead, it has been relying on a non-governmental organization’s hotline which primarily addresses domestic violence and child abuse situations.
The report highlights that victims of trafficking were unable to contact a government-managed helpline to report crimes and access related support services. It goes on to reveal that no trafficking-related information was reported to have been received from the current hotline.
Furthermore, the report mentions that the government took no decisive action to discontinue worker-paid recruitment fees and made no attempts to limit the demand for commercial sex acts.
The report additionally points out a deficiency in government efforts to equip its diplomatic personnel with anti-trafficking training. However, it does acknowledge that training on sexual exploitation was included within pre-deployment training. Yet trafficking-specific training was not offered to Fijian military personnel set for deployment abroad as part of international peacekeeping missions.
More details about the report can be found on The Fiji Times website.