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Letters to the Editor
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A terrible development
It’s horrifying to think that in the first six months of 2024 we recorded 324 cases of child sexual abuse.
Sashi Kiran, assistant minister of the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection, stressed this in Parliament on Friday.
She said there were an average of 54 cases of child sexual abuse in Fiji each month, with rape being the most common crime against children.
Any child experiencing the trauma of abuse is one too many, she said.
She said the numbers should be a source of shame and deep soul-searching for our country.
We say it is shameful and an insult to the family structure. This raises the question of how we address this major issue and how we plan to address it as a focus moving forward!
Ms Kieran highlighted child sexual abuse data from 2021 to 2023 and January to June 2024 obtained from the Fiji Police Force report.
She noted that in 2021 we recorded 729 cases, which increased to 1,034 in 2022 and fell to 844 in 2023.
Separately, in February this year, a UN expert warned that there is an urgent need to put children’s rights at the heart of the development and regulation of the internet and new digital products.
Mama Fatima Singhateh said: “A review of numerous studies, publications and reports shows that the harm and exposure of online child sexual abuse and exploitation is increasing in both scale and methodology. These include the risk of child sexual abuse and exploitation material, luring and grooming of children for sexual purposes, online sexual harassment, abuse of intimate images, financial sexual blackmail and the use of technology-facilitated child sexual abuse and exploitation material.”
She highlighted the potential for sexual abuse of children.
On the domestic front, Ms Kieran said figures from the Attorney General’s Office showed the average age of child sexual abuse victims over the past six years was two years old.
“The youngest victim was just six months old and the average age of the youngest defendant was 12 years old.”
If you look at rape, three out of five rapes are against children, and 23 newborns per 1,000 women are under the age of 18.
We have a serious problem that requires our urgent attention.
The challenge here is how we solve the problem and face reality.
But it’s not enough to just worry. We have to be proactive and confront these issues head on.
What we see and read may make people uncomfortable, but the fact is, we have a major problem! The problem may be complex in nature, but it requires our urgent attention!
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