Fiji has a population of just under one million
Child sexual abuse | 324 cases recorded this year
THE first six months of 2024 has recorded 324 cases of child sexual abuse.
Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran while highlighting this in Parliament on Friday said the monthly average of recording child sexual abuse cases was 54, with rape being the most prevalent offence targeting children in Fiji.
“Any child that has to go through the trauma of abuse, is one too many,” Ms Kiran said.
“These figures should be a source of shame and soul-searching for us as a nation.
“And most importantly we must look seriously at what we are doing about it.”
She highlighted the child sexual abuse data obtained from the Fiji Police Force reports in the years 2021 to 2023 and including January to June 2024.
“The year 2021 recorded 729 cases, followed by an increase in 2022 with 1034 cases and then a decline in 2023 with 844 cases.
With 324 in the first half of 2024, it seems the numbers are still decreasing from 2022. I wonder what the reason for that is?
“Data from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions indicate that average age of the youngest victims of child sexual abuse in the past six years is two years old.
“The youngest victim was six months old, and the average age of youngest accused person is 12 years old.”
She said three out of five rapes reported were against children and 23 births out of 1000 females were below 18 years of age.
“Let me give some breakdown of this year’s data – of the 324 child sexual abuse cases that were reported during January to June 2024 period, the 13-17 years age group had the highest number of reported cases (215), followed by the 6-12 years age group (94) and the infant 0-5 years age group (15).
“Rape was the most prevalent reported offence (104 cases), followed by indecent assault (71 cases) and sexual assault (60 cases).
“Females were the overwhelming victims of child sexual abuse, accounting for 297 (91.7 per cent) of the reported cases. Males accounted for the remaining 27 (8.3 per cent) cases.”
What? There are only two genders in Fiji?
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