THERE have been about 30 drug cases involving children reported to the Department of Social Welfare in the past seven years.
This was highlighted by the director, Rupeni Fatiaki, during Leadership Fiji’s National Dialogue on Substance Abuse held at the University of the South Pacific yesterday.
He said in the first five years since 2007, there were only five cases reported to the department.
“In the recent years, particularly this year and last year, out of these 30 cases reported to us, last year alone there were 13 cases reported to us where drugs were involved with children,” he said.
Mr Fatiaki revealed for the first seven months of this year alone, a total of 12 cases were directly reported to his department.
“In the last two years, there has been a significant increase and the reason for this dialogue is because we are realising that it is becoming an issue.”
He said the Social Welfare department had the power to remove children from their homes if their safety was at risk.
“If worse comes to worst, we remove the child from that environment and place them within an institution.
“Unfortunately, we do not have a specific place where children of such cases are to be placed.”
