Bula
A $9.6million debt owed to Post Fiji Limited by an unknown Australian based business sits at the mercy table of the Government, as the company (Post Fiji) has requested for a write off. This was revealed in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) review report of the Audit Reports on Public Enterprises and Other Entities for the audit year ending from 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 that was tabled in Parliament on Thursday. Read about this unsettling and rather frustrating turn of events in The Sunday Times for August 11.
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Synopsis
Scary turn of events
It is scary to think about the fact that in the first six months of 2024, we recorded 324 cases of child sexual abuse.
Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran highlighted this in Parliament on Friday.
She said the monthly average of 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, she said, was one too many.
The figures, she said, should be a source of shame and soul-searching for us as a nation.
We say it is shameful and takes a swipe at the family structure. It raises the issue of what are we doing about this major issue, and how do we plan to address it as a concern moving forward!
Ms Kiran highlighted the child sexual abuse data obtained from the Fiji Police Force reports for the years 2021 to 2023 and including January to June 2024.
In 2021, she noted, we recorded 729 cases, followed by an increase in 2022 with 1034 cases and then a decline in 2023 with 844 cases.
As an aside, in February this year, a United Nations expert warned of the 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 has revealed the intensification of manifestations of harm and exposure of online child sexual abuse and exploitation, both in terms of scale and method. It includes the risk of child sexual abuse and exploitation material, grooming and soliciting children for sexual purposes, online sexual harassment, intimate image abuse, financial sexual extortion and the use of technology-assisted child sexual abuse and exploitation material.”
She highlighted the possibilities for sexual abuse of children.
On the homefront, Ms Kiran said data from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions indicate the average age of the young victims of child sexual abuse in the past six years was two years old.
“The youngest victim was six months old, and the average age of the youngest accused person is 12 years old.”
When you look at the cases of rape, three out of five rapes reported were against children and 23 births out of 1000 females were below 18 years of age.
We have a serious issue that needs our urgent attention.
The challenge here is going to be on how we address concerns and face up to the reality on the ground.
It is not enough just to be concerned though. We must be proactive and face these issues head on.
What we are seeing and reading about may be uncomfortable, but the truth is that we have a major issue! It may be complex in nature, but it demands our urgent attention!
