They supported all survivors of domestic violence and the prerogative of reopening cases lies solely with the survivor, says Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) co-ordinator Shamima Ali.
She said this in response to criticisms of her silence regarding certain cases of domestic violence.
“The naysayers, what I’m reading on social media, is they have very little understanding of women’s trauma when they go through this,” she said.
“If the survivor chooses to say, ‘I want to go and see the crisis centre, I want to open the case’, we will never say no. We would love to do that for any survivor.
“We’ve opened cases of 10 years ago, and so on. Our police liaison officer has opened cases for many years that have been covered up. But it’s her choice.”
Ms Ali said the agency would assist any survivor and was more than happy to help them out.
However, they did not wish to open old wounds to re-traumatise the survivor.
“This is also the backlash against the feminist movement, you know how when women are doing well, we always want to cut her down. And this is exactly what is happening.
“So, we just carry on. People are responding and we just carry on and we’ll wait. If she wants to. We will take it up.”
