Young perpetrators of sexual crimes are deeply desensitised because of pornography.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) co-ordinator Shamima Ali said this correlated with the cases they came across involving serious sexual offences.
According to statistics from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), 30 people were charged with a total of 69 counts of sexual offences last month.
Of the 30, three were juveniles. In addition, 20 of the 30 victims were minors.
Ms Ali said the victims of sexual offences also included boys.
“Some men are being raped by other men, and we also see a trend of younger people participating in this kind of criminal activities of raping or sexually assaulting younger people than them,” she said.
“This also is further exacerbated by pornography.”
Ms Ali said there was a lot of access to pornography, and children had very easy access to watch adult content.
“We are also seeing that they are copying behaviour that they see and they’re getting desensitised to this kind of behaviour.
“Terrible sexual behaviour towards other people by watching porn and so, that is a contributing factor.”
Last month, Cabinet approved the formation of a taskforce to be established to understand and mitigate the impacts of pornography and illegal content on Fiji’s communities.
Ms Ali said FWCC also stood ready to assist Government in this endeavour.
