Powerful predators
Christopher Griffin, Perth, Western Australia
In Fiji, sexual offences including rape, mostly against women and children, continued to escalate in 2017.
Abroad, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, and President Donald Trump are accused of predatory sexual behaviour against women.
In Britain politicians, including senior Ministers, have resigned facing similar allegations. The common denominator is abuse by powerful men.
Men with a sense of physical and social entitlement.
Another commonality is the culture of silence embedded in institutions led by such men.
The entertainment industry, political parties, parliaments, prisons, churches, corporations, schools and universities.
In Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, and USA special commissions have been investigating such things. People are facing court, institutions are being forced into making reparation.
Society at large is acknowledging what it has long suspected or known but been afraid to admit.
Of course such corrections would not be happening were it not for courageous women (youths and children) speaking-up as survivors of sexual violence or intimidation. Thus what began with a few women along with journalists willing to speaking truth to power, has gathered momentum.
"Me-Too" is the catch-cry.
So what about Fiji? Will sexual abusers in powerful positions here be called to account? Remembering that not all those with power are rich. Poor men too have domestic power. And are women playing their part in prising open those cultural norms that protect men and the institutions they dominate at national or grassroots level?
These are matters that need talking about. Hand-wringing, moral platitudes, naive and complicit cultural 'forgiveness' won't do.
What is needed is a long-hard look at Fiji's social, cultural, and economic structures bending under global pressures that arguably underpin the upsurge in sexual offences. Above all, solid research and investigative journalism is needed by persons willing to listen.