‘I WAS INAPPROPRIATELY TOUCHED IN YEAR 13’

If you are a victim of child abuse or know someone who might be, call the Child Helpline on 1325.

Cadet training in schools has often been labelled as a means of character building. It’s designed to instill discipline, perseverance and self-control. But does it really instill such values? Some former students willingly came forward to shed some light about the physical and verbal abuse they faced during the training sessions. Now as young adults, they’ve boldly stepped forward to share their experiences. They did not realise at the time, that they were being abused. Perhaps the stories of these young people will prompt cadet training providers to relook at how they conduct their sessions, who should be present and at the same time have both female and male instructors. The Republic of Fiji Military Forces declined to comment.

The concept of cadets training is quite nice, but there is a lot that goes on from the within. I was “inappropriately touched” in Year 13. This is something I have not told anyone, not even my parents.

One of the instructors grabbed me by my breast pocket and I felt his hands gripping what was underneath, tightening, his fingers slowly sliding. It hurt me for the next two days.

I could have reported the matter to my parents or teachers back then, but I never really understood what sexual harassment was.

I was traumatised after the incident, and when I got over it, I realised it was sexual assault, clearly assault. He had no right to touch me like that; I did not consent to it.

He only wanted to tell me to see the officer in charge, something so ordinary, he did not have to hold me at all for that, and this was done publicly. I had never felt so helpless in my life.

Not only were the instructors extremely misogynistic, homophobic, racist, sexist and treated the students like animals, they are also sexual predators, and not everyone realises this. From openly calling the students ‘gandu’, telling us how they beat their wives when they disobey them, to touching and harassing girls.

Corporal punishment is illegal, I guess, in Fiji schools. They say that they are not part of the school, thus can have us do press ups, run with our rifles, crawl in the heat and listen to abuses.

How does your superiority give you the right to question anyone’s sexuality or abuse us, and all in the name of authority? These may seem normal in Fiji, but these are sensitive issues.

They are still standing on school grounds, aren’t they? Students would crawl so much in the heat, on the dry, brittle grass that some had their elbows cut and bruised.

We were made to lie on the grass in the name of “rest” in the scorching heat. If we begged for a break to drink water, we would be told to run to the tap, drink water and come back in 30 seconds.

The taps are right across the ground, there are only two taps that work and have very low water pressure, and with almost 50 girls wanting to drink, some of us would just sit down and not go at all.

We understood that it was for discipline, but we were not in the military, we’re barely 14 or 17-year-old children, still minors.

We had multiple students collapse and faint, and were not given proper medical care afterwards.

OTHERS EXPERIENCES Former student 1

They were harsher on the boys and probably friendlier with the girls from what I saw.

Their intentions could be questionable. Cadet is done in most of these schools to teach discipline.

Over time it has become less inhumane, but still the forms of punishment employed, I believe, are over the top.

Crawling on the ground until our uniforms turn brown, crawling through drains, even physical abuse like hitting someone over the head, and that too with force.

Then there’s the name calling and masculine stereotypes in comparing girls to boys and shaming those boys who may not able be able to perform.

There’s also varied types of bias. For the instructors, I believe they need to work on proper communication because times have changed, and they still hold old mind-sets and push them on us.

I wouldn’t be surprised if more girls were abused as well. In my opinion, cadet training does help with team bonding, but overall serves no purpose, unless someone is interested in joining the military in the future.

Former student 2

Cadet training wasn’t something we looked forward to because it was the most crucial part of the day - after lunch time.

All the students would just get hyped up yet scared of what’s about to take place because the instructors weren’t that kind or that accepting.

The training had one motive, and that was to instill discipline in the students, which the instructors would go to all lengths to do. I did cadet training in the six years of my high school life, and it was an amazing, yet tough experience.

If we did not follow the rules that we were told or if we did not behave accordingly, the instructors would punish us, like crawl on the grass or duck walk or run laps around the field.

The instructors weren’t kind with some of the students regardless of their health issues and they spoke to everyone with such commanding tone. They have to realise that the crowd they were talking to were students.

At times I would feel belittled or intimidated as a woman.

Former student 3

Okay, well it wasn’t really pleasant, because it was very exhausting for almost everyone. What I loathed the most was the punishment we were given even for a very small mistake - we’d have to crawl on the ground in our school uniforms. It was embarrassing.

We’d have to run around, do push-ups, there were times they’d give us water when the whole session is completed. It takes up to an hour for the training session, and when we’d have this competition week, we’d do it for the whole day.

They were all in different platoons; the girls were separated and trained separately from the boys, but still got the punishments.

Oh yes, they’d just swear, shout, call you out by silly names. Sometimes, humiliate us in front of everyone.

They’d just call someone and they’d make fun of him or her about their hair or something, while everyone else laughs.