‘UN validates reports’

THE United Nations (UN) Pacific socio-economic impact assessment of COVID-19 in Fiji report validates Save the Children (SC) Fiji and ECPAT International’s review findings in 2019.

SC Fiji CEO Shairana Ali made the statement while responding to questions sent by this newspaper on the UN Pacific’s socio-economic impact assessment on child exploitation in the country.

Ms Ali said child sexual exploitation was happening in Fiji and was getting worse because of the economic challenges people faced as a result of COVID-19.

“Furthermore, both adults and children have easy access to internet and are on various social media platforms largely unsupervised and not monitored,” Ms Ali said.

“This puts children at increased risk to exploitation. We are quite concerned about recent incidents when children are abused and usually, they are connected to the perpetrators through mobile phones and internet.”

She stressed that authorities needed to be more vigilant and prosecute perpetrators swiftly.

“Awareness about such issues in the communities is really critical and ensuring that everyone at the community level understands the issue and remains vigilant.

“More people need to come forward and report about cases especially when they see children unaccompanied and in the company of people who are unknown to them.

“Suspicious acts need to be reported for example, taxis picking and dropping of unaccompanied minors at odd hours.”

She said child exploitation, especially sexual exploitation, was a sensitive issue and culturally difficult to talk about in Fiji’s communities.

“A lot of people tend to ignore the issue as it is uncomfortable to talk about. In village settings, people also fear reporting exploitation so as not to face backlash from other villagers.

“However, we encourage communities to speak up about the issue.”