Sugarcane cutter jailed for 13 years for rape

Alabourer who raped a 16-yearold and impregnated her was sentenced to 13 years and four months by the High Court in Labasa. The offender at the time of the incident was 26-year-old, employed as a temporary labourer to harvest sugarcane at the farm belonging to the victim’s father in Labasa.

He was found guilty by Judge Justice Gihan Kulatunga last Friday.

The court heard that the offender raped the victim twice, used violence and threatened to kill her with a cane knife if she told anyone when she went for her routine activities within her homestead between October 1 to 31, 2019.

She was found to be seven months pregnant by her elder sister when she went to visit her in Suva during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While sentencing Judge Justice Kulatunga said the victim’s impact report stated that the crime had an adverse effect on her as she lost two years of school and had given birth to a baby girl who was later given up for adoption. He said the facts and figures for the first quarter of 2023 made public by the Director of Public Prosecution

(DPP)’s office and the Fiji Police Force confirmed an appreciable increase in child abuse and child rape complaints.

He said that in most of the allegations, the perpetrators were adults known to the victims, some with familial connections.

Therefore, he said it was now necessary to impose stringent and even prohibitive sentences that would inhibit and deter any would be perpetrators of child abuse and also protect the children and the pubescent.

He said the culture and traditions of Fijian society expected elders to protect children in the community and the elders to enjoy the respect from the young.

In this case, he said the offender took advantage of this culture and sexually abused a young adolescent child.

At the same time he violated the trust which the complainant and her parents placed on him and abused that position of trust.

Hence, the offender was sentenced to 13 years and four months imprisonment with a non-parole for nine years and four months.