Global Issues

Fiji

• Rape, domestic abuse, incest, and indecent assault significant problems.

• Sex tourism is prohibited but reported in tourist centers such as Nadi and Savusavu.

• Source country for children subjected to sex trafficking within the country.

• Destination country for foreign men and women subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution.

• Family members, other Fijian citizens, foreign tourists, and sailors on foreign fishing vessels participate in the prostitution of Fijian children.

• Staff at small local hotels procure underage girls and boys for commercial sexual exploitation by foreign guests, while taxi drivers, nightclub employees, and relatives frequently act as prostitution facilitators.

• NGOs report caring for child victims of prostitution who claim facilitators took them to private boats anchored offshore near Fiji where they were sexually abused or raped by foreign adult men.

• Transnational traffickers reportedly members of Chinese organized crime groups recruit women from China and arrange for them to enter Fiji on tourist or student visas. On arrival, brothel owners confiscate their passports and force the women to engage in prostitution.

• Annual estimated cost of intimate partner violence was calculated at was US$135.8 million or 7 % of the Gross Domestic Product in 2002.

 

Advocacy:

• Fiji Women’s Rights Movement and Fiji Women’s Crisis Center pressed for more consistent and severe punishments for rape.

• Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers is a coalition of sex worker groups and projects working on issues of HIV and human rights for female, male and transgender sex workers across Asia and the Pacific.

 

Source: United Nations Development Fund for Women; U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011