Updated: 7:36am – Awareness of sexual offenses needs to be strengthened and discussed openly in schools.
This was highlighted by Fiji Women’s Crisis Center Coordinator Shamima Ali after a Year 9 student of a Nausori based school was allegedly raped by three senior students from the same school.
Two of the students involved are in Year 12 while the other one is in Year 13.
The three students have been remanded.
Ali believes one of the contributing factors to such instance occur when children are not advised openly about sexual offenses and how to respect the opposite sex.
“For us to prevent these things schools have to be more open and people like us coming in to work with their boys and girls and have conversations around these things where boys and girls can sit together and talk to each other -focussed group discussions and so on .So the schools have to be open to that and get the right people.”
Meanwhile, National Substance Abuse and Advisory Council Chief Executive Manoa Senikarawa says home is the first place to learn the impacts of such criminal activity.
The FWCC will this week release their latest report on sexual offenses.
-FBC
