The 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report says there has been exploitation of local and foreign women, including children.

United States released the report today, and says for Fiji, traffickers, including family members, taxi drivers, foreign tourists, businessmen, crewmembers on foreign fishing vessels, and other traffickers exploit foreign victims, including from Thailand and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as Fijian women and children in sex trafficking.

It highlights that traffickers exploit victims in commercial sex establishments, hotels, private homes, and massage parlors, and sometimes utilize websites and cell phone applications to facilitate the exploitation of sex trafficking victims.

Adding onto this, it reveals that traffickers exploit Fijian and PRC national women and children in PRC national-operated massage parlors and commercial sex establishments, particularly in Suva.

Cases were seen where massage parlor owners arrange for female Fijian employees to engage in commercial sex acts with clients in hotels or commercial sex establishments.

It goes on to add that some Fijian children are at risk of sex and labor trafficking as families follow a traditional practice of sending them to live with relatives or families in larger cities, where they may be exploited in domestic servitude or sex trafficking in exchange for food, clothing, shelter, or school fees.

Foreign yacht owners and foreigners hiring locally owned yachts dock in rural Fijian islands and seek young women, usually children, for marriage; some of these women and children subsequently become exploited in forced labor or sex trafficking.

Taxi drivers or other facilitators transport Fijian child sex trafficking victims to hotels in popular tourist areas or to private yachts at the request of foreign tourists seeking commercial sex acts.