The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement claims that early sexual amongst younger children in the country has significantly increased.

Executive Director Nalini Singh says this is a disturbing reality, as she based their claims on the number of babies born each year to adolescent mothers.

She says that approximately 1,000 babies were born each year to adolescent mothers during 2016-2019, with the youngest mother recorded to be only 13 years of age.

Singh says these children need to learn about bodily autonomy, safe spaces, consent, and having respectful relationships.

She says according to the Putting Data and Evidence into Action: An Intersectional Profile of Adolescent Pregnancy and Motherhood in Fiji findings, from 2016 to 2019 the annual adolescent fertility rate (15-19 years) increased steadily and significantly from 30 to 38 births per 1,000 among mothers of iTaukei children and from 19 to 24 births per 1,000 among mothers of non-iTaukei children.

The Executive Director says FWRM and other women’s groups have continuously advocated for CSE in schools, and findings from such studies only prove to us the need for more awareness and information on sexual and reproductive health in our educational curriculums, especially targeted towards our girls.

She says women and girls must be empowered to understand and have access to fundamental information about their bodies.

Singh claims that denying them this knowledge will exacerbate issues of violence and social issues such as teenage pregnancy, poverty, and more.

She also called on the need to unlearn sex being a taboo subject.

She says Fijian children are being impacted by the decisions that we are making to prevent them from receiving information that will help them make informed choices about their bodies.