Twenty-two people were charged with 57  seperate sexual offences last month, according to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The information is part of the data released by the ODPP and relates to the number of formal indictments (Information) filed in the High Courts of Fiji by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

This data is confined to incidents of serious sexual offences only. The offences were rape (37), attempted rape (1), defilement (1) and sexual assault (18).

There were 21 victims of the 57 separate incidents. There were a total of 14 victims of serious sexual offences under the age of 18 years.

There were seven sexual offences that occurred where the victims were related to the accused person. There were two cases of marital rape.

There was one serious sexual offence where the accused was the biological mother and the victim was her 14 year old daughter.

Another serious sexual offence involved a 71 year old uncle and a 4 year old victim.

There were 3 cases that were discontinued after discontinuances (Nolle Prosequi) were filed.

Of the 3, one was discontinued due to a false complaint from the complainant.

Refer to the table below entitled ODPP Rape and Sexual Offences Statistics August 2016 for a break-down of these statistics.

Source: Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions

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