'Violence not Godly'

The Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma condemns abuse and violence against women and children.

This was reiterated by Church minister, Reverend Noa Turaganivalu, in a series of Facebook livestream, which began on Saturday, November 25.

The livestream is set for 16 days till December 10.

"Violence is not condoned by God; for God is love and hates sin," he said.

Reverend Turaganivalu said violence against women and children was a big issue for the church as the statistics continued to increase.

"According to the statistics by the Department of Public Prosecutions Office, the number of cases is ever increasing," he said.

"June had 59 cases of rape, while July had 52 cases. August had 51 while September had 27.

"I hope tomorrow (today), I can find out the stats for the month of October."

Reverend Turaganivalu said it was even alarming that iTaukei continue to be the common ethnic group found crowding the remand centres.

"There isn't anything that we've tried to do to stop this from happening, the only thing we can do now is to have a strong willpower in stopping ourselves from committing these crimes," he said.

"Prevention is better than cure.

"The cure is what the church is doing, which is evangelising prisoners in prison cells. However, the enlightenment must come from us, we should learn to safeguard ourselves from committing these crimes."

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