Kelera Ditaiki 
[file photo]
Sexual harassment is frequently downplayed due to entrenched cultural attitude.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre Coordinator Shamima Ali says these social norms often prevent survivors from speaking out or seeking help, allowing misconduct to persist unchecked.
She emphasizes the urgent need to shift cultural mindsets and strengthen institutional responses to protect survivors and hold perpetrators accountable.
Things like the veitavaleni and tauvu relationship, and their overly sexualized jokes that might be offensive to some people and is not the true meaning of that relationship. People often take advantage of this cultural tradition to commit sexual harassment and they use it as an excuse to commit sexual harassment.
Ali believes that i-Taukei cultural practices of Veitavaleni (First cousins) and Veitauvutaki (people whose ancestors are friends) have often been misused as justifications for sexual harassment.
She adds that there is an urgent and growing need for people to understand the true meaning and history of their cultural and traditional practices.
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