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The 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report on Fiji highlights that traffickers, including family members and foreign tourists, exploit vulnerable Fijian children as young as 12 for sex and forced labor in tourist hotspots, fishing vessels, and hotels.

The report captures government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years.

Approximately 20 percent of respondents to a 2023 prevalence study identified either experiencing themselves or knowing someone who experienced trafficking.

Traffickers exploit victims in commercial sex establishments, hotels, private homes, and massage parlors, sometimes utilizing websites and cell phone applications to facilitate sex trafficking.

Fraudulent websites are increasingly used to recruit and exploit victims in labor trafficking.

Traffickers exploit Fijian and Chinese national women and children in massage parlors and commercial sex establishments operated by Chinese nationals, particularly in Suva.

Massage parlor owners sometimes arrange for female Fijian employees to engage in commercial sex acts with clients in hotels or commercial sex establishments.

Some Fijian children are at risk of sex and labor trafficking, including domestic servitude, as families follow a traditional practice of sending them to live with relatives in larger cities, where they are vulnerable to exploitation 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 or private yachts at the request of foreign tourists seeking commercial sex acts.

Fijian children are at risk of forced labor in agriculture, retail, or other sectors.

Rising poverty and increased school drop-out rates also contribute to increased risks of perpetrators exploiting Fijian children in commercial sex and forced labor.

Natural disasters and climate-induced displacement significantly increase Fijians’ vulnerability to trafficking due to loss of livelihood and shelter.

The economic crisis related to the pandemic and recent natural disasters increased the number of children driven to the streets; these children are at risk of being exploited in sex trafficking or forced labor.

Children as young as 12 are exploited in sex trafficking, sometimes by family members. Media reports indicate an increase in online child sexual exploitation, some of which may involve child sex trafficking.

Family members and domestic partners exploit women in forced criminality to sell illicit drugs or participate in drug trafficking through threat of violence, abuse, and psychological coercion.

Children are also increasingly at risk of exploitation in forced criminality to sell illicit drugs.

Labor traffickers exploit workers from South and East Asian countries, including Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines, in small, informal farms and factories, and in the construction and timber sectors.

Chinese nationals may have been forced to work in Fiji at projects run by Chinese government-affiliated companies and are vulnerable to forced labor, particularly in construction, including projects affiliated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Foreign nationals, including those from the Republic of Korea and the United States, who are members of a foreign-based religious organization, the Grace Road Group, experience conditions indicative of human trafficking in businesses owned and operated by the organization in the agriculture, retail, construction, and service industries.

Victims associated with the organization report being forced to work excessive hours with no rest days, physical violence, passport confiscation, and unpaid wages.

Recruitment agencies, vessel owners, and other crewmembers exploit migrant fishermen from Southeast Asian countries, especially Indonesia, in forced labor on Fijian-flagged or foreign-flagged fishing vessels (mainly China).

Forced labor victims experience threats of violence, passport confiscation, contract switching, debt-based coercion, excessive working hours, and abusive living and working conditions.

Traffickers exploit Fijians in labor trafficking abroad in Australia, New Zealand, and Egypt.

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