Shania Shayal Prasad 
The Permanent Secretary for Policing has admitted that complaints against how police handle domestic violence cases are valid.
Berenado Daveta said there was a clear need for better training especially for dealing with vulnerable victims.
He states input from partners like the UNDP has been useful but warns that deep reform is needed to shift internal attitudes.
Daveta was responding to criticism from the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre.
“The Fiji Police Academy is the place to go first and review its curriculum, and then from the training, we look at the application on the ground in the various stations that people have been deployed to.”
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre Coordinator Shamima Ali says poor legal training among officers has been a long-standing issue.
“So they are using the old archaic laws, the laws from before, so they don’t know the new ones and there needs to be that, they need to be trained around the laws and how it works and so in every area but for us, because our experience is more with women, children and girls, we can talk from a place of evidence about that.”
FWCC is pushing for reforms led by local experts, not just outside support.
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