Fiji Women’s Crisis Center Coordinator Shamima Ali [File Photo]

There are a whole lot of things that can be done so that women are protected, says Fiji Women’s Crisis Center Coordinator Shamima Ali.

In a video recording, Ali claims that women face double jeopardy if it’s a police officer who is the perpetrator.

Ali says that despite the policies that the police have, which include zero tolerance for domestic violence, it doesn’t happen that way.

She claims that women receive threats while they go to police stations to report cases of domestic violence in which a police officer is a perpetrator.

“And how some senior police officers will put pressure, you know, when a police officer’s wife reports to the police station, do you want him to lose his job? You know, he will lose his job. Who’s going to feed you? So all these threats have gone the way of women, the officer’s wives, who have dared to complain.”

Ali asserts that women are counselled to go back home and not to report their husbands, perpetrators, lovers, or defectors.

She adds that counselling should be about how she can protect herself, the Domestic Violence Restraining Order, and how she can get one.

Meanwhile, while speaking on the video circulating on social media, which features a mother of three claiming that her husband, who is a police officer, had an affair with another policewoman, Ali says a similar attitude is given to many women at police stations.

According to the woman, when she sought assistance from officers at the Valelevu Police Station to file a report, they reportedly informed her that she couldn’t press charges against her husband as they were legally married.

Ali says they have regular complaints from women who go to the police first and are turned away by this kind of attitude.

FBC News has sent questions to the Fiji Police Force in regards to the claims made by the FWCC Coordinator.