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Three people are dead in Fiji following alleged incidents of domestic violence.
Fiji Police is urging members of the public not to resort to violence as a way to resolve disputes.
Police officers had responded to a case of domestic disturbance as the couple were heard arguing, and upon arrival at the couple's flat in a housing complex, officers found the two victims with visible wounds.
In another case, a 47-year-old man has been charged with murder of a 28-year-old woman and was to appear at the Nadi Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Fiji Women's Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali told fijivillage.com that 90 percent of women do not report the domestic violence they endure at the hands of their partners, lovers, or husbands.
She said when something goes wrong in a marriage, women are often blamed.
She said many stay in the relationship because of financial dependence, fear, concern about their children growing up without a father, and pressure from family, friends, or the community.
"So these are all the reasons - and in the end, she loves the man.
"She just wants him to change his behaviour and stop treating her like a doormat or a dog - which often happens in relationships like this.
"Poverty has a major role to play as a contributing factor to women remaining in violent relationships and not being able to get out."
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Statistics from the centre show it had 530 new visits for counselling from January to September 2024.
This included six reported cases of rape, three of attempted rape, six of sexual assault and 19 of child rape.
For the whole 2023 year, there were 707 new visits, including 16 reporting rape and 26 reporting child rape.
Fiji's Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Sashi Kiran is urging women who are in abusive relationships, or who fear they could be in harm's way, to reach out for help.
fijivillage.com reported her saying the issue of family violence must be addressed at every level - within homes, communities, and throughout society.
Earlier this month, the Fijian Drua rugby team stood down two of its players who have been accused of assaulting their partners.
The International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy issued a report last year on police practice in relation to domestic violence.
It had several findings from its survey of 365 officers.
These included: the majority of police officers are aware of the zero-tolerance policy for DV; the majority of police officers assert they do not implement the zero-tolerance policy when handling DV cases; police officers take DV cases seriously; and officers say they encourage people to use traditional customary and religious ways of settling cases and proceed with further investigation and possible prosecution only if the victim insists.
Another report from the same journal, 'Culture, religion and domestic violence: reflections on working with Fiji and Tuvalu communities' stated that based on different prevalence studies of domestic, intimate-partner and family violence in Pacific Island countries, the Pacific region is cited to have some of the highest rates of violence against women in the world.
It said a range of research and reports points to how "domestic violence, intimate partner violence and gender-based violence in the region are normalised and rationalised, and produced through gendered inequalities that subordinate women in political, economic and socio-religio-cultural spaces".
The researchers said they argued that "we are faced with an important decolonisation question in trying to make sense of DV and 'our culture'".
"This is linked to the stories we tell about ourselves - where these stories originated from and how effectively these stories work to locate problems within culture, tradition and faith, as well as solutions within the modern/colonial/Western framings and institutions."
