Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum yesterday called out Opposition Whip Lynda Tabuya for posting a “semi-naked picture” of a teenage girl on her Facebook page.

This was brought up during discussions to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Rights to the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said in the recent past Ms Tabuya had posted a picture of a young girl who was naked from the waist above receiving medical attention. The post was taken down after the Minister for Women wrote to Ms Tabuya raising her concern about the photo.

Ms Tabuya raised a point of order saying she received consent from the girl’s parent before posting the picture and the girl was being examined for Rheumatic Heart Disease.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said: “Honourable Tabuya had posted this photo of this young lady probably in her teens who was naked from the waist above irrespective of whether the parents gave consent or not, it was honourable Tabuya who actually posted it smiling in front of this half-naked teenager.

“Irrespective of whether the person was getting medical attention or not we all have to understand that as members of parliament we are actually opinion shapers. We have a huge level of influence in the community whether you are a back bencher, minister or opposition member you are a member of this Parliament so therefore to have those types of photographs posted by a member of parliament is not only distasteful because it is clearly for public relations perspective but more so here we are displaying a semi-naked teenager on social media.”

In her contribution, Ms Tabuya said the laws, Constitution, Crimes Act and the Online Safety Act only dealt with the sale of children and child prostitution, but not much on child pornography.

She said the current laws were weak in realising the gravity of child pornography and pornography in general.

“I note that Australia and Fiji both do not define ‘child pornography’ in their criminal laws. We need to define this term in our laws,” Ms Tabuya said.

“You heard in my statement last year on fighting this new drug, Pornography, how the victims are getting younger and younger and it’s harder to discern the age of the victims in the films and photos produced by the porn industry.”

She also mentioned that late last year, a 15-year-old girl who went missing in Florida was found in 58 sex videos on a porn site.

Edited by Naisa Koroi

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