https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2016/258766.htm
OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
2016 Trafficking in Persons Report
Report
FIJI: TIER 2
Fiji is a source country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor and a transit and destination country for Asian men and women subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution. Fijian women and children are subjected to sex trafficking and domestic servitude abroad or in Fijian cities. Women from China, Thailand, Malaysia, and other East Asian countries are deceptively recruited for legitimate jobs in their home countries or while visiting Fiji, sometimes by Chinese criminal organizations. These women reportedly are exploited in illegal brothels (posing as massage parlors and spas), local hotels, private homes, small and informal farms and factories, and other rural and urban locations. Fiji’s liberal visa requirements—which allow nationals of 132 nations to enter the country without acquiring a visa—and role as a regional transportation hub may contribute to its status as a transit country for human trafficking. Workers from other Asian countries are subjected to forced labor on fishing vessels and transit through Fiji or board fishing vessels from Fiji ports and waters. They live in poor conditions, accrue significant debts, and work for little or no compensation on foreign fishing vessels, mainly Chinese- and Taiwan-flagged, in Pacific waters. South Asian and East Asian men are fraudulently recruited to work in Fiji and find themselves in conditions of forced labor upon arrival.