Woman Alleges that Fiji Mission President Abducted and Tried to Rape Her When She Was 13
25 October 2024 |
The church in the South Pacific is in an uproar at the allegation that the church in Fiji failed to address a known situation of the now-president of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission in Fiji abducting and attempting to rape a 13-year-old girl when he was the pastor of the Damboro church.
The incident came to light again when Lara (not her real name) filed a report with the Lami police and pressed charges against Nasoni Lutunaliwa, who was her pastor 28 years ago when she attended Damboro Adventist Church with her grandparents.
Two weeks ago Lara was interviewed on Disruptive Voices of the Pacific by Australian podcaster Letitia Shelton. Lara alleges that the incident was known but covered up by pastors and administrators.
All of the following details are what Lara alleges in the podcast interview and some, interviewer Shelton says, she has confirmed with church leaders.
Incident
Lara says she wasn’t suspicious when her pastor stopped and offered to drive her home—though she sat in the back seat against Lutunaliwa’s encouragement to sit next to him. She says that on the drive, the pastor began asking her questions that made her uncomfortable, like if any of the boys at school or church had a crush on her, if she’d been kissed, or if she’d had sex. She knew the questions were wrong, but felt somehow responsible for his asking them.
“I know when someone asks when you hop in the car, in your heart the atmosphere is not okay. With a female and a male, it is not okay for him to ask me that kind of question.”
Instead of taking her to her home, she says, he went to his house.
“I asked, ‘Where is your wife? Where is Randini?’ And he told me that Randini went to his family house because she had just given birth to his eldest daughter. And I said okay. But I just wanted to jump out of that vehicle ’cause I knew very well I was not supposed to be in that vehicle with him.”
When they reached his house, Lara remembers Lutunaliwa parking his car in a way that blocked any exit or view from the street. The pastor’s invitation to come into the empty house rang alarm bells: Lara remembers trying to get out of the car, but the doors were locked.
When she got out through the car window, she said Lutunaliwa tried to stop her. She eventually climbed over the wall of the Adventist school which backed up to the pastor’s house, while being bruised in the process. Some friends were there who took her to an aunt, who after hearing her story sent her brothers and cousins to the pastor’s house to confront him, though he wasn’t home.
Lara didn’t return to the church while Lutunaliwa was pastor. “I didn’t want to see his face, ‘cause I know what he did was wrong and he didn’t even tell me why he did it,” she told Shelton.
Cover-up
Later when Lara told a friend about the incident, she was overheard by her friend’s brother, who told their father. The friend’s brother and the father, who were church elders, implored her to think about the church, and discouraged her from doing anything that would sully Lutunaliwa’s reputation.
“They didn’t think about me. They just thought about the church. But I didn’t do anything to the church. It’s the guy who’s leading the church who’s supposed to come out.”
Some did hear about the incident, though, which led a church leader to warn those who, when years later, were considering Lutunaliwa as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Fiji.
Shelton says she talked personally to pastors who say Lutunaliwa admitted it had happened, though he claimed that the incident was not his fault and placed blame on the then-13-year-old. One pastor was fired for bringing it up, Shelton was told. She also learned that Australian church leaders have not allowed Lutunaliwa to speak in their territory.
Lara says she has been blamed by Lutunaliwa’s defenders for getting into the car and allowing Lutunaliwa to ask her such invasive questions. Lara also claims that three pastors have approached her to bribe her into silence. Said Lara,
“It hurt because you know you’re innocent. In that state of mind, your soul hurts and you thought that the people are supposed to back you up. So who am I supposed to lean on?”
Lara, 28 years later, says that the lingering effects of the incident led her to contemplate suicide.
She first filed a police report in 2020. But when she and her lawyer went to police headquarters in Suba, they were told that the file had gotten lost. (Corruption is not uncommon in the South Pacific, though it is not known if the church influenced “losing” the file.) “If that corruption in the church can go through the government,” Lara says, “who can we trust? Who can we lean on?”
Lara’s supporters say that Nasoni Lutunaliwa’s actions have been documented through the series of court cases filed against him. But Lutunaliwa also has supporters who continue to discredit Lara.
The situation remains unresolved. AT has requested a response from the Fiji Mission.
