(part of openDemocracy's '16 days against gender violence' blog series)
by Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls
I am honoured to be asked to share a reflection from Fiji and the Pacific Island region, particularly because Fijian women have often felt that our region sometimes gets lost within a rapidly evolving women’s movement, despite advances in global technology. I welcome the opportunity to open communication channels - not just through women’s media initiatives like my own, femLINKpacific, but also through valuable spaces in mainstream media.
The reality for so many women in our villages and rural settlements is that they remain invisible because they don’t have the space - in formal meetings and foras - to say what they think or feel. They remain deeply disempowered and ashamed even to break their own silence, because they are veiled by a society that purports to know what women feel and want. In 2006, we continue to face a conflux of values which means a woman often remains isolated because the violence she is facing is in her home.
This year, I salute the brave leaders of the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre - who first took a stand more than twenty years ago. The centre has a new building which stands tall in the heart of Suva’s business area, a symbol of dedication and countless unpaid volunteer hours, and of how, with focused advocacy and action and management, women’s organisations can grow, and attract financial support – and that women also can build and manage buildings! It is testament to Shamima Ali’s long perseverance in challenging the status quo, of her unwillingness to back down from drawing people out of their comfort zones to admit that we live in a violent society.
I also welcome efforts by religious leaders and initiatives: “The Church and violence against women”, a recent publication from the South Pacific Association of Theological Schools (SPATS), contributes to breaking the taboo of silence. At the book’s launch, the Director of the Fiji Human Rights Commission, Dr Shaista Shameem, suggested it would have far-reaching effects, and highlighted biblical aspects of human rights: “religious elders of all persuasions are often human rights’ most trenchant critics but they should find the human rights paradigm immensely valuable, because the basis of human rights, as well as all religions, is indeed the same, that is, justice and fairness.”
A key challenge I face is to ensure that, in working for justice for women and their families, the “victim” mentality is not perpetuated, excluding us from the long term formal process of reconstruction and transformation (notwithstanding the need for security reform). femLINKpacific’s role in 2007 will be to strengthen our own rural community radio networks and broadcast systems; strengthen our young women’s empowerment programme using community radio, and to revive our regional media initiative on UNSCR 1325 in Fiji, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga.
In the long term, we need more democratic communication systems like those we have been introducing in Fiji and the Pacific. These small steps are essential to ensure all women find their voices, in their local communities, so they can challenge existing power structures which continue to contribute to the violation of women’s human rights, despite the Fijian government’s ratification of CEDAW. I hope our organisation will be an important partner in breaking the silence on the many forms of violence – economic and institutionally based as well as domestic and local - which continue to blight many women’s lives.
Picture: Shirley Tagi performing "I am Woman" at the opening of the Fiji Women Centre (c) femLINKPACIFIC.
