SPC/Women 10/Workshop 9/ Paper1
May 2007
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
SECRETARIAT OF THE PACIFIC COMMUNITY
10th TRIENNIAL CONFERENCE OF PACIFIC WOMEN
(Noumea, New Caledonia, 27-31 May, 2007)
PACIFIC WOMEN, PACIFIC PLAN: STEPPING UP THE PACE TO 2010
WORKSHOP 9: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN
PAPER 1: FIJI WOMEN’S CRISIS CENTRE
Organising Against Violence Against Women
(Paper prepared and presented by Edwina Kotoisuva, Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre)
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SPC/Women 10/Workshop 9/ Paper1
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Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre
Organising Against Violence Against Women
The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) is a feminist non-government organisation
established in 1984 to address violence against women and children. FWCC is the first
organisation of its kind in the Pacific region and over the past 18 years has done
pioneering work to document, analyse and support the development of practical
programmes and services to deal with the problem of violence against women in
contemporary Pacific society. FWCC was instrumental in setting up and is the coordinating body of the Pacific Women’s Network on Violence Against Women - a
network of women’s human rights organisations working to address the issue of
violence against women in the Pacific. The Network includes 26 agencies in 9 Pacific
countries.
Since its establishment, FWCC has strengthened its effectiveness in all areas, extended
counselling and community education to rural areas and intensified advocacy for law
reform, gender sensitive policies and services for women and children. FWCC has also
consolidated its regional programme of training, support, and advice. FWCC has
trained and mentored many women and men from Government and NGOs throughout
the Pacific region who now provide a range of counselling, community education and
advocacy services to address violence against women and children.
The FWCC started as a volunteer organisation depending on isolated funding from
various donors. Since 1990 FWCC has received the support of the Australian
Government through AusAID for assistance in core support for its programmes in Fiji
and the Pacific region. Since then FWCC has been through three phases of funding from
AusAID and is currently negotiating a fourth phase of funding. The FWCC branches in
Ba, Nadi and Labasa are funded by the New Zealand Government through NZAID.
FWCC has also received financial support from the Asia Foundation, UNIFEM New
York and Global Fund for Women for various projects.
The FWCC initiated the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in 1998 which is a
network of NGOs working on human rights issues in Fiji.
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Lessons learned over the years by FWCC reinforce the need for persistent long-term
efforts to bring about changes in attitudes, behaviour and policy on violence against
women and children. Using a combination of multiple and reinforcing strategies has
proved to be a highly effective model in Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Cook Islands, Samoa,
Solomon Islands and in PNG. Successful strategies for challenging attitudes on violence
against women and children include:
targeted community education, including the use of a range of media for
communicating community education messages (newsletters, radio programmes and
talkbacks, use of press releases, television and radio advertising, seminars, workshops,
public forums, and the use of a range of creative printed materials).
well-resourced annual campaigns, which achieve a wide national coverage and
regularly keep the issue of violence in the public arena, using themes and slogans with
clear messages (eg “Violence against women: not my culture”; “Real men don’t hit
women”; “We need Rainbows, not Rambos”).
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pro-active use of the media to respond to issues as they arise.
active lobbying of a range of agencies (many of which are dominated by men) to
receive gender violence and counsellor training from FWCC.
active advocacy and lobbying to increase accountability of service providers to the
needs of survivors of violence.
strategic use of hard data, examples and research to illustrate the devastating impact
of violence on women and children, the family, community and country.
consistent portrayal of the problem of violence against women and children within a
broader human rights and development perspective.
working in coalition and collaboration with government agencies, private sector
companies and NGOs to achieve and consolidate broad community support, including
training and resourcing agencies and institutions who develop their own programmes to
address violence within their constituencies, communities or workplaces.
As successful community education and advocacy leads to increased awareness of the
problem and increased reporting to FWCC and the Police, it is essential to provide
professional counselling services in urban and rural areas, and to continue monitoring
services provided to clients by other agencies. This in turn feeds back into advocacy
work, along with the findings of research.
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New Initiatives:
Over the years, FWCC has broken new ground in terms of work on violence against
women in Fiji and the Pacific. A key area has been the development of its programmes
with men.
Working with Men – A Preventative Measure
In its efforts to eliminate violence against women, FWCC is consolidating its efforts in
its work with men. International best practice and lessons learned reinforce FWCC’s
own experiences over the last 10 years on working with men. Fundamental principles
are:
the use of a human rights framework to increase men’s awareness of gender equality
as a fundamental human right, which involves challenging traditional and cultural
beliefs and practices on violence against women and gender relations;
the importance of men addressing their own violence before they can be effective
advocates, or provide counselling to other men, and the provision of training and
support to facilitate this process; and
the importance of accountability of men’s groups to the women’s movement, and to
the human rights of both women and men.1
Manish Verma 2003 “How can men work as partners in ending violence against women and in
HIV/AIDS related prevention, care and support? An examination of The Men as Partners (MAP) program
in South Africa” AWID Resource Net Friday File, Issue 135, 18th July, 2003; and Alan Berkowitz and
Carole Sousa 2003 “Summary of Discussion”, Ending Men’s Violence Internet Forum
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/pemv-net 19 July 2003.
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FWCC has developed a programme with the Government Violence Against Women
Task Force on the Men’s Advocacy Project. The project which began officially in 2002
is a three year project with the potential to develop into a programme of its own. The
project has been through two stages with various trainings targeted at a group of men
from a range of agencies (Chiefs, priests, government and non-government agencies,
Police, military). FWCC also targets younger men through community education
activities in schools, youth groups and clubs. Trainings and follow-up seminars are also
held with the aim of establishing and supporting core groups of male advocates for
women’s rights. This work has been extended to Vanuatu and Solomons with another
planned with Bouganville.
Since the advent of Violence Against Women programmes in Fiji and the Pacific, some
changes for the better can be seen. There is a lot more awareness on the issue of
violence against women and children, a wide range of agencies are addressing the
problem; the level of debate on the issue is improving; there have been some policy and
legislative changes; some men have come on board to work in partnership with women
to address the issue; the FWCC has worked with the Reserve Bank of Fiji on a study
looking at the direct and indirect economic cost of violence (estimated at F$300 million
a year). Despite this, violence against women and children in all its forms continues and
gains have to be monitored closely. Often gains made on women’s human rights are lost
when political upheavals and ethnic tensions occur (Fiji, Solomons, Bougainville, PNG
Highlands).
It is safe to say that over the past 22 years, FWCC has been on the cutting edge of work
on violence against women internationally adapting and developing programmes and
addressing the issue within the varying contexts and sometimes turbulent environments
of the Pacific. For future directions, FWCC will be geared to monitor its impact and the
work on violence against women through systematic monitoring and evaluation
frameworks. Information and analysis will be used as a tool for organisational learning
to improve implementation efficiency and to contribute to assessing the effectiveness of
the project in achieving the impact which it seeks. While FWCC recognises that there is
more awareness on women’s rights in relation to violence against women, there remain
many disincentives which prevent women from reporting and taking action. It is within
this political and cultural milieu that FWCC has to continue working and developing
innovative strategies which can eventually lead to reduction if not ultimately the
elimination of violence against women and children.
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