2008 ORGANISATIONAL REPORT
PENI MOORE,
WAC CREATIVE DIRECTOR
An organization is only as strong as the people that work and manage it. WAC is a
fine example of this. Without the dedication and hard work of the actors and the
management and administration staff WAC would not be able to do all this wonderful
participatory, creative work that give us the encouragement to continue.
Most of the people working for WAC have done so for more than 5 years and some
from the very beginning (1994). I am sure it is because of the fulfillment we receive
working in the communities, creating relationships with women from informal
settlements, children from schools and institutes, youth from places or spaces that
others don’t work with. Using participatory methods of awareness raising after our
theatre enables us to continually learn from the community. We are able to hear
from such diverse communities what they think about the subject we are bringing to
their attention. They provide us with possible strategies to prevent problems that are
more likely to succeed than imposed solutions.
It is indeed a great honour to have this connection with community. It is an honour
that children trust us enough to tell us things they would not tell their teachers or
parents. It is an honour to hear young people opinions, and a great privilege that
women from informal settlements let us into their lives.
And of course none of this could be done without the support of our funder partners,
some who have been with us over many years. We thank them for their help and
understanding at times. We are still hopeful that we will get core funding one day
that will allow us to concentrate on our ever expanding work. We continue to work
toward a community house (warehouse) to enable us to do what we do best, under
one roof.
But until our dream comes true WAC continue to work and learn, create and be
innovated to transform the atmosphere of hopelessness that can occur with such
socio-political realities that we face at the moment.
Thank you from the WAC Staff and
Management Collective
In 2008 WAC were part of many partnerships and joint initiatives with organizations and networks
such as Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding, Citizens Constitutional Forum, FemLINKPACIFIC,
FWCC, FWRM (ELF program and the Young Feminist Network), DAWN Pacific, Dialogue Fiji,
South Pacific Association of Theological Schools (SPATS), Equal Ground Pasifik and Rainbow
Women Network, Oxfam Vanuatu, USP Arts Programme, FRIEND, Marie Stopes, UNIFEM Pacific,
UNDP Pacific, the Prisons Dept, NCBBF, AWID, Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, CREA,
among others.
WAC acknowledges the contributions and practical support of funding partners in 2008. They
included longtime feminist friends, International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) and Global
Fund for Women (GFW), without whom the ongoing development of WAC would be so much
harder. In 2008 for the first time we also received a 3 year grant from Ausaid for peacebuilding
work in 2008-2010. Other project-based funding was received from Oxfam NZ (2007-8),
Artventure (2007-8) and Australia Fiji Community Justice Project.
Special thanks goes to our friend Piccolo Willoughby, who ensured that the 2008-2010 strategic
planning process in 2007 was inclusive, strategic and realistic. We continue to improve it.
There are also many individual supporters and friends of WAC. We will not name you in case we
miss someone, but your contributions are deeply appreciated!
Most importantly, WAC work is not possible without the longtime dedicated involvement of the
three trustees, management collective, and most of all staff and community participants, who are
the core of Women’s Action for Change (WAC).
WAC Organisation
WAC Vision:
“WAC is founded on the principle that all persons, hence women, should be treated equally
regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or ability.”
WAC Mission, which we also call our Dream:
“To create safe spaces where individuals and groups, particularly marginalised people, can
gain strength and confidence to build a just society.”
WAC Theory of Change
In the immediate and short-term period, WAC work is located within a 3 year WAC strategic plan
that includes development of a warehouse-style community centre, capacity building and
organisational development, administration costs, M&E and impact assessment, and multiple
projects that strategically intersect for greater equality (including gender equality), social justice,
and nonviolence in Fiji.
In the medium and long-term, this work is located within a theory of change that WAC work is part
of wider ongoing local, national, regional and international work toward lasting equality and social
justice.
WAC is a feminist organisation so all projects have a gender equality framework, and a focus on
human rights and transformative social justice. This does not mean that we only work with women,
or only particular women in Fiji. On the contrary, societal change toward equality and social justice
for all, which is WAC’s long-term goal as clearly expressed in our founding principle, will only be
possible through progressive transformation of ALL social and structural relationships, over time.
Therefore, WAC work with diverse men and boys as well as with girl children and women, people
with diverse gender and sexuality, in a longterm intergenerational, intersectional approach to
change. Social change will not occur through single efforts and isolation but through careful,
meaningful informal and formal relationships and actions developed in and between individuals,
groups, communities, organisations and nations.
WAC works primarily throughout Fiji due to our belief that the local, community level is where
engagement and inclusion with formal governance and power structures are least, and where the
true strength and dynamism of social change emerges. WAC link into local, national, regional and
global intersecting movements, including women’s equality, peacebuilding, spiritual (not religious),
human rights and social justice action and networks.
Therefore this project proposes that movement toward a more nonviolent and positively peaceful
nation of Fiji, including prevention of gender-based violence and violence against children will only
occur through more and diverse people who analyse conflict through a nonviolent and
peacebuilding lens. It will also increase if those people are empowered and linked. It is the reason
why conflict analysis, conflict transformation, restorative and active peacebuilding is now a core
part of ALL WAC projects.
WAC focus on social justice and equality also necessitates special attention to inclusion of ALL
people. Many people are specifically or inadvertently marginalised from interpersonal, family,
community, national, regional and global conversations, services, governance and action for
change. This can be due to prevailing attitudes about gender and sexuality, age, ethnicity, and
other social, economic or cultural beliefs. Change therefore must also necessitate transformation of
community attitudes toward greater inclusion and participation.
Hence our focus on gender, intersectional identity and diversity. In the Fiji context this has meant
attention paid to more meaningful inclusion of women, ethnic minorities, indigenous people, people
living in rural and urban informal settlements, people in rural areas, people with disabilities, the
aged, people with diverse gender and sexuality, sex workers, prisoners and ex-prisoners, the poor,
people with mental health issues, etc. Exclusion also occurs due to communication gaps, and
therefore WAC aim to facilitate greater participant interaction through oral as well as written forms,
social justice theatre including scripted, Playback and Forum theatre, workshops, arts based
events and other formal advocacy platforms. We have actors/facilitators fluent in vernacular Hindi,
Fijian (Bauan and other dialects), and English. We also recognise the need for gender-specific as
well as cross-gender groups, and so have male and female actors, as well as those with diverse
gender and sexuality. Our monitoring and evaluation tools are also targeted at diverse formal
education levels.
Our peacebuilding focus often necessitates work with conflict entrepreneurs and/or those with
often oppositional views to WAC inclusionary, human rights stance: This has included the Security
Forces, women opposing equality status for women and others, ethnonationalist groups,
Indigenous rights groups, fundamentalist Christian groups, political actors, prisoners, gender
violence offenders, etc. What is important and useful in work thus far is that WAC has a very clear
and public founding principle and mission, and clear organisational stance of feminism, human
rights and peacebuilding work. All projects are positioned from this, are respectful of diversity and
others’ beliefs and attitudes, but do not compromise our core values of social justice and equality
for all. Overall, WAC works with diverse individuals and groups in the spirit of transformative
change toward our longterm goal of equality including gender and sexual justice, and for a
peaceful and respectful world for all.
How did we get here? WAC Herstories, 1993-2008
WAC was founded in Suva, Fiji in 1993 by a diverse group of local women who identified a need
for community-based, participatory work on human rights issues facing Fiji women. They created
an organisation using theatre and diverse learning methods to work toward equality and justice for
all, including women. WAC adopted its constitution on 18 September 1993, and obtained
registration as a charitable trust in November that year.
In 1994, the staff of WAC received initial training in community theatre production and acting from
the Vanuatu-based theatre group, Wansmolbag. This was supplemented in 1995 by training from a
Canadian organisation, Irondale Ensemble Project, in an interactive technique known as Forum
Theatre. Some of WAC’s first plays dealt with sexually transmitted infections (STIs), literacy,
environmental protection and domestic violence. Performances were given in schools,
communities and later juvenile justice centres and prisons. The organisation was also involved in
campaigning against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. WAC’s donors at that time included
World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), Global Fund for Women, Canada Fund
and International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA), who are still a WAC partner.
By 1996, WAC had begun training young people to become actors, including a group of juvenile
offenders, with the aim of generating their own income through theatre. While the commercial
success of this activity was limited, many young people became a part of WAC, and some of those
young actors are now senior members at WAC today.
Jona Robaigau:
How I started at WAC: “In 1996 I was part
of the Juvenile centre group, and WAC
came in to do a play. In 1997, I was also in
the second group. The group had no
funding to continue. Then Peni gave me a
casual job as a costume manager. An actor
resigned, so I stayed with WAC part-time,
and then as a fulltime actor.
Training: Since then I have had training in
PlaybackTheatre
(multiple),
Theatre
with
Wansmolbag (Vanuatu), Restorative Justice and
Mediation, and in-house workplace learning. I also
went to NZ in 2001 for Playback Theatre training
with Beverly Hoskins.
Changes: Since 2003 WAC has done more
workshops, introducing RJ and also more
involvement with young people. Numbers of staff
have also increased, and our coverage.
My hopes: Basically, I would like WAC to grow,
and for there to be more secure funding. Lots of
young people want to work in community theatre,
but I tell them we have limited resources. When
we get our Warehouse, we can employ more
people. There can be bigger theatre productions,
and we could cover more areas because we can
divide the work between more people.
WAC’s Importance: For me, WAC deals with
practical everyday issues, which can improve
people’s thinking and behaviour, etc. But because
of funding, we can only cover certain issues at a
time.
In 1997, the organisation established the Sexual Minorities Project (SMP). This may well have
been the first programme of activities in any of the Pacific Islands Countries to directly focus on the
rights of people of diverse gender and sexualities. The Sexual Minorities Project had its own
coordinator, sub-collective and independent funding, initially by Umverthllan and Oxfam New
Zealand. There were major early organisational consequences from this work in sexuality rights,
with WAC even receiving direct feedback from some donors that this work made it difficult for them
to fund other WAC work.
WAC achieved another first in 1998, with the establishment of a not-for-profit community
childcare centre for the children of garment factory workers in the tax-free zone at Kalabu, just
outside of Suva. The Kalabu Childcare Centre was the result of five years of lobbying by WAC of
local businesses, to provide financial support. The women whose children attended were lowincome casual workers, employed in garment factories. Considerable financial and non-financial
support was also provided by WAC. The Centre operated during extended business hours, and
catered for up to 50 children between the ages of six months and five years. Feedback from the
businesses and families involved was overwhelmingly positive. There were reports from business
owners of reduced absenteeism and increased productivity, and many mothers were able to enter
the workforce for the first time. The Centre operated until 2002 with WAC, but after the 2000 coup
only one garment manufacturer continued to operate at Kalabu, and there was an ideological
conflict with the manufacturer, i.e. he wanted to see an increased user-pay system that WAC saw
as exploitative to unestablished women workers. WAC withdrew support after 2 years of
negotiations, and the Centre continued with the same staff. However, the mothers now had to pay
all costs and provide own food, and it impacted on the welfare of the children. In the end the
Centre Coordinator left. At the proposed WAC Community Centre (in our strategic plan and
dependent on fundraising), WAC intends to re-establish a small childcare centre. This is to provide
high quality childcare to communities WAC works in currently, and to support early childhood
development programmes focusing on social and emotional learning, and non-violent parenting.
In 1998 WAC staff received further arts training from three Australian practitioners in another
innovative and interactive theatrical technique, called Playback Theatre, which is now a major
source of community participative community research informing WAC work. Yearly training in
Playback Theatre continued from 1999 to 2002 from the New Zealand School of Playback by
Beverly Hosking and Christian Penny. Beverly Hosking returned for another NZAID funded
Playback training Workshop in August 2007, at which WAC, FRIEND (Fiji) and Bauabaua Theatre
(PNG) staff attended. There is now a growing network of Playback practitioners in Fiji and PNG.
PLAYBACK THEATRE AT WAC
WAC Playback Theatre Trainer (External), Beverly Hosking,
NZ: WAC has PBT practitioners who are very experienced – they
have had solid training over the years and extensive experience
in working with PBT in performance in a wide variety of settings.
Their work reflects this. They are at ease on stage and have a
strong capacity to work together and create a story on stage.
For this group training serves to refresh and extend their skills
and to deepen their work. It is essential not to underestimate the
importance for any PBT team to have some regular training
input. Working with PBT is intense and emotionally demanding
as the performers are continually responding to the stories of
others. With WAC’s target audiences, this group is regularly
involved in listening to difficult stories.
Laura, Jona, Pita and
Isimeli performing playback
in Labasa, 2008
PBT is an improvised form of theatre and it is challenging to
maintain a freshness and creativity – it is easy to slip into
habitual ways of doing things and to fall back on what is known
and familiar rather than to keep working to bring something new
and innovative to the work and to the relationships on stage.
This is a particular challenge with a small company doing the
amount of PBT work that this group has done.
It is important that PBT performers also have a chance to tell
their own stories, and to take time to recover their sense of play
that is at risk of dropping into the background in the face of the
often-serious nature of the work.
From 1998 to 2001, WAC conducted weekly workshops, including Playback and Forum Theatre,
in the Lautoka, Nasinu, pre-release and women’s prisons, designed to help prisoners rehabilitate
themselves and re-integrate into society. WAC’s workshops were funded by New Zealand
government via their Public Service Commission, and focused on self-esteem building, trauma
healing and the elimination of violence against women. WAC was not able to continue in the prison
system during the 2001-2006 period due to conservative administration that was not supportive of
restorative justice and arts based programmes. During this period WAC concentrated individual
prisoner support, assisting FRIEND (Lautoka based NGO) with their development of a prisonbased programme, upskilling key FRIEND staff in community facilitation for prison work, and
facilitating ex-prisoner work in Ba and Lautoka communities. However, positive discussions with
prison authorities resumed in 2007 and in 2008 WAC re-started their prison work at the Women’s
Prison (Minimum, Medium, Maximum -Suva), Naboro (Medium and Maximum) and Labasa
(Medium).
In 1999, WAC received a national Human Rights Award from the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement,
for its contribution to the advancement of women’s rights in the area of the arts, and in connection
with the prison programme above. WAC was producing four to five new plays each year during this
period, dealing with themes such as homophobia, land issues, racism and the May 2000 coup,
corruption, disability and children’s rights. While on 6-8 tours per year and with regular SuvaNausori and surrounding areas performances, actors would perform in three schools or
communities each day, with around 240 performances, reaching an estimated total audience of
2400 people per year around the country.
From 2000 onwards, WAC was a partner of Save the Children Fund Fiji and NZ in a series of
workshops in peri-urban and rural communities, focused on trauma healing, community mediation
and reconciliation after the 2000 coup. One of these communities was Muaniweni, and a group of
young people who took part in these workshops went on to form a youth theatre group facilitated
by WAC. This group performed for audiences in the wider Naitasiri area and Levuka until 2004.
Two of its members later joined WAC’s main theatre troupe, and remain today. WAC still has
regular contact with these communities. This work after the May 2000 coup led to WAC adopting
its dream in February 2003. Formulation of the dream was initiated by the Management Collective
and staff, at a time when staff were feeling emotionally and physically exhausted as a result of their
work with young people affected by the two previous coups. The dream is intended to set out an
objective for the organisation that is long-term, but at the same time concrete and achievable.
2004 was the year in which WAC commenced a focused, staged process of institutional
strengthening, including the recruitment of a WAC Coordinator. WAC has further experimented
with, and developed its current programmatic approach that has four broad groupings of projects
taking a feminist intersectional approach to gender equality, social justice, conflict transformation
and peacebuilding, and arising directly from the vision and dream of WAC, and a linked
programme support system:
1.
Women, Empowerment and Equality
2.
Children and Young People at Risk, Empowerment and Equality
3.
Community Justice for Social Transformation
4.
Community Empowerment for Social Transformation
5.
Programme Support: Community Advocacy, Network Support and Movement Building
All four current WAC programmes include multiple projects with activities such as theatre, song
and others arts-based techniques, capacity building and skillsharing workshops emphasising interpersonal skills. Drop-in advice and counselling by appointment for the marginalised and at risk is
also a feature of all programmes, and advocacy and networking is increasingly focused and
targeted. From 2005, the organisation has begun to receive requests for work in the other Pacific
Island Countries. Staff has recently worked in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, and in regional
and international advocacy spaces.
1. WAC Programme: Women, Empowerment and Equality
In 2005, WAC implemented an intensive year-long plan of activities funded by the UNIFEM Trust
Fund for the Elimination of Violence against Women, NY. This national project included a play
called ‘Another Way’ dealing with young women, access to decision-making and suicide
prevention. It included post-performance workshops, community workshops and mediation to
highlight the issue of violence against women and girl child, identify root causes of violence against
women, and to advocate for increased community responsibility for shared strategies to address it.
There has been a strong call for continued use of the play and so it is still in use by WAC.
This project is now complemented by the ‘EVAW Youth Restorative Justice Mediation’ project
funded by IWDA (2005-8); Work on ‘Women, Decision-making and HIV and AIDS’ funded by
Oxfam Australia (2006-7) as well as women-focused work in wider WAC community empowerment
projects such as the ‘Informal Settlement Empowerment’ Project initially funded by Oxfam NZ
(2006-8) and developing into a women-specific initiative, ‘Women in Informal Settlements
Empowerment and Networking’ funded by IWDA (2008-2010) and ‘Building Healthy Communities’
work funded by Canada Fund, with FRIEND (2007-8).
There are also current research and advocacy activities in this programme including participation in
a regional working group toward Pacific-wide feminist dialogues (2007-8); participation in the
international working group of Association for Women in Development (AWID) 2008 Forum on
Movement-building (Cape Town Nov 2008) and facilitation support on SRHR for the ‘Pacific Young
Feminist Network’ (lead agencies FWRM and DAWN).
In 2006-7 we facilitated at workshops such as gender equality training sessions for Magistrates
Court and High Court clerical staff, Fulton Teacher Training College (rural, regional), regional SPC
Community Training (CETC, Narere), UNIFEM Pacific Women and Governance Training
Programme (2007), USP Arts and many others.
Please see next section for details of 2008 activities.
Looking forward: There are also two new project areas in development in 2009: ‘Young Women
and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’ project that includes theatre and spaces to
explore intergenerational sexuality rights strategies by women and girls; and the ‘‘F-Word’ Feminist
Theatre’ project that aims to develop life stories of diverse WAC women, turning them into an
interactive performance series exploring local experiences of feminism and women’s equality in Fiji
today.
NOTE: ALL WAC PROGRAMMES HAVE GENDER EQUALITY AT THEIR CORE.
2. WAC Programme: Children and Youth at Risk, Empowerment and
Equality
In 2005, WAC commenced ‘Skills for Life’, a pilot project with young people at risk in schools. This
has been supported by Oxfam Australia and then IWDA, and the project has expanded from the
initial group of 25 students at one school, to 120 students at 3 schools by 2007, and many students
have now become part of the ongoing ‘EPIC Mediators Network’, a group of over 65 young
mediators who were working in over 11 schools around Fiji in 2008 (and continuing to grow in
2009). ‘Skills for Life’ involved regular workshops in selected high-need secondary schools, dealing
with trauma healing, self-esteem and confidence building, and communication and conflict
transformation skills. Individual or group counselling and mediation is also undertaken on request
by students, and with the agreement of teachers.
As with all WAC’s activities, the design, content and process of ‘Skills for Life’ have strong
foundations in gender equality, human rights and peace building. As a result of this project, WAC
received a national Human Rights Award in 2006 from the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team
for its “strong approach and participatory commitment to social justice”.
This project emerged from a practical experience in 2003 where WAC was requested by the
Magistrates Court and the Fiji Human Rights Commission to provide alternative community
sentencing for 5 juvenile offenders (school students) charged with assaulting two gay male peers.
Their programme involved weekly sessions at WAC for three months, with such personal
development that by the end there was observable attitudinal change toward issues of gender and
sexuality including homophobia, and the boys were able to defend themselves in final court sitting
when their lawyer did not appear. Their sentence was fully discharged. The school was initially
hostile to the project and ended up completely supportive. The students did not have to leave
school, in fact their schoolwork improved.
It was realised that there was an urgent need for preventative school and community based
projects aimed at preventing young people from entering the formal justice system, and WAC see
this as a major focus of future work. WAC has therefore been increasing our capacity to participate
in informal and formal peacebuilding and restorative justice activities.
There was parallel advocacy work carried out to encourage Principals, teachers and Ministry for
Youth and Education to embed the ‘Skills for Life’ Youth-at-Risk schoolbased project into the
national school system. WAC presented to 80 High-school Principals at the annual Fiji Principals
Conference in October 2007 on progress toward an integrated programme by 2009, developed out
of the current projects of: ‘Skills for Life’, ‘Youth Quest- Ethical Leadership’ and ‘EVAW - RJ
Mediation for Young People’ projects, and there is widespread community support for this
development in 2008 and beyond.
In 2006-2008, WAC was also working with Save the Children Fund Fiji and Save the Children
Fund New Zealand on a national joint project called ‘Youth Quest -A Journey to Ethical Leadership’
that examines the overall issue of violence against children, including child sexual abuse. It
demonstrates how ethical leadership and role models impact on children’s lives and explored how
young people could themselves actively participate in transforming ideas about leadership, active
non-violence and peacebuilding in Fiji. This project drew public attention to the urgent need to
eliminate all forms of violence against children in Fiji, and to equip more children and young people
with mediation and advocacy skills to work more effectively within their schools and communities
on initiatives that counter societal violence and promote non-violence and active peacebuilding
leadership for the future. The EPIC Mediator program continued in 2008 (and is currently
expanding to around 14 schools in 2009).
In 2005 a gender equality focussed project called ‘Elimination of Violence against Women - Youth
Project’ funded by IWDA was begun. It complemented the youth projects above, but specifically
targeted RJ mediation skillbuilding in schools through a stepped approach ensuring gender
analysis, empowerment and inclusion of girl child and young women at all stages of active nonviolence and peacebuilding youth work. There was intensive empowerment and mediation
skillbuilding workshops for young women in the Suva-Nausori area in 2005-6, inclusion of young
males from the same schools in 2006-7 and in 2007-8 an integrated transformative non-violence
project for young people based in high need schools, with the potential for further schools coming
onboard in the next three years. The third year of this project (October 2007-8) involved more
teachers and principals with support work for peer mediators in schools, to further embed the
project in a ‘whole-school’ restorative justice approach that is gender-inclusive. It is very important
to WAC that this school-based approach is occurring at the end of a gendered process with an
underlying goal of empowerment of young women within the high school system, often one of the
most systematically disempowering spaces for young women in Fiji
In 2008 the EPIC Mediators Network formed (see detailed project information below), and WAC
had by then recognized that a key need of primary schools is a skills for life program for primary
school students in class 8, before they enter secondary school, after a successful pilot programme
in 2007 with Veiuto Primary School. Students and then, at their request, teachers and the Principal
were participants in RJ skill building and conflict transformation work. This project was repeated in
2008, with further work continuing in 2009 and beyond. Work continues to develop this program.
(In 2009 there is also increased interest in more national work on ‘Peace Schools’ combining
restorative justice and peacebuilding, empowerment and skills-for-life components, and we will
partner with others to develop portable modules).
In 2007 and 2008 WAC has been part of a National Steering Committee to devise a Youth Crime
Prevention Manual, to be used in communities, community organisations and schools throughout
Fiji, facilitated through the Australia/Fiji Community Justice Program. WAC staff have also
facilitated at local and national youth network and youth-at-risk workshops through Ministry for
Youth and Ausaid projects, regional young feminist advocacy training in Papua New Guinea (with
DAWN and FWRM) and rural youth and elders multigenerational workshops on Pentecost Island in
Vanuatu (Oxfam Vanuatu).
With the increasing evidence of high levels of solvent abuse (especially glue-sniffing) by primary
school children as acknowledged by children and teachers involved in all projects and the
Education department, 2009 includes a new focus on prevention of solvent-abuse, including a play
and short workshops for children in primary schools around Fiji (with expanding geographic
coverage and wider stakeholder involvement in 2010).
Please see below for details of 2008 activities.
3. WAC Programme: Community Justice for Social Transformation
In 2002, a self-help network for sex workers and ex-prisoners, ‘Veikawaitaki’ arose out of prior
workshops on self-esteem and community building, when the two groups identified common
realities and discriminations and a need to provide their own ongoing peer support. Participants
decided to form an association to support income generation activities. However due to limited
resources and the high-level needs of these groupings, the support group floundered.
Work with juvenile offenders, prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families is among the most difficult
and under-resourced areas of WAC work and current programme development reflects these
challenges. It is also among the most critical to address high levels of societal violence, genderbased violence, and the high levels of youth recidivism. This is the most difficult area to fund as it’s
a high risk, rarely tackled form of social justice and human rights work in Fiji. There are now other
organizations such as FRIEND and Pacific Counseling and Social Services who have worked in
this area since the mid 2000s, and the faith-based group, Prison Fellowship Network have been
another service organization.
Another area of difficult work is with sex workers and people with diverse gender and sexualities.
The illegality of sex work in Fiji and the prevailing homophobia against people with diverse gender
and sexuality (including state violations as well as non-state actors such as faith based groups,
communities, families and peers) means that social justice is not experienced by many people in
Fiji, and their human rights are often violated, regardless of the highly progressive Bill of Rights in
the 1997 Fiji Constitution (note: The 1997 Constitution was recently abrogated – April 2009).
There has been consistent commitment to overall social justice, human rights and in particular
justice for the poor since the beginning of WAC but due to conservative exclusionary government
policies of the past decade and limited WAC organisational and advocacy resources, our work has
been severely constricted. Nevertheless, work has continued, and positive changes have occurred
in 2008 with WAC prison work re-starting in the Women’s Prison, Naboro and Labasa prisons, and
in Lautoka with partner organization, FRIEND.
In 2008 there have also been increased requests for support from street-based and other sex
workers who experience state and non-state violence, discrimination and heightened poverty, as
well as lesbians, women headed households and other women living beneath the poverty line
throughout Fiji.
In 2007-8, WAC continued one-to-one contact with many prisoners and ex-prisoners around the
country. There was ongoing drop-in support of letter-writing, referrals, mediation, police station and
prison visits, short workshops and community visits for prisoners, ex-prisoners and sex workers
(trans support and networks were also available through Aidstaskforce of Fiji and GLBT services
through Equal Ground Pasifik (EGP-Not currently active) and in late 2008, a new emergent selforganised network of lesbians, Rainbow Women’s Network).
However, this support work can only be fully realized if there is establishment of a suitable ‘safe
space’ venue, such as the proposed WAC Community Centre (for which funds for land and a
warehouse space are urgently needed).
WAC is one of the few human rights based civil society organisations in Fiji working in preventative
and rehabilitation and reintegration work with male prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families, as we
have already strong links and visibility within target groups and their families (through our work in
prisons, juvenile detention, safe-houses, low-cost housing areas, squatter settlements and rural
settlements).
However, this programme must now engage adequate multi-stakeholder support for it to be
effective and sustainable. We require adequate government policy, infrastructural and
organisational support from donors including human resources and project funding, and for the
Community Centre. WAC continues to establish relationships with squatter settlement and informal
ex-prisoner networks, the Fiji Police, Prison service, Attorney General’s Office, Magistrates and
High Court and wider civil society to progress this work. In 2008, work resumed in prisons, with
female and male prisoners and WAC have also been responding to increased requests for support
from street-based sex workers, which is also currently criminalized in Fiji.
Accordingly, in 2009 and beyond, WAC is ensuring that our Community justice programme is an
increasing part of WAC work. This is not just about prison-based work; it includes preventative
work with young males, young offenders, work with sex workers, lesbians, widows, and other high
poverty communities such as women and girls living in informal settlements and rural areas. It
includes advocacy work to link women into national security and peacebuilding decision-making
processes, and to enable direct voice by these women and their families on issues of personal,
community and national safety, human security (including economic security).
It means widening definitions of community justice to include making clearer the links between
bodily integrity, women and decision-making in homes, families and workplaces, and women and
formal socio-economic and political decision-making at local, state and regional levels, and
explicitly including sexual rights for women and girls as a core part of gender justice and equality
work.
Please see below for details of 2008 activities.
4. WAC Programme: Community Empowerment for Social
Transformation
WAC has consistently integrated human rights, sustainable livelihood, conflict transformation and
wider human development and feminist social transformation work over the past 14 years.
However, in the current context of Fiji an intersectional and feminist peacebuilding focus has
become evermore urgent.
Therefore the Community Empowerment programme has combined the following areas: ‘Building
Healthy Communities and Preparing for Change’, a joint project with FRIEND and funded by
Canada Fund (2007-), ‘Empowering Informal Settlement Communities for Change’, supported by
Oxfam New Zealand (2006-2008), and our ongoing ‘Women, Decision-making and HIV and AIDS
project’ to strategically identify and focus on urgent and emerging national issues. WAC often acts
as an early warning system, raising early awareness in communities, wider civil society, and with
government and other regional and INGO stakeholders.
With increased national and regional support in 2006-7, there were an increasing number of WAC
initiatives around Fiji, including rural and urban communities in greater Suva, Nausori, Naitasiri,
western side of Viti Levu, and rural Vanua Levu. The 2006-8 ‘WAC Informal Settlement
Empowerment’ project was supported by Oxfam New Zealand, for example, and focused on
meaningful involvement of women and other intersectionally marginalised minorities in informal
settlements; enhanced understanding and engagement by relevant Government Departments on
informal settlement issues; clarification of issues around land types and land titles; and initiatives to
build strong partnerships with other NGOs and CSOs such as ECREA and CCF working with
informal settlements toward a joint approach to addressing poverty, social justice, human rights
and social transformation issues in Fiji.
Another continual priority is the national HIV and AIDS effort. WAC community theatre has been
used over the years to highlight Fiji’s current and changing realities of HIV and AIDS related
priorities. For example, the 2007 play ‘War of Words, not Swords’ focused on the links for women
between sexual decision-making, community violence, and HIV and AIDS. WAC has gradually
increased advocacy engagement since 2004, complementing existing national focus.
The first play on HIV and AIDS in 1995 was on homophobic discrimination and heterosexual
transmission patterns as it was then overwhelmingly perceived as a ‘gay disease’. Other plays
between 1996-2000 have also highlighted sexual and reproductive health and rights, including
plays on sexual assault and teenage pregnancies.
In 2003 WAC developed a play called ‘Better off Dead’ on the urgent issue of voluntary testing.
This play was not funded at the time and was used on public request and this play will be further
developed for further use as the themes remain highly relevant today.
In 2006-7 the play ‘War of Words, not Swords’ funded by Oxfam Australia highlighted the linkages
between human rights and bodily integrity, women’s lack of personal and community decisionmaking in Fiji (including sexual decision-making), societal violence and specifically focussed on
gendered experiences of HIV and AIDS. The project includes post-performance workshops
affirming and developing strategies for sexual negotiation by young people using their own
contexts, knowledge and skills and a brochure to share these strategies. This has been a very
popular play, and has seen over 50 performances to 4000 people nationwide. The plot was
inspired by the groundbreaking work of PNG highland women’s network, ‘Kup Women for Peace’
as they demonstrate the possibilities and positive impact that women can have on making the links
between women and decision-making, violence and action on issues such as HIV and AIDS.
In 2007-8 WAC upscaled and further focused our national and regional advocacy response
through the National Advisory Council on Aids (NACA), and participation in an informal network of
non-governmental organisations including the Aids Taskforce of Fiji, Equal Ground Pasifik, Fiji
women’s Rights Movement, Champagnae Home (Catholic sector), Fiji Nurses Association and the
Methodist Church in Fiji, as well as PICASO (Lead agency ATFF) in a process strongly advocating
for a transparent, participative and human rights national response that demonstrates adherence to
global advances in HIV and AIDS response, and increased inclusion of CSO and community
responses, transparency and accountability in the national response. Being part of NACA was a
frustrating process as there is still a lack of political will and institutional capacity to work on
universal access focus on HIV and AIDS, and the need to meaningfully engage with all
stakeholders. WAC is not currently actively involved in that process. However, we remain engaged
with other civil society stakeholders, and try to integrate HIV and AIDS universal access into all our
programmes. In 2009 WAC is also providing support and resources for sex-workers including a
focus on HIV and AIDS, among other areas.
Please see below for detailed 2008 activities.
5. Cross Programme Support: Community Advocacy, Network Support
and Movement Building
Community advocacy through arts events is a strong emphasis for WAC. Since 2004 WAC have
been working on sharing our concepts, skills, outcomes and learning in wider national, regional
and international spaces. We are an active participant in Fiji and Pacific communities directly
advocating for our own needs, and believe that the most transformational social justice and human
rights work starts with wide communities, and especially those usually excluded in informal and
formal political discussions.
Our advocacy work is therefore centred on providing opportunities and spaces for individuals,
groups and communities to discuss needs and issues with formal stakeholders, on sharing ideas
and skills with growing networks and social movements, to envision shared futures, and on being
an active part of wider gender equal, social justice and human rights movements in a meaningful
and sustainable way.
Dec-Jan 2004-5 advocacy activities included a travelling Human Rights Film Festival that visited
over 40 rural, remote and urban sites around Fiji, conducted in partnership with the Citizens’
Constitutional Forum (CCF).
In 2005, WAC also became involved in the international CodePINK campaign on women, active
non-violence and peacebuilding. ‘Pretty Pink Peace Pig Awards’ made by primary school students
were given out on International day of Peace 21 September 2005 to those individuals who WAC
felt had increased peace and human security for children and women in Fiji, along with media
statements that year on ending corporal punishment in schools, prevention of sexual abuse of
children, and women and addressing high levels of community sanctioned violence in Fiji. Awards
were provided to Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Ms. Shamima Ali of FWCC, Mr Pillay (Head Teacher of
Sangam High School), Judge Nazhat Shameem, Mrs Sabita Gandhi of the Poor Relief Society,
Rev. Akuila Yabaki of CCF, Ms. Koila Costello-Ollson of ECREA (now PCP), and others. We also
held a Human Rights Poetry Event, at which the then Fiji Vice President, Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi,
Kavita Nandan, Mosmi Bhim and other Fiji poets, including WAC staff, shared human rights
focused work.
On International day of Peace, 2006 WAC spent a morning with the Fiji Police, making
‘Pancakes for Peace with Police’, showing them a new play on ethical and non-violent leadership
and sharing thoughts with them and the media on active non-violence and peacebuilding. The
event was heavily featured on national radio and television, including a half hour Fijian-language
feature segment, repeated twice.
Our community arts and peacebuilding advocacy continued in 2007 with a ‘People, Peace
and Playback’ event on International Peace Day, involved various community groups and the
public, and demonstrating the applicability of Playback Theatre to community peacebuilding and
social justice work. This followed a Fiji and PNG fortnight-long intensive Playback training
workshop, supported by NZAID and PIC. Following this session, WAC has been requested to
provide further training to other civil society groups and schools. We have also seen a recent
increase since this event in invitations for WAC to present at civil society academic, arts and
related peacebuilding forums. This included a recent speech by Peni Moore on ‘The Economics of
Arts in Fiji’ at the National Writers Forum, University of the South Pacific, and participation of
Noelene Nabulivou in a Global Dialogue at the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, on
Multigenerational Movements.
In 2007-2008, WAC has also been actively engaged in regional and global feminist movementbuilding, through the AWID Forum process. The WAC Coordinator was a member of the
International Planning Committee toward the 2008 AWID Forum in Cape Town, South Africa,
bringing together over 2000 feminists and women’s equality workers from across the globe. Over
45 Pacific women were part of a group that attended, and in 2009 post-forum projects, movementbuilding and solidarity work continues.
In 2008 WAC also undertook training in a new process, ‘Choice Therapy’ through the Australia-Fiji
Community Justice Programme (Thanks to Dave Evans), and has since adapted it for use in our
ongoing workshops and network support, as well as ensuring that links are made between the four
WAC programmes, with community networks in informal settlements, villages, schools,
organisations and with government, regional and global organisations and networks.
Please see below for details of 2008 cross-programme activities.
WAC CAPACITY AND RESOURCES
WAC is currently located at a rental property, 333 Waimanu Road, Suva, costing Fiji$1000 per
month. It is located 5 minutes by bus from Suva on a major road, opposite the Colonial War
Memorial Hospital maternity unit.
Administration takes up the downstairs reception area and another room with 2 staff desks. There
is also a small costume, storage and cleaning area in the downstairs corridor. Upstairs is a multipurpose room and kitchen, and living spaces (2 bedrooms) used by the live-in staff member
(Creative Director). There is also a small covered verandah area and garden with benches.
Security bars are throughout the property.
WAC is very conscious of energy conservation, and work from a low-tech, low maintenance,
ecologically friendly framework. There is no air-conditioning. We have telephone, wireless internet
access, 3 desktop computers (2001/2) and a laptop (2005). All assets are used well-past their
official write-off dates. There is an updated asset register.
WAC has a 15 seater Nissan Urvan purchased in 2006. It is used for all administrative and project
travel in rural and urban areas. The van is maintained regularly. Other WAC assets include a twintub washing machine for costumes and prop cleaning (2006), 1 share printer and fax machine
(2006), 1 portable hard-drive (2008), amplifier and speaker system for events (2000), three guitars
(2004-6), a full drumset (2006) and various acoustic musical instruments (2000-date).
WAC regularly hire multimedia projector and screen from another local NGO, and other workshop
resources such as DVD and TV are borrowed or hired as required. Very occasionally WAC draw
on the conference room and other spaces of NGOs if needed, but generally venue spaces are
hired as needed at a rate of between Fiji$100-$300 per day dependent on size.
In 2008, project costs took around 72% of the annual expenditure, and administration costs 28%.
The gross staff costs for 13 staff are around Fiji$3,300 per week, inclusive of FNPF and PAYE.
Staff share rooms when on field work and generally this entails 3 motel rooms (shared by 9-11
staff) for a total of Fiji$270 per away night. Staff meals on tour cost around Fiji$ per day. Fuel
costs rose considerably over 2008, to around $3,000 per month (touring and administrative),
Administration and office costs (Electricity, telephone, internet, water, staff amenities, office repairs
and maintenance, and all project printing and stationery) are around Fiji$1200 per month.
WAC Trustees
We have had the same Trustees since the start of WAC in 1993:
 High Court Judge Nazhat Shameem
 Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi
 Ms. Mee Kwaing Sue Mar
Judge Shameem had to resign due to her position as High Court Judge, but continues to be a
longtime supporter of the organisation. Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi remains a Trustee, as does Ms. Mar.
(Editor Note: Ms. Seona Martin, columnist and journalist, and founding member of the
Management Collective has agreed to become the third Trustee replacing Judge Shameem (April
2009).)
WAC Management Collective, Staff and Volunteers
Women’s Action for Change is guided by a feminist women’s management collective. They provide
policy, monitor and evaluate programmes and finances, and provide input to staff and WAC
actors/facilitators, and assist with personal, advocacy and fundraising support. The WAC MC is
made up of women of diverse ages, socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds and sexual identities,
and has been transforming and becoming stronger in 2008/9. We have new and vibrant members
of all ages, including stronger programmatic, administrative and financial capacities.
In 2009-10 the Management Collective will undergo further strengthening, with a specific project
commenced to ensure more of the women involved in WAC community projects are able to take up
roles in all areas of WAC, including the MC.
2008 Management Collective Members as at December 2008
Name
Occupation/Interests
Mosmi Bhim
Postgraduate researcher –Development; Poet; Author; Information Officer at
Citizens Constitutional Forum, Masters in Development Studies
Michele Fong
(Ch Signatory)
Small catering business; Past President- Breastfeeding Association of Fiji,
Pre-natal counsellor; Grandmother and mother
Sunita Shuklar
Consumer Council of Fiji, Woman’s Activist, Single mother
Peni Moore
(Ch Signatory)
WAC Creative Director, Gender and feminist activist, Community Arts
Practitioner and Trainer, Restorative Justice Trainer, Grandmother, mother
Noelene
Nabulivou
WAC Coordinator, Feminist human rights activist, Focus on gender equality,
sexuality and GLBTIQ rights
Shirley Tagi
(Ch Signatory)
Community/Student Media Coordinator at Uni of South Pacific; Past Director
of English Programmes, FBCL; Women’s Equality Activist
Lillian
Thaggard
Human Rights Activist, Financial and Administrative Officer-NGOs
Taomi Qilio
Postgraduate researcher, Student Administrator, Faith-based women’s work
Etta Tuitoga
Gender and sexuality activist; GLBTIQ community worker; Woman’s Officer at
Equal Ground Pasifik (EGP),
Emily
Hazelman
Sulu
CasimeraHughes
Background in business and vocational education. M&E background.
Currently working for SPC.
Crisis and Faith-based Counselor, Women’s Rights Worker
Shirley Tagi is a WAC Management Collective member since 2007:
“WAC is not just a women's organisation advocating for women's rights, it’s
an organisation that embraces the challenge to work with people of all
minorities. I have always had a deep respect for the values and principles of
WAC in that the work continues, no matter what.
I first came to know about WAC in the ‘90s. I had heard about their theatre
performances and social movement but it wasn't until 2007 that I joined the
Management Collective.
Why did I join? I come from a media background, so the arts interested me.
I knew that Playback theatre was something different and unique, but I
didn't realise how powerful it could be. It wasn't long after I joined that
I finally got to see a play too. I remember it was a suicide prevention play,
and the emotions I felt during the play were unbelievable. I never thought
drama could be so real and at the same time address a topic no one felt
comfortable talking about. This was one of my reasons; the other was the
chance to coach the actors on singing. I look back and realise that if I hadn't
taken an interest in WAC, my social consciousness wouldn’t have risen this
much. I wouldn’t have learnt as much about life"
WAC STAFF
WAC 2008 WAC Staff as at 31 December 2008
Name
Peni Moore
2008 Role
Creative Director
Years at WAC
15 years
Status
Current
Isimeli
Wainiqolo
Jona Robaigau
Senior Actor/Facilitator
15 years
Current
Senior Actor/Facilitator
13 years
Current
Laura Qalova
Senior Actor/Facilitator
13 Years
Current
Paul Daveta
Senior Actor/Facilitator,
Musician/Driver
7 years
Current
Pita Raloka
Senior Actor/Facilitator
7 years
Current
Ben Iliesa
Ramode
Seruwaia Rosi
Saumatua
Litiana Verenika
Suluka
Noelene
Nabulivou
Sujendra Jeet
Actor/Facilitator
7 years
Current
Actor/Facilitator
7 years
Current
Actor/Facilitator
7 years
Current
Coordinator
4 years
Current
Actor/Facilitator
3 years
Current
Lillian Bing
Finance and Administration
Officer (Part-time)
WAC Administrator
2 years
Current
8 months
Current
Sharon Jang
GENDER JUSTICE IN FIJI (2008) – SUMMARY CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Introduction
Fiji is an archipelago of 332 islands in the South Pacific Ocean, some 5000 kilometres south-west
of Hawaii and 3000 kilometres north-east of Sydney, Australia. Its capital city is Suva. While more
than 90% of Fiji’s population live on the two main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, settlements
and villages are spread over 110 islands and in remote inland areas of the larger islands.
Communication and transport are difficult in many parts of the country, and some routes are
virtually impassable during floods and cyclones. The population of Fiji is estimated to be 853,000.1
With rapid urbanisation, it is likely that at least half of this number now live in urban and peri-urban
areas.2 (Note provisional 2007 census data now available).
Ethnicity is a defining variable of identity in Fiji, with organised religion. Of the total population,
471,000 (55%) are officially recorded as indigenous Fijians, and 313,000 (37%) ethnic Indians or
“Indo-Fijians”. The remaining 69,000 (8%) are ethnic Chinese, Europeans and other Pacific
Islanders.3 Ninety-nine percent of indigenous Fijians identify as Christians. Of the Indo-Fijian
population, 77% are Hindus and 15% Muslims.4
Primary school education in Fiji is funded by the government, and literacy may be as high as 93%.5
Secondary school enrolments remain strong, but many students (especially indigenous Fijians)
drop out after Form 4, aged 14-15 years.6 However these often-quoted statistics should be
approached with caution as there have been two coups in 2000 and 2006, with attendant
economic, social and cultural downturn. During our 2006-7 tours WAC heard from teachers and
Principals that as poverty rises in many areas, school enrolments are already being affected,
impacting on total numbers completing high school and overall numbers of girls enabled to
complete high school and tertiary education.
Despite only 4.6% of people in Fiji officially describing themselves as “unemployed”, a recent
survey found massive under-employment, and an effective unemployment rate of 27%.7
Approximately one-third of the population lives below the basic needs poverty line. 8 Over twelve
point five percent are squatters, living without security of tenure, and often without piped water,
sewerage or electricity.9 A massive “brain drain” of skilled emigrants has also occurred over the
past 20 years. The major industries in Fiji are sugar, tourism, clothing, forestry and fishing, but
several of these are in decline.
Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics’ (FIBS) estimate as of 31 December 2006: <www.statsfiji.gov.fj>. This and other population statistics
produced by the FIBS that are included in this proposal are forward projections from the last national census, published in 1996. 2007
census has been held, provisional results only available in Dec 2007.
2
The FIBS’ 2002-2003 Household Income and Expenditure Survey found that 53% of all households in Fiji were located in rural areas:
Narsey, W, Report on the 2002-03 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, Vanuavou Publications, Suva, 2006, p 2. However, this
excluded institutional populations, such as boarding schools and prisons, and probably under-represented squatter settlements.
3
These are the FIBS’ estimates as of 31 December 2006: see above, note 1.
4
CCF, Ethnicity, National Identity and Church Unity: A Study on Fiji 2001, CCF, Suva, 2001, pp 42-3.
5
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2006, UNDP, New York, 2006, p 286:
<hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/report.cfm>. However, this figure was based on outdated census data. Some commentators suggest the true
literacy rate is lower.
6
Fiji Islands Education Commission/Panel, Learning Together: Directors for Education in the Fiji Islands, Government Printer, Suva,
2000, pp 18, 188.
7
Narsey, W, Report on the 2004-2005 Employment and Unemployment Survey, Vanuavou Publications, Suva, 2007, p 8, and Narsey,
W, “Truth Behind Our Poverty”, Fiji Times, 10 June 2007.
8
The national incidence of poverty for 2002-2003 was 34% according to Narsey, W, “Truth Behind Our Poverty”, Fiji Times, 10 June
2007.
9
Barr, K, Squatters in Fiji: Thieves or Victims?, CCF, Suva, 2007, p 6.
1
The United Nations Development Programme ranked Fiji 92nd out of 177 countries surveyed in its
Human Development Index for 200810. This was significantly down from the 1996 ranking of 47th,
below neighbours Tonga (55th), Samoa (77th).11
Background - History, Politics and Culture
Archaeological evidence dates the arrival of Fiji’s first inhabitants to approximately 1200 BC,
although the ancestors of the present-day indigenous population are thought to have begun
arriving in the country some 1000 years later. Indigenous Fijians at that time appear to have lived
in village-based groups with multiple linked clan roles and varied degrees of internal hierarchical
leadership, relying on subsistence farming and fishing for food. Each grouping was networked
through complex and extensive kinship alliances that facilitated trade of resources and specialised
labour, and to mediate conflict between groupings over land and other resources.
Europeans traders began to take an interest in Fiji in the early nineteenth century, bringing with
them Christian missionaries. Traders were followed by settlers. Amidst early (sometimes violent)
power struggles and contestations with and by local chiefly systems, the country was ceded to
Great Britain in 1874.
The first ethnic Indians were brought to Fiji five years later as indentured labourers, to work for the
British and then also Australian interests on sugarcane and other farms. This importation of labour
continued until 1916, by which time approximately 60,000 ethnic Indians had arrived. As in other
British colonies, the conditions in which indentured labourers lived and worked were often little
better than slavery. Nonetheless, many stayed in Fiji after completing their indenture, and became
free settlers.
There are few written resources outlining early experiences of Fijian women, except those provided
in ethnographic writings by male colonial scholars and European travellers. There is still much
work to be done in this area. WAC is interested in gendered perceptions of identity, and how precolonial/colonialism/postcolonialism processes intersect with theological and development
discourses. There is also a specific need for more feminist informed writing on Girmit period IndoFijian women and men, and also the colonial and post-colonial experiences of other Islander ethnic
minorities living in Fiji.
The socio-cultural and economic situation in Fiji today therefore has direct links to imperialist,
colonial and decolonisation processes, and the current conflicts in Fiji are rooted in generations of
divisive politics of coloniser and colonised (Indigenous, Indo-Fijian and other ethnic minorities), and
of Western enlightenment discourses as centre, and colonies such as Fiji as periphery.
The British colonial system encouraged indigenous Fijians to maintain traditional lifestyles, despite
the growing cash economy. With indigenous chiefs, authorities established a system of local,
district, provincial and national institutions (now known as the “Fijian Administration”), through
which the indigenous population could be separately governed. Indigenous land, comprising more
than 80% of Fiji’s total land area, was locked into a system of non-transferable, collective
ownership, to be administered by a national board of trustees called the Native Land Trust Board
(NLTB). This was partly due to protectionist attitudes to preserve indigenous culture, but also to
keep ethnic populations divided and systematised in order to maintain control.
So by the time when Fiji gained its independence in 1970, life was ethnically desegregated in
almost every sphere. The newly-independent nation of Fiji was nominally democratic, but its
10
11
Human Development Report. Online: http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_FJI.html (Accessed 26/03/09)
Human Development Report. Online: http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_WSM.html (Accessed 26/03/09)
electoral system was largely based on ethnicity. An indigenous-dominated government held office
almost without interruption for the next 17 years. In April 1987, the advent of the labour movement
led to the election of the country’s first multi-ethnic government, with significant support by IndoFijians and Indigenous Fijians. Within a month, however, it was ousted from office in the country’s
first coup d’etat. A second coup followed in September of the same year. Both were executed by
the Royal Fiji Military Forces which is still largely indigenous Fijian. The coup leader in 1987
claimed to be acting to save his land and people from subjugation to other ethnic groups.
The coups of 1987 were followed by five years of military rule, during which the country became a
republic and a new constitution was imposed that sought to perpetuate indigenous control of
government. The economy faltered and there was a huge increase in emigration – especially of
Indo-Fijians who no longer saw a positive future in Fiji. Democracy was re-introduced in 1992, and
a much fairer constitution was passed into law with unanimous parliamentary support in 1997. Two
years later, this led to the election of Fiji’s second multi-ethnic government, and its first Indo-Fijian
Prime Minister.
The country’s third coup followed soon after. Unlike 1987, the coup of May 2000 was led by
civilians, with a group of rebel soldiers providing manpower and weapons. While it was executed
by indigenous Fijians, who again claimed to be saving their land and people from subjugation, this
coup failed to gain the support of the military. As a result, it was only partially successful. The
elected government was not restored, but the constitution survived and the front men of the coup
were later tried and jailed.
A fresh general election in 2001 returned an indigenous-dominated government, including a
coalition partner that explicitly supported the coup and sought amnesty for its perpetrators. Over
the next five years, the close ties of this government with leaders of the 2000 coup were to cause a
worsening split with the military. The military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama had
been the target of a failed assassination attempt in November 2000 by the same rebel soldiers who
took part in the coup. His personal relationship with the then Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase
deteriorated over time, to the point in 2006 where they were openly hostile and threatening to each
other in public media statements.
Substantially the same government was re-elected in May 2006 to serve a second term, and for
the first time it agreed to form multi-party Cabinet, in accordance with the constitution, including
leaders of the major party supported by Indo-Fijians. There were some concerns that the numbers
of seats allocated per party were not consistent with Constitutional requirements, and about overall
effectiveness of multiparty systems on diverse political positions and effective opposition.
The existence of the multi-party Cabinet did not prevent continued deterioration of relations with
the military, however, and on 5 December 2006 Fiji suffered its fourth coup. The justification
publicly given this time was to “clean up” corruption at all levels of government. With the Republic
of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) united behind this coup, it was highly organised and there was little
resistance. As a result, the country currently has an Interim Government headed by the military
commander with input from a seldom heard but active Military Council, Interim Cabinet (with
currently no women (March 2009)), and with military officers in a wide range of government, civil
and security service positions. A general election was expected to be held in 2009, amidst close
international scrutiny but the interim government has refused to set a date (Note: Now stated as
set for 2014), citing a need for extensive constitutional reform before a date is set. Forum Island
country leaders and others have been mediating, with strong political pressure from civil society for
a return to liberal democracy, as well as from the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the
USA.
Meanwhile, Fiji is straining under combined weight of multiple and intersectional macro, meso and
micro factors, inadequately addressed over decades. These include:
 Civil, political, economic, social and cultural consequences of multiple coups in 1987, 2000,
2006 and associated post-conflict trauma, especially for high-need groups such as rural and
urban poor women, children, young people;
 High levels of societal violence and violations (in widest human rights sense) over decades by
both state and non-state actors – Including police brutality and lack of access to affordable
state legal, medical and educational assistance to females and males from poverty
backgrounds; police and community violent assaults against sex workers, transgender people
and others with diverse gender and sexuality; violence and harassment of civil society activists
by military, politicians, civil servants and others; forced evictions from informal settlements; lack
of access to basic needs such as housing, water and electricity; violent home invasions and
robberies; and ethnically based violence;
 High levels of gender based violence and urgent need for new legislation such as Domestic
Violence Act, Sexual Assault Act, and reforms to Criminal Procedure Code and Penal Code as
raised by Women’s Civil society groups for over a decade;
 Widening livelihood gaps between the poor, working poor and marginalised, and highly
networked local and expatriate elites, including human rights/development/INGO/academic
specialists; over-representation of small group of private sector and military elites on
government, statutory and private sector boards and committees (and with very few women
overall represented);
 Alienation of local land and properties to external transnational corporations, expatriate buyers
(Resorts, Savusavu landsales, gated timeshare and villa communities in Nadi, Taveuni,
Kadavu, etc) and extortionately high rental properties in Suva, etc.
 Inadequate governmental responses to small-island nation development, human rights and
sustainable livelihood issues, including ALTA-NALTA non-resolution and consequent mass
non-renewal of land leases, inadequate informal settlement and pro-poor housing responses,
poor infrastructural and social service provisions, non-implementation of ‘Look North policy’;
 Impact of globalised, liberalist trade environment, in a time when multiple bilateral and
multilateral trade agreements of Fiji are currently under review or ending, negotiations with
WTO, IMF, PACER-PLUS and others are ongoing;
 Current remedial/economically focused national fiscal policies are leading to reduced basic
needs expenditure.
 Lack of agreed national vision, and mechanisms to democratize societal institutions and
organisations with consequential coups; ethnically defined electoral processes and other
institutional racism; absence of a Freedom of Information Act; corrupt, ill-defined and linked
local and national government; one of the lowest global levels of formal representation of
diverse women in local, national and regional decision-making bodies (Pacific as a whole
reflects this); and absence of meaningful intergenerational national processes;
Resilience Factors
As part of our peacebuilding framework, the Creative Director was part of the National Council for
Building a Better Fiji in 2008 which consisted of diverse parties, including conflict entrepreneurs,
traditional leaders, civil society, the military-lead interim government and others.
Of urgent priority in 2009 is further national peacebuilding movement of which we are a part,
including an upcoming Presidents Political Dialogue facilitated by Comm-Sec and UNDP (Editor
note May 2009 - now postponed after abrogation of 2007 Constitution and Fiji suspension from
Pacific Islands Forum), and an emergent civil society initiative, Dialogue Fiji, along with WAC
primary focus on long-term sustainable peacebuilding and self-organisation work in wider
communities.
There are a growing number of issues-based and identity based community networks in Fiji.
These are the most effective for ensuring that work is continued toward recognition and access to
all human rights including gender equality, human security, social justice and sustainable
development. Newer networks include the EPIC Young Mediators Network, Women in Informal
Settlements Network, Rainbow Women’s Network, SAN Network, Young Peoples Concerned
Network, and others. The challenge is to ensure that these emergent groups and networks take full
and meaningful roles in wider movement-building work with well-known, influential and betterresourced groups and networks.
Fiji has a vibrant, active and experienced civil society movement, but it is under increasing strain
due to the national post-conflict environment. There are 3 other feminist organisations in Fiji,
Femlink Pacific, Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, and other women’s
and human rights organisations that are part of the NGO Coalition on Human rights, and various
issue-based coalitions and partnerships. Other longtime WAC friends include Citizens
Constitutional Forum (CCF), ECREA, FRIEND, Aids Taskforce of Fiji, Pacific Centre for
Peacebuilding, and regionally Oxfam Vanuatu and Wansmolbag Theatre, International Women’s
Development Agency (IWDA), as well as regional and global networks such as the Pacific Feminist
Network (lead agency FWRM), DAWN Pacific, AWID, and others.
Detailed gender analysis including historical background and updated information on key boundary
partners, marginalised communities, and urgent issues of coverage are available from WAC upon
request.
WAC 2008 Programme Details
As stated above, all WAC programmes and project work flow directly from the WAC Founding
Principle and WAC Dream/Mission. WAC work is programmatically divided into 4 intersectional and
linked areas, targeting at-risk and marginalised groups identified through participative community
based action research over 14 years, and with an understanding that WAC are part of wider
networks and movements for gender-just and sustainable development in Fiji, the Pacific and
globally.
Our programme areas:
 Women, Empowerment and Equality
 Children and Youth at Risk, Empowerment and Equality
 Community Justice toward Social Transformation
 Community Empowerment toward Social Transformation
2008 – Women, Empowerment and Equality
While the Government of Fiji has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and gender is one of the 15 major strategic objectives of
the Pacific Plan (endorsed by Pacific national leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in
October 2005)12 the reality is that informal and formal political spaces remain highly hierarchical
and patriarchal, and gender mainstreaming and justice for all -including women and girl child- is far
from achieved. This, despite long-term efforts by diverse, strong and active human rights, women’s
human rights, gender equality and feminist organizations in Fiji such as Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre,
Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, FemLINK PACIFIC, and Women’s Action for Change (WAC), Aids
Taskforce of Fiji, Citizens Constitutional Forum, ECREA and others.
The Pacific currently has the lowest global ration of male to female politicians in national legislative
bodies, with women taking an average of only 4% of seats in the region.13 Women in Fiji are vastly
under-represented in formal leadership positions in both public and private sectors. In the last
national Parliament, for example, (dissolved after the December 2006 coup) there were just eight
women among the 71 members of the House of Representatives, and six out of 32 in the Senate.
Seven of these women were indigenous Fijians of chiefly lineage, and only one woman was IndoFijian.14 In the current Interim Government, there was 1 Indigenous Fijian women minister in a
cabinet of ten members. Fiji has never had a female Prime Minister or Minister for Finance.
Traditionalist elements of indigenous Fijian and Indo-Fijian leadership, having strong
representation in political and socio-cultural spaces, tend to place women at the lower end of social
hierarchy, above young girls and children. The still-prevalent stereotype is that wives and
daughters are primarily responsible for managing the home, while husbands and fathers work in
the cash economy. Women’s participation in community decision-making is therefore little valued,
even though with community activities and reproductive and childcare work, women generally carry
double and triple burdens of work.
‘Pacific Plan’, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. October 2005.
Centre for Democratic Institutions, Web: http://www.cdi.anu.edu.au/__GENDER_Home.htm (Accessed March 26, 2009)
14
These figures refer to the 10th Parliament of Fiji, whose members were elected or appointed between May and July 2006.
12
13
While much societal discourse still focuses on home based gender roles for women, the reality is
that there are increased numbers of women in both the formal and informal workforce. For large
numbers this comprises underpaid and high-risk work, with few protections in the informal sector. A
2004-2005 Employment and Unemployment Survey conducted by the Fiji Islands Bureau of
Statistics (FIBS) found that, among respondents who identified their main activity as “Full-time
Household Duties”, 99% were female.15 Meanwhile, women whose main activity was work outside
the home still carried out an average of 15 hours more housework per week than their male
counterparts.16 The reality of working women in the informal sector is largely unrepresented in
official data, and therefore remains unaddressed by government and indeed often civil society.
While the Ministry for Women, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation has been involved in
community advocacy, support and service provision, budget allocations remain inadequate and
there is overall low governmental capacity to engage in multisectoral initiatives to tackle the core
socio-cultural realities that impact on the daily lives of women in Fiji.
Areas for urgent research and action include rapidly rising poverty levels and feminization of
poverty; gender based violence against women, children and those with diverse sex and gender;
gender & HIV and AIDS; sexual and reproductive health and rights; women and decision-making;
gender equal justice and peacebuilding; gender equal and just development; gender and
demilitarization; democratization of state, communities, institutions and organisations, etc.
Violence against Women/Gender based violence
Violence against women can be widely defined as all violence experienced by women and their
families – Children, young people and women physically, sexually and/or emotionally abused in
many homes and schools; themselves/husbands/partners/parents stretched to the limit by church
and ‘vanua’ obligations; inadequate targeted healthcare for women’s needs; gender-insensitive
education and so on.
Fiji’s history and strong patriarchal structures and processes create great division and insecurity in
all individuals and communities. They perpetuate gender-based violence, causing and exacerbated
by poverty, and must be tackled through an intersectional analysis of pervasive structural,
emotional and physical violence directed against diverse women and girl child in Fiji, as well as atrisk and marginalised males, but with consequences for all in Fiji.
Such intersectional analysis of gender based violence must include attention to intimate partner
violence, family violence, sexual assault, homophobic violence, and specific violence against girl
children. This is not confined to any particular ethnic or religious group. Local culture is relatively
tolerant of violence in the home, widely used as a means of control. Reports of violence against
women have increased steadily in recent years. This is both because there are more cases, and
because more victims are willing to come forward.
The best statistics currently available on domestic violence and sexual assault in Fiji were
produced through a survey conducted by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) in 1998.17 Eighty
percent of all respondents to this survey had witnessed violence in the home at some time in their
lives, and nearly half reported that their father had beaten their mother. In 95% of all cases, the
victims were female and the perpetrators were male. No age group was spared, and the majority of
perpetrators were family members of the victims. Partner abuse was common, with 66% of female
15
Narsey, W, Report on the 2004-2005 Employment and Unemployment Survey, Vanuavou Publications, Suva, 2007, p 7.
See above, note 15 at p 65.
17
FWCC, The Incidence, Prevalence and Nature of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Fiji, FWCC, 2001, Suva.
16
respondents reporting that they had been hit by their partner. The main reason given for partner
abuse of a female was disobedience. Over 30% of female victims were abused repeatedly. Fortyfour percent of female victims also reported being hit by their partner while pregnant.18 Seventyfour percent of female victims neither sought medical attention nor reported the matter to police.19
Nearly half of all respondents to FWCC’s survey also reported that they knew of someone who had
been raped, and 13% said they had been raped themselves. The survey results pointed to
significant under-reporting of sexual assaults to police, consistent with a persisting view that such
assaults are a private matter.20
Police records covering a five-year period (1993-1997), sampled by FWCC, showed that 35% of
sexual assaults that were reported involved allegations of rape or attempted rape. All perpetrators
were male, and 96.5% of victims were female. In most cases, the perpetrator was a family member
of the victim.21 The largest category of perpetrators, comprising 40% of the total, were aged
between 20 and 29 years. The largest category of victims, comprising 30% of the total, were aged
between 11 and 15 years. More than half of all victims were under 20 years old at the time when
the sexual assault took place. The same patterns of assault and perpetrator and victim profiles
were applicable to all ethnic groups.22
Violence against women is high in all cultural areas - Majority Indigenous, mixed ethnicity and
minority Indo-Fijian communities. In the latter community, there are strong current intersectional
safety and justice issues arising from enforced displacement due to expiring land leases, home
invasions, temple sacrilege. Due both to prevailing cultural attitudes and rising personal and
community safety fears of the Indo-Fijian community in Fiji, women and girls in many semi and
rural Indo-Fijian families have very little freedom of movement. They cannot report issues of
violence and abuse because of shame and fear of family reprisals in their small community
settings.
The State, Methodist Church and ‘Vanua’ in Fiji work as powerful tools that mediate the behaviour
of Indigenous women (rural and urban) in Fiji, and affect their ability to make decisions in personal
relationships, families, workplaces, communities and in the nation state. In 2006 the Assistant
Minister for Culture and Heritage asked Indigenous women of Fiji to consider “the concepts of
human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, individual rights and freedom of speech as issues
that impinged on the Fijian national identity”. Such rhetoric has implications for women’s status in
general in Fiji, but in particular it informs the legislation, processes and services that the state
provides to women.
For all women and children in Fiji there is currently increased social pressure and trauma from the
unstable national political situation. Therefore, local women’s human rights NGOS and Community
organisations such as Women’s Action for Change (WAC), FemLINK PACIFIC, Fiji Women’s Crisis
Centre (FWCC), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) and Soqosoqo Vakamarama have
worked with increasing momentum from the 1980s to date on critical community-level, national,
regional and global initiatives to address gender equality –and specifically to work to eliminate all
forms of violence and discrimination against women and girl child. These have included
The main reason given was the victim’s refusal to have sex. Many women who were physical abused by their husband reported that it
had started during their first pregnancy, and then continued throughout their marriage.
19
See above, note 17, pp iii-iv.
20
See above, note 17, pp v, 53, 56.
21
A comparison of police records with those maintained by FWCC itself revealed that victims of sexual assault who knew the
perpetrator were less likely to report to police than victims who did not know the perpetrator.
22
See above, note 17, pp v, 57-60. It is notable that indigenous Fijian victims of sexual assault were more likely to report to police while
Indo-Fijians were more likely to report to FWCC.
18
movements, advocacy campaigns, networks, programmes and projects to address violence
against girl child, suicide of young Indian women23, Indigenous and rural VAW, workplace violence
and discrimination as well as positive contributions to the areas of family law, women’s rights
legislation and policy, women’s empowerment and decision-making, micro enterprise, and more.
In 2008, WAC projects and activities contributing to work for women’s
empowerment and equality, included:
Project focus: EVAW – Gender, Decision-making and Prevention of Youth Suicide
Funder – Artventure, GFW
This play was developed in 2004/5 through the UNIFEM EVAW Fund, and due to continued
requests for performances, the run was continued to 2008, along with some accompanying
workshops. The UNIFEM funded project and subsequent work is currently being externally
evaluated by UNIFEM Pacific, Consultant: Arleen Griffen, Fiji.
Community Play: ‘Another Way’
- 23 performances
- 6 playback sessions
- Tours x 2 in the West
- 1 x March
- 1 x November
Project focus: Empowering Informal Settlement Communities in Suva, Fiji to Negotiate
and mediate in order to Reduce Levels of Poverty and Hardship
Funder: Oxfam NZ
Dates: (April-April 2007-8)
This project began with a broad focus including some initial consultations and meetings with broad
stakeholders including from government, civil society and lead by community settlements. This was
primarily focused on untangling the complexities of land tenure in Fiji, with other stakeholders.
This then lead to more focused work to ensure that the voices of diverse women continued to be
included in all informal settlement work going on in Fiji, and to make gender justice one of the
central aspects of all justice for the poor work. We initially worked with the Peoples Community
network (PCN) and assisted with specific gender related templates and consultation organisation,
as well as the then WAC Coordinator becoming one of 3 Trustees for the Peoples Community
Network, and by ensuring that women are now one of 3 reps from each community involved
(around 40 communities included).
Leading into…
23
Note: Latest work by NGOs shows disturbing disproportionate rates of suicide between Indo-Fijian and Indigenous Fijian
communities. According to latest statistics from Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Indo-Fijian community make up 38% of total population at end
of 2004, and yet account for 86% of all suicides and attempted suicides in the 5 years from 2000-2004.
Project focus: Empowerment, Skillbuilding and Movement-Building by Women in Informal
Settlements
Funders – IWDA, Oxfam NZ, AFCJP, GFW
Now WAC has decided to concentrate our energies and resources on empowerment work and
other network creation by women in informal settlements. They are calling for safe space in what
are still very hierarchical community processes, no matter what stakeholders they deal with.
An advocacy developed by women from 5 informal settlements have now been circulated widely to
women’s human rights organisations, opinion-makers, policymakers, civil society, communities,
faith-based groups, UN agencies, etc. and continues to be used as an advocacy and workshop tool
by the women involved. The growing network have now been working strongly since then on
various self-identified capacity building work. This continues and is deepened in 2009 and beyond.
Capacity building and Movement-Building Workshops
Salvation Army Hall, Raiwai – 2 days – 4-5 Feb
Salvation Army hall, Raiwai – 21-22 April
Salvation Army hall, Raiwai – 3-5 Nov
Development and Production of DVD ‘No Space Between’
Dates: Jan-Feb 2008
Women from 5 informal settlements, Lakena, Nakelo, Narere, Veidogo and Jittu participated in
production of a 12 minute advocacy DVD, including decision-making over content development
through arts based workshops, production editing, and final approval of DVD, including script
rewrites, content changes, and preparation for the launch (see below).
Launch of DVD ‘No Space Between’
Date: 8 March, International Women’s Day 2008
Held in Nakelo informal settlement and jointly organised by over 70 women from 5 settlements and
WAC. Invited guest – Interim Minister for Women. Included family members, UN agencies, NGOs,
Habitat for Humanity, faith based groups, was held in a community hall. In her speech the Minister
said it was her first time in an informal settlement.
Conflict Transformation, Start Your Own Business and Tailoring courses –Informal
settlements
Partner – Secretariat for Pacific Communities (SPC) –Provided facility, trainer contacts and
NCSMED for training of SYOB
Dates: 2 x SYOB (3 weeks each) – August-September; 2 x Tailoring (3 wks each) September-Oct
Other Meetings
Nausori – 26/02
Launch of DVD – 08/03 –International Women’s Day
St Andrews – 10/03
St Andrews – 11/08
St Andrews 12/08
St Andrews - 1/09 - Evaluations and 2009 planning
Upcoming courses in 2009 –self identified
Course in commercial baking, school uniform tailoring, professional care giving – 3 weeks long.
Costs $250 per woman for certificated course so we can only offer very limited resources. We
hope to be able to advocate and fundraise for development donors, government to subsidise these
courses for women, and others as part of wider development and justice for the poor initiatives.
There are more ideas emerging but more financial resources required as we go. They identified a
need for microfinance and women’s alternative economics work, and this is being developed now,
for 2009-2010.
Upcoming 2009 Stakeholder meetings
List of required meetings prepared by women according to their information needs. Meetings with
decision makers from Lands Department, Health Department, Commission of Police, Education
Department, other women’s organizations such as Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre.
Community Play: ‘Take Over, Take Cover’ – Gender, Demilitarisation, Nonviolence and
Peacebuilding
48 school and community-based performances
Tour x 2 (West, Labasa)
West –June, North -July
Special Performances
 Premiere – At the NCBBF, Including senior military officers
 Nawaicoba Vocational
 Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre –Regional Counselling Training
Peacebuilding Dialogues
Dates: 2 x August and Dec
August - EPIC Youth Mediators dialogue on peacebuilding – 60, half female, male
Central Eastern and West, Viti Levu
December – EPIC high school mediators co-facilitating and taking part in a multigenerational
learning session with Fiji Police, Prison Officers, and women from the informal settlement network.
Lots of transformational discussions around the impact of violence as home discipline, young
people speaking about shame when hit by parents in front of their friends, etc. and most
importantly the adults heard directly from young people themselves.
Activity Focus: Playback Theatre and Participatory Learning– Women’s roles in the
Christian Church
Funder –GFW, No other funding
Playback Theatre
Venue: Pacific Theological College
Weavers Womens Network, South Pacific Association of Theological Schools (SPATS)
Women’s roles in the Christian Church
This is the third time WAC have been asked to be part of their annual meeting. The sessions are
very moving and powerful, and include many hard personal stories about struggling to find, keep,
empower women’s roles in Christian groups and institutions, and about how to include genderequality and human rights perspectives into faith-based groups. Also a lot of personal women’s
stories being heard, honoured and transformed by the group.
Activity Focus: Trauma Healing and Self-Empowerment Workshop - ‘Yalewa Power’
Initiating Partner - Equal Ground Pasifik
Funder –WAC contributed workshop design and facilitation at no cost, GFW
Dates: November
Three day live-in retreat workshop in rural setting with around 30 street-based female sex workers,
lesbian and bisexual partners. More work in 2009.
ACTIVITY FOCUS: Pacific Feminist Movement-Building –Participation in AWID Forum 2008.
Funder – AWID, Ausaid
Partners – AWID, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM), DAWN Pacific Coordinator Yvonne
Underhill-Sem, Lots of practical and funding support from UNIFEM Pacific, Ausaid, NZAID, SPC,
femLINKPACIFIC and many others
Dates -2007-8
Representation on AWID International Planning Committee and participation in AWID Forum in
Cape Town Nov 2008; Post-Forum reports and follow-up, movement-building activities.;
participation by over 40 Pacific participants from Fiji, Tonga, PNG, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands
and Australia and NZ, Pre-forum. Many follow-up activities by Pacific AWID participants include
reinvigoration of WAVE Women’s Media Network, ‘Development’ Journal article by PNG
participants on Gender Based Violence and HIV and AIDS, and ongoing work by FWRM on
multigenerational movement-building and onsite Forum pre and post Forum workshops. 2009
AWID Pacific group working toward e-group for regional feminist discussions (TBC)
2008 - Children, Young People at Risk, Empowerment and Equality
Children under 15 years of age are estimated to make up over 30% of Fiji’s population.24 Young
people aged between 15 and 24 make up an additional 20%,25 so that approximately half of the
total population is under 25 years of age. Like women, children and young people in Fiji have a low
social status, and are generally not encouraged to take part in community decision-making. As in
other parts of the world, it is often preferred that they be “seen and not heard”. This is especially
true of girl children and young women. Young males are encouraged to take on defined
masculinised gender expressions and roles very early, with childhood for Fijian males and
especially for Indigenous males including familial decision-making roles over female siblings, and
privileged norms being sports prowess, physical roughhousing, peer physical sanctioning and
bullying, strong hierarchical groupings, and high machismo behaviour.
The State of Pacific Youth Report 2005, published by the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF), identified some of the major social justice and human rights problems facing young
people in Fiji today:
 dropping out of school
24
World Fact Book of the US Central Intelligence Agency: <www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fj.html>.
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Secretariat of the Pacific Community (Noumea), United Nations Population Fund, The
State of Pacific Youth Report 2005, UNICEF, Suva, 2005, p 68.
25







unemployment among school leavers
substance abuse
exposure to STIs, including HIV/AIDS
teenage pregnancy
living on the street
crime and involvement in civil unrest
suicide
In addition, Women’s Action for Change’s experience in 12 of Fiji’s 15 provinces since 1993
indicates,26
 High levels of child emotional, physical and sexual abuse in Fiji, confirmed by the ‘Report
on Violence against Children in Fiji’, SCF 2005;
 High levels of corporal punishment in primary and secondary schools, despite its illegality
as confirmed by a High Court ruling in 200227;
 Youth at risk categories have only been introduced into national government documents
over the past few years, and urgent need for increased focus on work with diverse young
people experiencing intersectional discrimination and rights violations; in particular ‘boy
child’ as an at-risk category not adequately understood and reflected in civil society and
government initiatives, and critical if we are to reduce societal violence generally, and
violence against women and girl child;
 Children and young people in Indo-Fijian families are more strictly controlled by family and
community in terms of physical movement than their indigenous Fijian counterparts. They
currently perform better in school and are far less likely to become involved in crime, but
they also experience a much higher rate of bullying, peer violence, mental health and
suicide behaviour;
 Many of the issues of bullying and discipline issues in high schools arise from young people
who do not fit in rigidly defined gender roles, including GLBTI and gender-questioning
young people; ethnic related violence, as well as those who are already experiencing high
levels of poverty, neglect and abuse at home;
 Children from rural and urban backgrounds are responding positively to those youth
programmes that combine information, skillbuilding, and advocacy using an arts focus;
They find conflict analysis, restorative justice and peacebuilding programmes relevant,
useful and portable into their various socio-economic settings;
 Nationally, inadequate mental health and community support services overall in Fiji, much
less specific services targeted for children and young people. There is urgent need for
youth-specific mental health professionals, crisis care, counselling, etc.
 Urgent need for youth community sentencing programmes, to provide alternative
community and formal justice tracks that do not involve punitive juvenile justice and prison
systems for young first time offenders;
 Difference between ‘for youth’ programmes and ‘by youth’ programmes, with few of the
latter in Fiji. Urgent need to create safe spaces toward a critical mass of young people from
high-need groups, able to take on youth justice, human rights and peacebuilding work
themselves, with other young people, and to feed into wider youth and national initiatives;
In 2008, WAC projects and activities contributing to work for children
and young people’s empowerment and equality, included:
26
WAC Strategic Plan 1998-2012 , project reports, and personal communication, Peni Moore, Creative Director, Sept 2008
Radio New Zealand International, Wellington, 22 March 2002, ‘Radio New Zealand International, Wellington, 22 March 2002
(transcribed by BBC Monitoring) ‘Fiji High Court outlaws corporal punishment’
27
Project Focus: Young People and RJ Mediation
Funder-IWDA, GFW
This play is in support of the EPIC Youth Mediator network, who wanted a play that could tour to
their schools to help them explain restorative justice processes to school peers and their
communities. EPIC mediators are a network of young mediators who are part of a growing
network of young people becoming highly skilled RJ peer mediators. The project began in 2005
with support from IWDA, where young women were initially trained, and then they helped co
facilitate training for young male peers in their schools. Since then growing numbers (now at over
60) have been building their skills with regular training and meetings, as well as advocacy for RJ in
schools by WAC, ongoing network building by the young people.
They worked with WAC to produce their own peacebuilding IEC material including a bright funky
booklet for mediators, ‘Root conflict tree’, ‘Benefits of mediation’, ‘Things for Mediators to
Remember’ information sheets, etc. There is a register of mediators, and they are at various
stages of establishing mediator programs in their schools, where they co-train with WAC, and
numbers are growing.
There is still an issue of resistance from teachers and Principals who are not used to the idea of
students self-directing school based programs and mediating conflicts, but stories continue to
come in of mediators who are having great success in their schools, in their families and
communities. This is a long-term programme, and in 2009 there is a part-time Youth mediator from
the original team employed by WAC to develop and further coordinate this project.
Community Play: ‘Beware the Words of a Holy Woman’
18 performances in 1st half of the year.
Tours x 1 in West –March
Play with process in Korovou Prison twice and Maximum Security Prison once.
Mediation Capacity Building, Skills Training Workshops with youth mediators.
-Tailevu, Naisomua x 2 weeks 15 young men and women from rural community.
12 Feb – 15 Feb –wk 1 + 19 Feb-22 Feb – Wk 2
-Nasinu Secondary for students from Nausori
Introduction – 14 March for a group of students invited by EPIC Mediators from Nausori and Suva
Schools
-St Andrews Hall x 3 days (Suva) - 28-30 April
-Natabua Hall x 3 days – 5-7 May (West) and Nausori same time which included 5 mediators from
Naisomua.
Project focus: Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
Funder-Artventure, GFW
Community Play -Qica
38 school and community-based performances
Tour x 2 (West, North)
West –June, North – July
This play was developed in 2007, and was continued in 2008 due to community requests, and for
national coverage. The play uses the traditional figure of an Indigenous jester or ‘Qica’ from precolonial settings to examine a very sensitive and serious issue of widespread child sexual abuse.
In 2009 the UNICEF will release the first Child Protection Baseline Research in Fiji, which will be of
great value to WAC in our ongoing work on child protection, right and empowerment. Copy
forwarded when available.
This play is well-received by villages, towns and cities because it includes attention to issues such
as traditional and other community leaders as perpetrators, shows the roles of community nurses,
elder caregivers and the wider community as responsible parties for care of children, as well as the
formal justice system. This is especially required where the formal legal system cannot cope or is
not available, sympathetic or accessible to people. It also includes issues of gender roles, and the
added abuse often felt by young girls and boys, including gender presentation issues.
After nearly every performance in primary schools WAC taught the children some basic self
defence techniques at the same time acknowledging that it is not possible often to protect yourself
against somebody you love and trust, i.e. a relative.
Special Performances
-Community Open day, Veiguwawa informal settlement
Project focus: Primary Schools –Skillbuilding in Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding
and Restorative Justice
Funders: Ausaid
This is the second year that Veiuto Primary School, a Suva school have asked for training and
development in non-violence and restorative justice for primary school students (Class 8) before
they leave for high school, and now with year 7 in 2009. We also identified in 2008 a need to work
more on solvent abuse by primary school students, and after confirming with other school and
community workshops, there will be a play in 2009 to address this specifically.
The Head teacher and teachers also requested conflict transformation and non-violence training
for themselves in 2008, and now again in 2009 (Feb-March –Over 3 weeks). There have been
recognisable behavioural changes in individual and groups of students and teachers according to
both the children and teachers. At each program students are also encouraged to work in selfselection gender and mixed groups, and also explore relationships between them, and how to
move beyond them and establish respectful relationships with each other as young people. There
have been stories linked to gender roles where bullying has occurred, violent discipline and its
impacts on children, teacher behaviour, identifying new ways for teachers to behave from the point
of view of students, and much more. This program continues to develop in 2009 and beyond.
RJ Capacity Building Workshop for Primary School Teachers
Veiuto Primary School, Including Head Teacher
Dates: 9 sessions over Feb-March. 13 teachers 9 female and 5 males
RJ and Conflict Transformation Capacity Building Workshop for Primary School Students
Veiuto Primary School, Class 8
Dates: 3rd term, after exams for all year 8s, 8-24 September, around 160 students, more female
than male students.
2008 - Community Justice for Social Transformation
Work against heteronormativity and homophobia: Rights of Third Gender, Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer/Questioning People
‘Sexual Minorities’ in Fiji are protected from unfair discrimination under the Bill of Rights in the Fiji
1997 Constitution. However, people with diverse gender and sexuality in Fiji actually experience
widespread and multiple forms of discrimination from state and non-state actors. A strongly hostile
social attitude is openly reinforced by the country’s major religious organisations, that homosexual
relationships are sinful, and that GLBTIQ people are sick or, at best, deviant with punishment by
law the required outcome.
There is inadequate sexual rights legislation and policy in Fiji and an archaic Penal code, a
consequential total absence of implementation of sexual rights policy at civil service, private sector
and civil society levels. There have also been a number of public demonstrations in recent years
organised by the Fiji Methodist Church, to protest against gay marriage – even though same sex
marriages are currently not permitted under the laws of Fiji and recent activist attention has been
primarily focused on eliminating violence against GLBTIQ people, and on social, cultural and
economic rights in this time of great national political uncertainty for all in Fiji, and especially for
already vulnerable and targeted and marginalised groups and individuals.
Gay men and boys, transgender and transsexual persons and lesbians experience high levels of
verbal abuse and violence, especially at family level. This is one of the most marginalised and
violated groups in Fiji with attendant lifelong issues for underemployment, mental health, access to
medical and social services, access to justice system, etc.
There are few NGOs (WAC, Aids Taskforce of Fiji, Equal ground Pasifik are others) with the
experience or willingness to support GLBTIQ people in Fiji and the Pacific from an inclusive human
rights and social justice perspective where all are respected and rights upheld. (2009 note: There
have been increased reports of homophobic violence in the first quarter of 2009)
Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners and their Families
At least 43% of the prisoners who took part in a AFCJP 2005 survey stated they were unemployed
before going to prison. When prisoners are released very nearly 100% have no employment to
which they can return.28 The social stigma attached to “criminals” in Fiji is prevalent and intense,
and many ex-prisoners find it difficult to obtain employment or re-integrate into their small, tightknit, role-based communities.
28
Personal communication - David Evans, Community Based Corrections Adviser, Australia/Fiji Law and Justice Sector Program, Sept,
2008.
Stories are common of ex-prisoners being shunned by their family and neighbours, and the crimes
of the offender are considered to be a great shame on the wider family, leading to reluctance by
elders to re-admit offenders to family spaces.
The state of Fiji prisons is a contributing factor to the issue of adequate rehabilitation and
reintegration, with the major prison in Suva having been condemned over a decade ago, but still
operating at well over maximum capacity. Such discrimination prevents rehabilitation and
contributes to the high rate of re-offending.
There are also human rights violations of young male accused persons through the past decades.
They have been picked up for questioning, with bashing occurring in police custody. NGOs such as
WAC and EGP sometimes accompany arrested persons to Police stations for prevention, and
make regular advocacy statements about presumption of innocence in justice processes, and
human rights for all including detained persons, as specified under the 1997 Constitution and
international human rights instruments.
There are still very few government and civil society programmes that sustainably address the
needs of prisoners and ex-prisoners, especially using a human rights perspective rather than a
faith-based approach (for example, Prison Fellowship Group).
There are few secular civil society organisations currently focussing on prisoner and ex-prisoner
support, rehabilitation and reintegration. Those who are, include FRIEND (Western side of Viti
Levu), WAC and PCASS. The capacity of faith-based and secular community responses has been
gradually and systemically raised with the assistance of the Australia/Fiji Community Justice
Programme, with ongoing and evolving attention over the past four years to issues of Family Law,
Legal Aid, Problem-Solving Courts and Community Based Corrections.
Sex Workers
Sex workers and former sex workers are another high need group. Sex workers are primarily
young to middle aged women, include transgender and transsexual women, often with low levels of
formal education. Other known intersectional identities include women living in poverty situations;
single female heads of households; survivors of sexual violence, mental health survivors, lesbian
and bisexual women, ethnic minority women, young women and girl child, and include partners
and wives of prisoners and ex-prisoners. Many are survivors of domestic violence and child sexual
abuse themselves.
These women and trans people are further marginalised by state and non-state actors due to the
combination of social and cultural stigma and continued prohibition of prostitution, both in private
homes, public places and brothels, and overall high levels of violence against women and girl child.
Sex workers are also exposed to an increased risk of STIs, as well as violence, discrimination and
marginalization.
Many lesbian women enter sex work with their partners as pimps, due to no other accessible
employment, and no family support due to their known or perceived sexual orientation in small
community spaces. In order to stay with their partners, these motel and street-based workers face
great violence, social exclusion, STI and HIV exposure, and they find it extremely difficult to access
health, education and other services. They also spend large amounts of earnings on staying off the
streets, accessing hotels and motels where able, and are a highly transitory population with
heightened vulnerability to violence and crime.
WAC, ATFF and EGP (local civil society human rights organisations) are the very few secular
social spaces providing safe, non-judgmental space and services to sex workers. There is also
some very small faith-based street advocacy and microenterprise work through the Catholic
Church, but from a reformative and moralist agenda.
There is a growing emergence of self-organising and networking by sex workers, and WAC are
committed to providing ongoing support and resources as requested.
In 2008, WAC projects and activities contributing to work for community
justice and social transformation, included:
Project focus: Capacity Building – RJ and Conflict Transformation, Regional – Vanuatu
Funder: Oxfam Vanuatu
This work was commenced in 2007 following a request by workers from Oxfam Vanuatu, and after
the initial workshop, another follow-up was requested by the participants, and WAC offered a 2
week course in 2008. The work used participant stories to process conflict using restorative justice
models, and many of the stories were about gender-related issues including domestic violence,
victims being left out of traditional processes, etc.
Dates: 2 workshop sets: 1 x 20 May-10 June (3 wks); 1 x October (1 wk)
2 week program in Pango settlement (Vila) to train new mediators.
RJ Mediation –Follow-up to 2007 workshop, Pentecost Island working with 25 young people and
elders nearly equal number of males and female) on RJ skills
Antares Conference on Stress Management - Playback Theatre – for a regional audience and
involving several actors from Wansmolbag.
Activity Focus: Drop-In and Referrals, Prison Visits, Police Station Accompaniment
Funder –GFW, No other funding
Date: All year round
WAC continues to be a safe non-judgmental space for many women, men and young people of
diverse gender and sexuality, and from high-poverty situations. In 2008 there were domestic
violence referrals, spouse and child maintenance case assistance, assistance for GLBT and sex
workers suffering Police discrimination and violence. Also multiple requests by young males to
accompany them to Police stations for safety in custody, prison visits, para-legal advice and legal
referrals on cases with charges ranging from assault to aggravated assault, to attempted murder.
As context to this work with men and boys, the access to legal aid in Fiji is VERY limited and
under-resourced, and many of those with serious charges are not represented in court, having to
defend themselves the best they can. There is much Police brutality. This links into gender justice
concerns in Fiji as over 85% of people in prisons in Fiji are young Indigenous males under 24years
old and younger, with the majority in for sentences of under a year, including petty offences, they
are in prison with serious offenders, and there are not adequate prisons, although there are lately
improvements, but very little in the way of in-house programs, reintegration programs, probation,
juvenile justice programs (We view this work as a preventative measure to reduce gender-based
violence, as these young men/often first-offenders come out of prison as even more violence
offenders, and the recidivism rate is very high)
We continue to see our work with men and boys in Fiji as some of our most urgent work toward
gender equality, and for EVAW. There were also requests for personal mediation processes for
lesbians and also sex workers in violent conflict with other women and family members. Also
practical homebased and other assistance for street-present people with mental health issues,
among many other requests.
2008- Community Empowerment for Social Transformation
Some areas of urgent community focus are as follows…
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
Women’s Rights, including sexual and reproductive rights is already recognized in many national
laws, regional and international human rights treaties, documents and other consensus
statements. These include the 1997 Fiji Constitution (currently abrogated) including the Bill of
Rights (Section 38); Pacific Plan; and International Instruments such as UN SC 1325 (2000),
CEDAW and OP, Beijing Platform for Action Chapter E recommendation E1, Millennium
Development Goals, especially 3 and 6, and the Yogyakarta Principles.
Sexual rights include:
• Access to sexual and reproductive health care services;
• Seek, receive and impart information related to sexuality;
• Respect for bodily integrity;
• Choose our partner;
• Decide to be sexually active or not;
• Consensual sexual relations;
• Consensual marriage;
• Decide whether or not, and when, to have children29.
Sexuality and sexual rights is a transformative concept that is key to all gender equality work in Fiji,
not only part of our indivisible rights, but central to it.
Sexuality in Fiji still has a dominant discourse of silences and strains, awkwardness and high
discomfort. Where there is casual, social sexual discussion it is alternately subtle and crude, joking
and derogatory in tone.
There is also wider sexual baiting, not just directed at women working in human rights
organisations, but as a sanctioning tool against any woman, including young women, who dare to
move outside rigid gendered presentation, roles and sexual orientation. “Women’s sexuality is
seen as an almost universal target: it is not only a subject of discussion and control by men, but it
is also a ‘pressure-point’ used to discredit political agendas, whether or not they are related to
gender and sexuality.”30
29
PRB; Bulletin Vol. 61, No. 1, March 2006. FWCW Platform for Action, paragraph 94; ICPD Programme of Action
Rothschild, Cynthia. (Edited and contributions: Scott Long and Susana Fried. ‘Written Out: How Sexuality is Used to Attack Women’s
Organizing.’ USA: NJ and NY; IGLHRC and CWGL. 2005.
30
WAC agrees with sexuality rights organisation, CREA (India) that therefore openly addressing
sexuality is actually “a key to self-esteem, dignity, respect, and belonging. Sexuality is not simply a
private issue of sexual acts and liaisons; it links the private and public and the individual and
community.”31 This therefore is also potentially liberating, in that there is great power to be
potentially transformed.
Conservative and hierarchical socio-cultural norms in Fiji, perpetuated and actively promoted by
major religious institutions, state and indigenous political systems (and civil service), all contribute
to prevalent views in Fiji that sexuality, including reproduction, is a tabu (taboo) subject that is not
appropriate for open discussion, even within the family, and among many peer groups.
Schools still generally have limited coverage of SRHR education due to teacher unwillingness
and/or discomfort and lack of adequate curriculum, so unless there is access to health clinics or
youth-specific workshops (of which there are now some under the ARH programme and civil
society) where there are strongly prevailing issues of gender-based and sexualised violence;
strong and fixed binary gender roles; homophobia, low levels of small community confidentiality;
and many children and young people have early debut sexual experiences in ignorance of safe sex
practices and risks of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Many young women in Fiji tell WAC that they lack the self-confidence or gender-relationship skills
to either refuse sexual activity, and to insist on contraception use. The high incidence of male to
female violence, intimate partner and family violence and socially permissible violence exacerbates
the problem of SRHR decision-making by young women. But in past work on HIV and AIDs
strategies (in 2005-7), they also show great power when they’re in space that enables them to
come up with creative and workable strategies.
There is also now reliable evidence of high levels of early sexual activity among young people
across the Pacific Islands Countries, including Fiji, from the early teens onwards, with rising rates
of teenage pregnancy, STIs and abortion. In 2000, for example, births to mothers aged between 15
and 19 years accounted for 10% of all births in Fiji. The latest information from the Fiji Ministry of
Health actually suggests pregnancies in this age group may have begun to decline, but
pregnancies among girls aged 14 or less are now on the increase.32 From work in the area of child
sexual abuse and incest, WAC views this figure as reflective not simply of increased sexual activity
at earlier ages, but of high levels of sexual abuse of girl children.33
Successive Fiji Governments since the 1970s have been unwilling or unable to effectively deal with
universal sexual and reproductive health issues, often preferring to lay blame for high teenage
pregnancy rates and STI increases on the rise of human rights concepts, and lamenting the
supposed loss of protective indigenous traditions. It is WAC’s position that Pacific and Fiji SRHR is
not sufficiently addressed as a human rights and gender equality issue, nor are there genuine
efforts to build on more empowering and fluid local (including indigenous) sexuality concepts and
discourses that could actually assist with increased healthy and responsible SRHR decisionmaking. This can be transformed by affirming and highlighting existing resiliencies, reclaiming and
normalizing the fluidities of gender and sexual identity in Fiji and the Pacific.
Moving forward, transformative gender-equality, human rights and development focused SRHR
work in Fiji with children, parents, community elders, teachers, principals and government policy
31
CREA, 2008. Women, Disabled, Queer: working together for our sexuality and rights. AWID International Forum, Nov 14-17, 2008,
Cape Town, South Africa. P3.
32
Toumataiwalu, A, “More Teens Have Sex: Duvaga”, Fiji Times, 16 February 2007.
33
Informant interview – Peni Moore, WAC Creative Director, Sept 2008
makers must be underlaid with bodily integrity work, and practical skillbuilding on just, healthy,
participative individual and group decision-making by and for all.
Current work by civil society groups such as Save the Children Fund Fiji, UNICEF, WAC, FWCC
and others have provided useful learning that effective work with women, children and young
people aims for longterm social transformation – toward a society where all individuals, including
women and children, are central to sustainable development and where we move increasingly
toward gender-equal, nonviolent and participative communities.
Crime and Imprisonment
Children and young people in Fiji are increasingly becoming involved in crimes such as theft and
burglary, for reasons such as seeking the means to buy alcohol or other drugs, mobile telephones
and other consumer items; challenging hierarchical authority and control; and stealing for food and
other household necessities. There also appear to be growing numbers of sex workers, most of
whom are young women and young transgender people, due to the current economic situation,
family and partner related violence, and rising levels of transactional sex with younger girl child to
cover education fees, 34
Young indigenous Fijian men are currently far more likely than any other group in Fiji to become
involved in crimes against property and crimes of violence. This conclusion is supported by
statistics produced by the Australia Fiji Law and Justice Sector Program, based on prison records
and surveys of prisoners conducted in 2002 and 2005.35
According to this research, 49% of all Fiji’s prisoners in 2005 were aged between 16 and 25 years
with the majority being males (99% approx), and the number in this age category had increased by
35% over the preceding three years, while the general prison population increased by 22%. Close
to 80% of all prisoners in 2002 and 2005 were indigenous Fijian males. Forty-three percent of
prisoners had been unemployed before being sent to prison and a further 19% reported that they
had been farmers (often a less embarrassing way of saying “unemployed”). Almost half of all
prisoners were imprisoned for crimes against property, but sexual assaults and other violent crimes
became significantly more common between 2002 and 2005. Prisoners aged between 16 and 25
years were responsible for 57% of all violent crimes reported. Almost 30% of prisoners were
sentenced to less than three months’ imprisonment, and with remission, almost 70% were serving
a term of less than 12 months.
There is currently no published information on the female prison population, and a need for urgent
research on women-initiated crimes, access to justice system for female offenders, rehabilitation
and reintegration issues, and links to SRHR, infanticide and women’s health and poverty issues.
Experts generally agree that Fiji’s prisons are too crowded and under-resourced to enable effective
rehabilitation. It is estimated that approximately half of all prisoners will re-offend after their release
and be imprisoned again, and when young ex-prisoners re-offend, they often commit more serious
crimes.
Suicide
Suicide rates in the Pacific are high by global standards, and among young people in Fiji, suicide is
believed to be the most common cause of death. A study carried out in the 1990s found the rate of
‘Yalewa Power Workshop’ with sex workers, Sigatoka, Sept 2008
The statistics were provided by David Evans, Rehabilitation Adviser with the Australia/Fiji Law and Justice Sector Program.
Unpublished research 2005 – Oceanic PSI & AFCJP, Fiji
34
35
suicide among young Indo-Fijian women to be one of the highest in the world,36 but some
commentators suggested the statistics may have been inflated by cases of bride burning falsely
reported as suicide.37
Statistics produced by the Ministry of Health (2006) indicate that 77 people committed suicide in
the country in 2006 and 102 others attempted to do so. There is undoubtedly significant underreporting.
An especially worrying trend is that Indo-Fijians appear to commit or attempt suicide at a rate that
is between five and 10 times higher than other ethnic groups in Fiji. For example, out of a total of
1089 suicides and attempted suicides reported to police between 2000 and 2004, 940 (86%)
involved Indo-Fijians.38 Five hundred and seventy-seven cases (53% of the total) involved women.
A combined breakdown of this data by gender and ethnicity was not available, but other studies
have found that the suicide rate for Indo-Fijian women is slightly higher than for Indo-Fijian men.
Further study is required of the reasons why young people in Fiji resort to suicide. Different
contributing factors probably interact in each case, ranging from economic pressures, social
disruption and lack of support, to domestic violence and other family problems, mental illness, and
alcohol or other drug abuse, as well as the overall discrimination against ethnic minorities such as
Indo-Fijian people in Fiji. There is not yet national research that examines potential links between
high levels of gender-based violence and discrimination and suicide rates in Fiji.
HIV/AIDS
The prevalence of STIs in Fiji is very high (especially Chlamydia in young women and girl child)
and reports of HIV/AIDS are increasing. HIV and AIDS experts regard the country as possessing
the “necessary ingredients” for a major epidemic, including widespread poverty, low levels of
formal education, a relatively young and mobile population, prevalence of unsafe sex practices,
and lack of awareness of STIs.39
Statistics produced by the Ministry of Health indicate that, as of December 2006, there were 219
reported cases of HIV, of which 60% were male, 82% were indigenous Fijians, and 78% were aged
between 20 and 39 years.40 Eighty-five percent were reportedly transmitted through heterosexual
relationships, 7% prenatally and 5% through same sex relationships. The reported cases were
thought to be only a small fraction of the total, however, and the Ministry expressed the belief that
there could be as many as 4,000 undiagnosed cases of HIV in Fiji at that time.41
Research carried out by the local NGO, AIDS Task Force of Fiji (ATFF), suggests that a major
contributor to Fiji’s HIV/AIDS epidemic is bisexual sexual activity by men.42 Such sexual activity is
generally secretive due to social stigma and fear of homophobic violence, a reality for all gay,
bisexual and gender-questioning people in Fiji, and especially gay males and transgender people.
There is currently no statistics and very minimal advocacy attention paid to human rights and
justice for intersex and transgender persons by GLBT and human rights organisations.
36
Booth, H, Gender, Power and Social Change: Youth Suicide Among Fiji Indians and Western Samoans, Demography Program,
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1999: <rspas.anu.edu.au/grc/publications/pdfs/WP_5_Booth.pdf>.
37
See for example, Department of State, USA, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2001:
<www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eap/8308.htm>.
38
CCF, Submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, unpublished draft, Suva, 2006, p 48. The statistics are
based on data provided by the Crime Statistics Department of the Fiji Police Force.
39
See for example background information provided by UNICEF: <www.unicef.org/infobycountry/fiji.html>, and compare with Marie
Stopes International, where Fiji’s situation is described as “explosive”: <www.mariestopes.org.au/country-fji-bg.html>.
40
Twenty-six percent of reported cases as of December 2004 were aged between 15 and 24 years
41
This information is reproduced on the website of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS:
<www.unaids.org/en/Regions_Countries/Countries/fiji.asp>.
42
ATFF, Personal communication.
While the Government does have a national strategy on HIV/AIDS, it is inadequate to the scale of
the problem, and especially weak on gender analysis. A recent report on impediments to scaling
up Fiji’s national response to HIV/AIDS by UNAIDS found that the main constraints were43:
 lack of political will to meet the challenge of the epidemic
 disparities in power structures: gender, sexuality and age
 stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV
 lack of a human rights-based approach.
POVERTY AND URBAN SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS
Recent research shows over 120,000 people in Fiji today are squatters, living on land to which they
have no legal claim, with numbers rising rapidly. This represents at least 12.5% of the total
population. While poverty in Fiji is concentrated in rural areas, squatters tend to reside in and
around the country’s towns and cities, as a result of urban drift and the increasing cost of urban
rents.44
There are at least 182 squatter settlements in Fiji, with the largest number of households to be
found in a corridor that extends from Lami Town, west of Suva, through the capital itself and on up
to Nausori Town to the north. Tavegavega in Ba is said to be the largest single settlement, with
close to 2000 households. Some squatter settlements are more than 70 years old. Many are
located in low-lying areas along river banks or beside mangrove swamps, and are subject to
flooding.45
Statistics produced by the Ministry of Housing indicate that Fiji’s squatter population almost
doubled from 1999 to 2004, which has been linked to the expiry of over 5000 agricultural leases in
the same period, affecting 27,000 households.
It has always been the case that a majority of squatters in Fiji are Indo-Fijian – not indigenous
Fijians, as is widely believed. This is probably due to their relative lack of access to land, including
the recent problem of expiring leases which will continue until at least 2012.46
Another common misconception is that many squatters are not really poor. Any direct
consideration of the conditions in which squatters live exposes the fallacy of this view. Their
houses are typically makeshift and overcrowded. Many lack piped water, sewerage and electricity
– so hygiene and sanitation are poor, and health risks are high. There is little household security.
Disputes with neighbours and other ethnic groups are common over vegetable gardens and
boundaries. Due to the constant threat of eviction, many squatters are reluctant to invest time and
money in improving their homes and surroundings.47 Squatter settlements can be very unsafe for
young girls, with recent rapes reported in two inner-city settlements.
In purely economic terms, it is estimated that 60-80% of squatters are living below the poverty line.
They are over-represented among the unemployed and low-wage earners, and they appear to
experience social problems such as school drop outs, substance abuse, domestic violence and
other crimes, to a greater extent than the general population.48 There is a need for more research
43
See note 38, above
See note 38, above, p 5.
45
See note 38, above, p 6.
46
See note 38, above, pp 6-8. Some researchers have grouped indigenous Fijian villages in urban areas and squatters settlements
together in a category called “informal housing”, resulting in statistics that show a slight majority of indigenous Fijians.
47
See note 38, above, pp 8-9.
48
See note 38, above, pp 9-10.
44
and analysis on gender and the issues specifically facing women and girl children in Fiji’s squatter
population.
In 2009, more WAC work concentrates on gender justice interventions that target poverty
alleviation and microenterprise initiatives through squatter settlement and rural movement-building
by poor women, with women’s human rights NGOs primarily as catalysts, supporters and resource
facilitators.
In 2008, WAC projects and activities contributing to work for community
empowerment for social transformation, included:
Project focus: Community-centred Theatre and Advocacy towards a Peaceful, Nonviolent
and Just Fiji
Funder – Ausaid, GFW
The play ‘Take Over, Take Cover’ is another way to share key questions on gender, militarism and
non-violence. The play is a black comedy. It was performed at the first NCBBF meeting at
parliament House (with currently no elected Parliament and in front of the Military regime and other
conservative and liberal (mainly male) politicians and opinion makers), in prisons, for Police, at
schools and in many other civil society and community spaces.
Women love watching Viola’s army as the military group, men disturbed when portrayed as the
victims of a woman-lead takeover, and everyone gets uncomfortable about their own attitudes to
peace, violence, and gender and the military. Each performance has generated much discussion.
WAC staff has had people coming up months after performances saying how much it moved them.
Activity Focus: Capacity Building - Community Arts Training - University of the South
Pacific
Funder: USP
- USP Undergraduate Training Workshop –Community Arts Skills Training
-Mime performance (ECREA)
To introduce a lecture on the life and theories of Rev. Paula Niukula, given by Aisake Casimira,
Ecumenical Catalyst, Pacific Theological College. WAC experimented with a new methodology
using mime on a storyline of violence, racism and the need to affirm concepts of shared humanity.
Activity Focus: Capacity Building - Development of FRIEND Community Theatre Group,
Western Viti Levu
Partner – FRIEND, Lautoka, Western side of Lautoka
Funder -FRIEND
Dates: Ongoing for 2007-8, but concerted effort in 2008 from September to date.
This developed out of earlier work (2007) where WAC provided skillsharing with unemployed
young people to develop self esteem through practical work on theatre and the arts. Most of those
who participated ended up getting employment. In 2008-9 WAC are now working on co-creating a
community theatre group with FRIEND.
Note: there are very few NGO resources in the Western side, and WAC work closely with Lautoka
Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises and development ((FRIEND) to provide support in this
geographical area. FRIEND work in Lautoka prisons, with high poverty communities and have a
very strong established microenterprise program that we will partner with in 2009 and beyond for
practical support of the growing ‘Women in informal settlements’ network.
Activity Focus: Capacity Building – SRHR Peer Educators on Participative Arts Methods,
Western Viti Levu
Partner – Marie Stopes
Funder –Marie Stopes
Dates: May
Two week skillbuilding workshop for Marie Stopes youth peer educators on using participatory
community arts skills to work with communities.
This workshop was by request with the intention of improving their participatory methods of
educating the public on sexual and reproductive health and rghts. The participants were young
peer educators for Marie Stopes with different levels of community experience etc. They learnt
how to put a short play together, how to write songs and a variety of participatory discussion and
feedback processes.
ACTIVITY FOCUS: National Peacebuilding –Participation in Dialogue Fiji process, 2008-9
Funder – UNDP Pacific for initial workshop participation.
Committee – Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding, FemLINK PACIFIC, FWRM, FWCC, Transparency
International, University of the South Pacific, CCF, and others
Dates -2008-9
This emergent civil society lead peacebuilding process began with a sustained dialogue meeting
held in Vanuatu in mid 2008, and worked as a way to explain diverse positions, and hold spaces
open in post-conflict space. It was facilitated by Koila Costello-Olsson (Fiji) and Chris Spiers (South
Africa). It included key interim government reps, diverse civil society reps and human rights
activists, including the WAC Coordinator.
The group continued to meet intermittently, and out of this a national peacebuilding program has
developed. The committee has recently widened to include many more faith-based groups, private
sector and others at an initial Citizens Assembly in March 2009 (with attention to participation of
women, rural reps, etc), and multiple Community Leaders Forums including politicians, and wider
long-term Peace Platforms, including young people, artists, politicians, women, NGOs, academics,
community networks, and covering rural and urban Fiji.
The input from this civil-society process will also be fed wherever possible into the official national
Political Parties Dialogue to be held in the first half of 2009 (similar formal processes generally
have had few women included – And regionally numbers of women in formal national political
positions are very low), and facilitated by Commonwealth Secretariat and UNDP teams. The Fiji
Dialogue process continues well beyond the formal process. WAC will be facilitating 7 of the public
forum processes, in Suva, Nausori and Tailevu (2), Sigatoka, Lautoka and Ba, Labasa, and in the
women’s and men’s prisons.
Note: The Committee has a policy of nil media and minimum other coverage.
Note 2: Since the above was written, the 1997 Constitution has been abrogated.
ATTACHMENT: WAC 2008 – AUDITED FINANCIAL REPORT