Sixty-four per cent of women experience one or more types of violence in their lifetime from their husbands or intimate partner.
This according to a report by the Fiji Women Crisis Centre, which Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Mereseini Vuniwaqa highlighted to Ethiopia’s State Minister for Women, Children and Youth Semegne Wube during their meeting yesterday.
Ms Wube paid a courtesy call to Mrs Vuniwaqa, a visit which was organised by the UN Women Fiji Multi-Country Office in partnership with the UN Women Ethiopia through the South-south learning.
Mrs Vuniwaqa said working closely with non-government organisations, civil society organisations and faith-based organisations had had a huge positive impact on the work of the ministry in relation to the empowerment of women.
She also briefed Ms Wube on the Government’s commitment in achieving gender equality, promoting equal opportunities for all, including the participation of women and girls in education, leadership, and the overall economic development, and efforts to eliminate gender-based violence.
“This is cemented in the National Development Plan, especially because gender equality cuts across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals and in all areas of development in Fiji,” Mrs Vuniwaqa said.
Ms Wube said that Ethiopia’s key focus areas include learning to understand the evidence-based practices and approaches to prevention and response to violence against women and girls.
“The development of context appropriate programs at the community and national levels in order to impact attitude and behavior changes, especially with women and girls of different social and economic backgrounds. The experiences in setting timelines for implementation of programs and policies and approaches for developing staff capacity in the areas of gender inequality and violence against women and girls”.
