Seventy-five per cent of the 25 per cent population living in poverty are iTaukei from outer islands living in informal settlements on the mainland.
This, according to Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) executive director Vani Catanasiga.
She told The Fiji Times’ online news portal, The Lens@177, that 85 per cent of the surveys they did were in iTaukei-based communities.
“I can say that across the surveys that we’ve conducted, we often first work with the DCOSS’s to refer us to the communities that they see where there’s a lot of vulnerability, there are a lot of symptoms of poverty,” Ms Catanasiga said.
“We often find that in terms of these communities, there’s always issues around access and agency. “Majority of those we surveyed in informal communities are iTaukei.
“They are people from outside the main island and they’ve come to Suva because they need to access better educational opportunities for their children.
“They think that moving here would allow their children to access quality education. But in those informal settlements, they don’t have access to land. “And in informal settlements, there is nothing legal about where they live.
“Their ability to access water sometimes is questioned because of tenureship issues. That then affects their agency to assert their right to water, assert their right to better roads.” She said there were myriad of factors that they had to deal with.
Ms Catanasiga said the authorities should also look at its support system.
“That says a lot too about support systems because we used to have these informal safety nets in communities, but a lot of policies have been passed to undermine those informal social safety nets.”
