Fiji faces a national crisis of broken men, according to a London-based family advocate.
Tamalesi Kalokalo said these men lived emotionally, spiritually, mentally and culturally broken lives and that “no structure exists dedicated to restoring” them.
Ms Kalokalo, the head and founder of the UK-based iTaukei Legacy platform which focuses on cultural education, social issues, and community empowerment, said family violence and abuse, particularly against women and children, would not stop without addressing the problems that men experience.
“You can bandage the wounded every day, but if the root source — men’s behaviour, trauma, anger and identity crisis — is never addressed, the cycle will not stop,” she said.
Ms Kalokalo, who’s also the coordinator of the Women’s Ministry at Spirit Embassy of the The Good News World Church, is adamant Fiji needs a ‘Men’s Department’ that focuses on “fatherhood training, leadership building, anger management, mental health counselling, addiction treatment, identity and purpose, cultural mentoring, boy’s development programs and community rehabilitation of offenders”.
“Fiji is patriarchal, traditional, communal and vanua-governed, and the collapse of the strong man collapses the home, the village, the vanua and the nation.”
She proposed a Department of National Fatherhood, Masculinity & Family Leadership, saying while the ministry (government ministry) protects victims, the Men’s Department could heal perpetrators and shape the next generation and that without both, “Fiji will keep bleeding”.
Ms Kalokalo added Fiji could not reduce violence if it focused “only on the victim and never on the source”.
However, she added “frontline services for women must remain protected”.
“Women are the majority of victims, men are the majority of perpetrators.
“The Ministry for Women must stay, must be funded, and must be protected.”
