UNPAID care work perpetuates and exacerbates gender inequalities and discrimination. This is the message that the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement continues to share at the ‘If Women Stop, the World Stops’ concert organised by the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement annually to mark International Women’s Day.
The free concert, a flagship event, is used as a platform for representatives of women’s rights and human rights groups to call for the recognition of unpaid care work, the elimination of violence against women and girls and the protection of marginalised groups in our communities.
The event is supported by the Australian Government through the We Rise Coalition in partnership with the International Women’s Development Agency.
Why does FWRM continue to advocate for the recognition of the value of unpaid care work? International Women’s Day began as a labour and socialist movement demanding women’s rights in the world of work in the early 1900s.
Unpaid care work is primarily undertaken by women and girls throughout the world which is a major hindrance to productivity and prevents them from having little or no time for leisure, earn a decent living or to engage in their communities and in national processes in a meaningful way. While all the men are at important village and communal meetings, the women are at home taking care of the children, cooking, washing, looking after the elderly and having no input into discussions and decisions that will impact their own livelihoods.
According to our research “Beyond 33 Per Cent: The Economic Empowerment of Fiji Women and Girls” published in early 2023, females in the Fiji population did 73 per cent of the unpaid household work, compared to 27 per cent by males. The largest share (46 per cent) of this unpaid household work was done by the paid labour force (females 25 per cent and males 20 per cent) with full-time domestic workers (“housewives”) doing 39 per cent, nearly all by females.
It is important to continue the advocacy on the care economy and the unfair distribution of unpaid care work as an issue that is often excluded from budget planning and national policy agendas.
This Saturday, on March 7, FWRM will hold the sixth “If Women Stop the World Stops” concert at Suva’s Sukuna Park.
It is our hope that women around Suva and nearby communities will come and join us in solidarity as a symbolic strike action. Entertainment will be led by Vude Queen Laisa Vulakoro and other local popular musicians. We urge women to take a break, come and listen to music, dance and use the event to “relax” from the usual household work.
FWRM will be joined by partners who will use the platform to call out the Government on the main issue at hand and other related women’s rights violations.
The call for a Women’s Global Strike on March 8 was initiated six years ago by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), a leading network of feminist organisations and grassroots activists in Asia Pacific. FWRM, as an APWLD member, decided to be innovative about solidarity action and organised a concert at Sukuna Park as our symbolic strike action highlighting unpaid care work.
FWRM acknowledges the continued support from partners who have continued to show up in solidarity for the concert and representatives who have used their voices to share their lived realities and experiences calling out the powers that be every year during the annual event.
See you there!
Artists who have long supported this important day over the years. Fiji’s Vude Queen, Laisa Vulakoro (second from left), will once again lead this week’s concert. Picture: SUPPLIED
