THE status of women and girls in this country is higher than it has ever been because gender violence, including those of a sexual nature, is on everyone’s agenda.
The Government is party to international treaties to join the global stand against family-based violence.
Government leaders now are the most vocal and most productive in our history and our leading local civil society organisations are among the best on the international human rights front.
According to Shamima Ali, a gender activist from the 33-year-old Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, the status of women and girls in this country has improved greatly.
When FWCC was set up, its first body of work was to make women visible enough so crimes against them could become part of daily public discussion.
Every other month, we face the stark reality that our children, both boys and girls, know about sex, they’re learning it before they even hit the two digit age and they are taught by liars.
In the past five months since this newspaper has ventured into the underbelly, the goal was to bring to light several disturbing trends our own news reports had captured in the past year, that there were far too many sex crimes, that each story seemed more disturbing than the one before.
Every perspective we sought, every researcher we interviewed, every advocate, every official agree that our children aren’t safe.
The causes
“We live in a patriarchal society further exacerbated by sometimes false ideas about religion, culture and stereotype perception of a woman’s place,” Ms Ali said.
“The problem with religion is when interpretations of doctrines define a woman’s place.
“That women are to serve, women are the helpers not the partners ? that women are somehow a bit lower than men because women are only the helpers. But women are the doers, the movers, the shakers and everything else.”
The FWCC advocates for a modern family where the men’s position as head of household is defined by his responsibilities towards his family.
Many religious doctrines define a woman as helper which is often interpreted by some as less important than head of the household.
Feminists offer the viewpoint that though the positions have different duties, each are of equal importance.
Avelina Rokoduru, a researcher of sex and reproductive health issues based at the Fiji National University’s College of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences, believes there is a complete cultural breakdown taking place across the country which has left our most vulnerable members of society in even more danger.
“There are many sex workers who start out in this family abuse. They come to the city to stay with relatives who are trusted to help get them more opportunities. Their parents might be able to support them financially or not. Sometimes they can only afford to send crops to supplement life in the city,” Ms Rokoduru said.
As life goes in the city, finances are tight to begin with for that segment of society for whom opportunities are limited.
Another mouth from the village can quickly become a burden too.
Our work with sex workers show that eventually ‘this girl’ who has come to stay with relatives in search of opportunities, is either made to feel that she is an added burden or actually told to help out with the daily operations of the household through any means necessary.
At Homes of Hope, many of the cases of young girls made pregnant by sexual abuse are children who were staying with relatives in hope of a better life because they no longer have their own traditional model of a family for whatever reason.
“What we are picking up on is that there is a complete breakdown of our traditional social structures where certain members of society were protectors of women and girls,” she said.
“What we are seeing now is the abuse of girls and women takes place in our own communities, sometimes in the home.”
Ms Ali said the FWCC’s advocates and counsellors have reached almost every village and definitely every province in Fiji conducting awareness and sensitivity training and always at the request of traditional leaders and community elders.
Sometimes in the course of changing societal attitudes and cultural norms, culture was given as a reason things must stay as they are.
“Culture is often used as an excuse. What is Fijian culture we ask? How were women treated before?” Ms Ali said.
The FWCC’s own historical research found that traditionally, rapists or men who sexually violated a woman were often dealt with by very brutal, severe punishments publicly to serve as an example to others that sexual violence against women will not be tolerated in traditional iTaukei culture.
As communities continue to navigate conservative societies and work through cultural norms to find solutions to the root causes of sexual violence and gender-based violence, there is one truth that is undisputable and agreed upon by many. As we struggle to redefine culture in this modern age, there is another social change speeding along with changing technology.
That change means our children are exposed like never before, to technology, to media advantages (and disadvantages), to public messaging, to so much information and to sadly a huge body of predators with diverse interests.
An increasing media divergence means that in one device, at one place, at the touch of a finger, a nine-year-old can unlock a world of ideas they may not have been taught to him or her at home.
While we all like to think our scientific developments means we are creating a generation of tech savvy individuals, more advanced than we were, the sad reality is that we are also ensuring they become a very sexed generation.
Because the reality is that 30 years ago, pornography came in literary forms, novels dog-eared and traded around for the blushful reading of 16-18-year-olds, a nine-year-old can now operate the most advanced operating system ever created for computers and earn themselves front row at pornography central.
Every second music video either local or internationally made has erotic messages in the movements of or the lyrics of the artistes.
It is inevitable as the United Kingdom’s National Association of Head Teachers said in 2012 that “sex education guidelines for primary schools should be updated to cover the impact of porn”.
As of the second quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2 billion monthly active users. With social networking creating a platform to combine information sharing and communications, our naturally curious children have very little to make it harder for them to experiment.
As Ms Rokoduru confirms, there is a huge urbanisation process taking place that is keeping parents at work longer and ensuring the lines between work and home are blurred at the expense of either family time or a domestic environment that allows for dialogue.
So who teaches our children about themselves? Their bodies? The dangers lurking? Sure many of us still do but what of those young people left to their own devices?
What are the solutions
Praising the current Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Mereseini Vuniwaqa as being the best to have held that portfolio, Ms Ali said a lot had been achieved to create an environment for earnest work to begin.
For the first time, Government has a credible solid partnership with the civil society community in the country, even if it might have been off to a “rather reluctant” start, she said.
The ministry has a positive parenting program which its permanent secretary, Dr Josefa Koroivueta, said was its main intervention which recognised that the world had changed and that parenting in this era was more challenging.
Based on the concept that children are a gift from God, the program is the result of a government partnership with UNICEF and is designed to teach communities about issues children face with the ultimate goal of child protection.
The main idea is to make communities at various levels take ownership of “creating supportive and conducive environment for children”.
Learning keys include positive parenting, positive discipline and an awareness of problems children face.
The way forward
An emerging young leader Maryann Lockington posted an interesting viewpoint on social media yesterday, “It’s our fault, as adults and parents, that children and teenagers are left unprepared.
“While technology and media continue to advance, our kids are being exposed to the idea of sex and sexual attraction, no matter how much we try to use parental locks.”
“Instead of being proactive, teaching our children age-appropriately about sex when they’re seeing it everywhere in movies, television shows and songs, we’re bringing down the shutters harder. The usual responses from parents and society are always silence, shame and violence. We add to the cycle.”
How do we break that cycle? Ms Ali, the Homes of Hope, Medical Services Pacific and even the government agree it is centred around gender dynamics.
To understand who we are and more importantly what that identity is in relation to the next person’s rights seems critical if we are to make sure everyone is safe and every one has access to healthy positive opportunities.
Ms Ali says everyone that cares about the sex crime rates and cases, about the effects of gender inequality have to be on the same page, we can’t go off in different directions or we will never get anywhere.
That page is a rights-based approach.
“It happens because of gender inequality, the discrimination women face right from the time they are born. Before they are even born, the boy preference is there.
“That’s where it is embedded so we all have to start from there. The best thing to do is to look at how we promote gender equality.”
“How do we lessen discrimination against our girls, how do we treat them as equals to our boys and our sons and so on. That’s where the starting point is. That’s a long term thing that we have to do. We have to start from there.”
