Many women are holding back from entering politics due to fears for their safety and the safety of their families and children, despite growing calls for greater female representation in Parliament.
This was raised by Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran during the launch of the Areto Face Forward Initiative, an AI-powered content moderation platform designed to filter abuse, hate speech and spam from social media accounts.
Kiran says the free initiative provides digital safety tools for women and gender-diverse politicians and public figures to participate in politics without the fear of being attacked online.
She says some of the images and attacks directed at women are holding them back from entering the political space.
The Minister adds that the Pacific has the lowest representation of women in politics globally.
Kiran says a 2025 survey showed that 70 percent of those surveyed want more women in politics, with people in rural areas advocating for greater female political representation more than those in urban areas.
She says this shows that the country is ready for more women in politics. However, she stresses that greater representation is important because Parliament is where legislation is made, and women's voices and perspectives need to be part of that process.
Kiran says work has also been undertaken over the past three and a half years at the municipal level to train women, create awareness and encourage women leaders to enter politics.
She says efforts have also focused on building women's confidence and strengthening the pipeline of women leaders.
She says increasing women's representation is important not only for Fiji but across the Pacific, where some parliaments have only one woman while others have none.
Meanwhile, Founder and Chief Product Officer for Areto Labs Jackquiline Comer says the Face Forward is a fully funded two-year initiative designed to protect women and gender-diverse leaders in the Pacific from online abuse where Areto’s technology scans social media comments in real time and automatically filters abusive and gender-based content across 55 languages.
