64% of women and girls in Fiji experience physical and sexual violence by their husband or intimate partner - Tabuya

4 out of 5 children in Fiji face some form of violence while 64 percent of women have experienced physical and sexual violence by their husband or intimate partner in their lifetime.

This was highlighted by the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya while opening the Safe and Equal Online Spaces Symposium at the Grand Pacific Hotel today.

She says our children are also facing online violence, and as parents, we have a duty to protect them.

Tabuya says Fiji is making significant and whole-of-government efforts to improve gender equality, which is the root cause of violence against women and girls.

She says countries across the Pacific have some of the world’s highest rates of violence against women and girls.

The Minister also highlighted that one initiative that they are working on is ways to regulate access to pornography for children.

She says evidence from around the world shows that accessing pornography connects to the increase in sexual violence.

SPC Principal Strategic Lead – Pacific Women and Girls, Mereseini Rakuita, says the conversations they will be having in the next few days will for the first time put technology-facilitated gender-based violence on the regional gender equality agenda as a real and present issue that they must address as a collective when addressing gender based violence.

She says the digital world holds immense potential to amplify the voices of women, girls, and gender diverse individuals. Rakuita says at the same time, the misuse of social media platforms and other digital technologies by those who perpetrate abuse online have given rise to new forms and manifestations of gender-based violence and new technologies have greatly expanded the scale, speed, and reach of content shared online, which can exacerbate pre-existing forms of intersectional gender-based violence.

She hopes that this symposium will be the catalyst for change as they continue to address the pervasive human rights breach that gender-based violence is.

More than 100 participants from the region gathered today at the Grand Pacific Hotel to be part of the first Safe and Equal Online Spaces - Pacific Cyber Safety Symposium at the Grand Pacific Hotel to address gender based violence with a focus on Technology Facilitated Gender Base Violence.