Many people in communities particularly women and girls are feeling exhausted by the unpaid care, domestic and communal work – DIVA for Equality

Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality co-founder Noelene Nabulivou says one of the things that is coming out time and time again is that many people in communities, particularly women and girls, gender non-binary, LGBTIQ people as well as men are feeling exhausted by the unpaid care, domestic and communal work.

She says that work might be in individual households, villages, informal settlements and in what we call in Fiji - soqo related contribution.

Nabulivou adds while those are our greatest strengths as Pacific islanders, it also is where we often don’t think about the privilege that certain people have and the oppression of the many bodies that end up doing the bulk of the work.

She says Oxfam in the Pacific has done three Rapid Care Analysis studies and they are in rural contexts in Fiji.

Nabulivou adds what they are finding is that women and girls are doing more than two to three times the amount of work hours per day.

She stresses that as we are coming into International Women’s Day, there are some key elements that the government needs to look at.

Nabulivou says we can talk about the #BreakTheBias for International Women’s Day but they are adding #RedistributeThePower.

She is asking people in different spaces around their communities to organise something around International Women’s Day this week as it is a small part of a wider movement to really work for gender justice and universal human rights.