Women’s Rights Movement: How many more lives will gender-based violence claim?

The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement is asking our society today, how many more women must be murdered by their partners and spouses before we put an end to gender-based violence.

In a statement, FWRM Executive Director Nalini Singh says violence against women and girls is always a choice, and people choose to be violent towards women and girls because of patriarchy, which is all about unequal gender relations.

She says this inequality exists because of how we, as a society value or devalue women and girls.

Singh says they are also calling out the mainstream media in Fiji for its inability to call out murder when it happens, especially when it is a domestic violence-related murder.

She also said that it is not a serious assault or arising from a “heated argument”, it is murder.

She adds there is no other word for when someone is killed in the safety of their own home and in the presence of children who were also witnessing these horrific levels of violence.

The Executive Director says instead of highlighting the wrongful actions of the perpetrator, the media has been fixated on inadvertently victim-blaming by reporting reasons as to why the victim was killed.

She says this kind of reporting deviates from the real issue at hand which is Fiji’s very high levels of domestic violence being experienced by women.

Singh says the murder of women by their spouses/partners is never justified and it must stop now.

She says the death of Kelera Sivo and countless others must not go in vain, and every time a woman is killed at the hands of their loved one, the entire country (including the media) should stand up and fight against domestic violence.

She adds choosing to remain silent or minimising the trauma should not be an option.

She says women face so many barriers when accessing justice, including the cost of going to the police or courts, overcoming the stigma associated with trying to seek justice with the violence that they face every day, and discrimination when they attempt to access services.

Singh says the media in its current style of reporting does not help the situation at all.

The Executive Director says given that Fiji has just launched the National Plan for the Prevention of Violence Against All Women and Girls (NAPVAWG), being only the second country in the world to do so, now more than ever there is an urgent need to work across all of government and across all of society to challenge attitudes and perceptions of why gender-based violence occurs in these horrific ways.

She further says Fiji is also heading into the festive season, which we know has the propensity to escalate violence in the home and relationships.

The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement is calling on the State, media and all of society to demand a safe Fiji for all women and girls, free from violence from our loved ones.