SUVA, Jun 3 (NNN-PINA) – Fiji, yesterday, launched a national action plan to prevent violence against women and girls, for the next five years, and committed an initial one million Fijian dollars (about 400,000 U.S. dollars), for the fiscal year 2023-2024, to stop violence before it starts, the Fijian government said, on its Facebook page.
While addressing the opening ceremony, Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Lynda Tabuya, said, Fiji faces some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world.
There can be no progress when Fijian women and girls in all diversity, live in cycles of violence at home, at their workplace, while going to school and while on public transportation. She said, the national action plan centres on dismantling the culture of patriarchy and the pillars of gender inequality across all aspects of the whole society.
Fijian Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, said in a video message yesterday that, the statistics and number of women and girls who are victims of domestic violence in Fiji are horrific, and are a national disgrace.
In Fiji, at least three in five women, or 60 percent of women, have faced some form of domestic violence, while one in five women have faced sexual harassment at their workplaces, the prime minister said, noting, most of them pretend that everything is okay but are suffering behind closed doors.
According to the Fijian government, Australia has provided six million Fijian dollars (about 2.4 million dollars) for the plan.– NNN-PINA
