NANISE NEIMILA
GENDER-BASED violence or violence against women and girls is a global pandemic, and it affects one in three women in their lifetime.
This was highlighted by Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Mereseini Vuniwaqa while officiating at a recent workshop on Development of the Fiji National Gender Based Violence Shelter Standards held in Suva.
Minister Vuniwaqa said in Fiji, the 1 in 3 rates of VAWG also stands true – which equates to 72 per cent of Fijian women being affected by some form of violence in their lifetime and 64 per cent of women were subjected to this violence by their intimate partners.
“These statistics make Fiji rank amongst the highest in terms of VAWG. Last year, 10 women were killed at the hands of their partners.”
“So far in 2020, the Fiji Police has recorded 1545 cases of Assault-related Offences against Women which include Murder, Attempted Murder, Manslaughter, Infanticide, Serious Assault, and Act with intent to cause grievous harm, Assault causing actual bodily harm, Common Assault and 99 cases of sexual offences. In total, 573 cases of Crimes against Children and 1,644 cases of Crimes against Women have been recorded by the Police.”
Minister Vuniwaqa highlighted that these alarming cases statistic are a bitter reminder that our women and children are not living a life free from violence as they would in an ideal world.
“As agencies that work with survivors of gender based and domestic violence, we are aware that this issue is not only devastating for survivors of violence and their families, but also entails significant social and economic costs.”
“We also know that failure to address the issue of GBV also entails a significant cost for the future. Numerous studies have shown that children growing up with violence are more likely to become survivors themselves or perpetrators of violence in the future.”
Minister Vuniwaqa elaborated that it is known that one characteristic of gender-based violence is that it knows no social or economic boundaries and affects women and girls of all socio-economic backgrounds.
United Nations Women Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Programme (UN Women) specialist Abigail Erikson said this workshop is very important because it creates the environment where “we bring in key service providers offering shelters to women and children affected by violence”.
“We need to set the minimum standards for care ensuring that survivors seek shelter, they get very good quality of care and everyone is clear of the roles with the responsibilities provided to the survivors.”
“We know that women and children are facing violence here in Fiji, there are times that they need safe accommodation and shelters so this service providers are very important. We need to ensure that they are safe, protected and get a chance to plan on their next steps.”
The workshop was an opportunity for service providers, officials and representatives to provide a comprehensive mapping out of existing shelter policies and practices for providing services to women and girls affected by gender-based violence.
They also discussed areas to draw upon shelter providers to identify the guiding principles of GBV shelter service delivery and encourage government stakeholders to align the standardisation of GBV shelter response with recommendations identified and developed during this consultation meeting.
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