16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence: Day Twelve

Women’s Action for Change

We spoke to Noelene Nabulivou, Coordinator, and Peni Moore, Creative Director, about the work of Women’s Action for Change (WAC).

Can you tell us a little about your organisation’s work?

Women’s Action for Change was founded in 1993 by a group of local women who identified a need for more community-based, participatory work on gender equality issues for diverse women in Fiji.

The aim was to create a feminist, ecologically sustainable community-based organisation using a wide variety of theatre and arts-based learning methods, working toward full gender equality and social justice for all. WAC also believes that work to envision and create a gender equal future necessarily includes attention to conflict transformation, active non-violence and peacebuilding.

16 years on, WAC works in 12 provinces around Fiji (with limited regional and international work), using participative arts to connect with people in remote, rural and urban communities, and especially working among individuals and groups, including women and girls, experiencing intersecting forms of discrimination, marginalisation, violence and poverty.

2009-10 programmatic areas:

• Gender equality,  peacebuilding and restorative justice;
• Elimination of all forms of gender based violence;
• Sexual rights and SRHR advancement;
• Gender equality and alternative, sustainable development;
• Child and youth rights, health and safety;
• And other areas of urgent community response.

 

How will your program impact on respect for women and women’s empowerment?

WAC work with women and girls, and other marginalised groups in Fiji, by identifying and sharing resources with individuals and communities working toward gender equality, social justice and peace. We listen carefully to associated networks and communities, and respond accordingly with participative programmes and activities.

There are currently emerging women’s groups in 18 settlements, youth restorative justice groups, including girls, in 7 schools in rural and urban areas. These groups are working on a wide range of issues and concerns as they survive, thrive and transform their own lives and their communities. Work includes national travelling community theatre and training workshops on critical issues such as violence against women, HIV and AIDS, peacebuilding and non-violent leadership, recognition of women as leaders and decision-makers, prevention of child sexual abuse, SRHR and sexual rights, aspects of women’s health and wellbeing, etc. There is also ongoing work to support emerging networks of women, young people, LGBTIQ and sex workers in Fiji.

How is women’s status related to violence against women in your community?

The ways that all communities define gender and sexuality roles, and how they attribute power to those roles (or not), has a direct impact on the levels of violence faced by women, girls, and people with perceived or actual non-heteronormative gender and sexual identity in that community.

So if women are thought of as servers and helpers, they will continue to be mistreated and beaten. If lesbians are treated as ‘bad’ or ‘lesser’ women, they will continue to experience discrimination and violence. Where this is reinforced by the media, by traditionalist leaders, by politicians, by school teachers and religious leaders, women’s status is further reduced.

Where women are kept out of decision-making spaces by political design (including supposed ‘cultural practices’), these false ideas are reinforced, and over time many women and men begin to believe that it is natural and inevitable that women can be treated with disrespect, with discrimination, and our rights violated.

However, what is also true is that not everyone believes this, and also that not everyone gets an equal chance to define women’s status. Society is changing as women themselves start to speak out, and more men support us in this change. For example, while many of the traditionalist and masculinist ideas about Fiji and the right of men to lead, are believed and reinforced by a significant section of our society but it is also true that there are many of us in Fiji, of all ethnicities and socio-economic classes, from rural and urban areas, women and men and transgender people alike, who believe differently.

That is why at WAC we believe that in order to address violence against women, girls and trans persons, we need to look very deep into our society’s views about power, hierarchy and status overall, and to unpack, explore and question prevailing views, including both here at home, and abroad.

Culture is fluid and ever-changing, and our traditions are here to support us all, not to make some of us live in fear and pain.  And we know that change is always possible, whatever community we live in.

We also know that as women’s and girls’ status is changed and transformed toward equality through hard-fought gender equality and sexual rights work at local, national, regional and global levels, that there is inevitable confusion, backlash, conflict and struggle as well as the positive benefits of increased equality, choice and freedom for women and girls.  So in all gender violence and gender equality work by WAC, we include conflict analysis, transformation and peacebuilding. WAC also works extensively with men and boys.

What is your organisation doing for the 16 days of Activism (if applicable)?

WAC are performing the gender and non-violence play ‘Size Doesn’t Matter’, which includes explorations of nonviolence leadership and positive male leadership models, in the rural areas of Naitasiri, and Tailevu, in partnership with the Ministry for Women and the Social Welfare Department.

We have also hosted two learning circles for women and transgender community activists at WAC, on the subject of gender and sexual baiting. During those circles, the group decided on issues to share in a special 16 days edition of WACky Peace e-newsletter.

The learning from the circles, and other upcoming work, will contribute to the upcoming 2009-2010 play ‘The F Word’, supported by UNIFEM, in which women share stories of their struggles and power to survive and thrive through experiences of discrimination and violence. The participants will share these stories through song, dance, theatre and poems with the wider community in Fiji, and an advocacy DVD will be produced.

What do you think needs to be done to end Violence Against Women?

- We can transform our ideas and actions about gender based violence, and about wider societal violence. WAC has found that:

- Violence is multifaceted, and all forms of violence are connected to desire for power and control, whether of resources, other human beings, or ourselves.

- Gender violence is the most deadly, destructive and widespread face of violence. Ending it will positively impact all forms of violence.

- Gender equality must be at the core of gender violence work.

- Some gender violence is visible, and the most deadly kinds are hidden from view and perpetrated by those closest to us, including family members.

- Systemic violence against women is still violence – whether it’s by our own or other governments, transnational corporations, military, police, schools, media, academia, development experts, and others.

- We learn and reproduce ideas about power and control throughout our lives that allow us to ignore or justify violence.

- We learn and reproduce ideas about respect, equality and justice that enable us to resist and transform violence.

- Women, girls, and people with diverse gender and sexual identity face intersectional violence specifically because of their gender identity.

- Women human rights defenders and sexual rights defenders face added violence because of their work.

- Knowledge about violence without participation in practical action to change it, is useless.

- Advocacy action without full, meaningful participation of victim/survivors of violence is ineffective.

- We can all play a part in ending violence against women and girls, and gender violence.

- We can work toward a long-term goal of non-violence and active peace, but first we have to envision it.

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16 Days of Activism is a global campaign encouraging organisations and individuals across the world to take a stand against gender-based violence.

The campaign starts on 25th November: The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and ends on 10th December: World Human Rights Day.

16 Days of Activism was started by the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership 18 years ago. The campaign’s beginning and end dates highlight that violence against women is a human rights violation.

Thousands of diverse groups and individuals now take part in 16 Days, together calling for an end to all types of violence against women. Each year people organise events in their communities, including meetings, conferences, demonstrations, exhibitions and performances.

This year at IWDA, we have decided to use the 16 Days to highlight the work our partners in Asia and the Pacific are doing to improve the situation for women and girls in their communities, as well as the work IWDA is undertaking in Australia. Each day between 25th November and 10th December, we will post a short article about 16 Days our website, Facebook page, and Twitter page.

Tags: 16 Days of Activism, Fiji, WAC

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 under 16_Days.