16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence: Day 12

Day 12: Strengthening Women’s Participation in Municipal Government in the Fight Against Gender Violence, Fiji

In order to challenge society’s pervasive structures that condone violence against women, women’s equal political participation and voice is paramount. IWDA Program Manager for Fiji, Emily Miller, reports on the status of women in politics in Fiji, and how the Strengthening Women’s Participation in Municipal Government (SWPMG) program is contributing to the dialogue on violence against women in the political sphere:

“There is still high levels of stereotyping of women’s roles in local government, from the elected through to the management structures”. (Megan Praeger– SWPMG Coordinator)

Occurring in tandem with the CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) consultations in Nadi, Fiji, is the Commonwealth Local Government Forums (CLGF) regional training of trainers (ToT) for their Strengthening Women’s Participation in Municipal Government (SWPMG) program. CLGF Pacific is a regional network and project that works to strengthen local democracy, good governance and capacity of local and sub-national governments. Through funding from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), IWDA has been working in partnership with CLGF Pacific and the SWPMG project since 2008.The SWPMG project is primarily aimed at strengthening the role of local government in achieving gender equality and increasing the participation of women in management and leadership roles within local government.

“The Pacific has the poorest level [4.2%] of women’s participation in national level government in the world. Our preliminary research which we conducted in eight countries suggests that local government is not much better, [7.7%]. In addition to this, the majority of local government managers are men and women still feature strongly in the secretarial, health and assistance roles”.

Megan Praeger, coordinator for SWPMG commented that before SWPMG, both gender and local government was not on the agenda of women’s machineries in the Pacific region. “This project has resulted in greater awareness of both issues and the mandate of local governments to deliver basic services which positively impact on the lives of women”, she stated.

This training has been developed and run as a regional activity for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, and one of the key topics discussed during workshops has been the role local governments play in the prevention of violence against women.  During the training participants are developing a mock 16 Day campaign for their respective councils, with the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) facilitating sessions on local governments roles and responsibilities to women and ending violence against women.

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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 on our website, Facebook page, and Twitter page.

Tags: 16 Days of Activism

This entry was posted on Monday, December 6th, 2010 under 16_Days, Recent.
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