FIJI: Tragedies highlight plight of women
Updated
A series of incidents involving women in Fiji this week has prompted a call for a change in the way society views and treats women. One woman is being held for murder after allegedly throwing her two daughters into the Rewa River, where they drowned; a pregnant woman has been admitted to hospital after drinking kerosene following an argument with her husband; and two male foetuses have been discovered in a sewerage tank in Lautoka. Police say they believe the foetuses were flushed down a toilet. Fiji Womens Crisis Centre coordinator, Shamima Ali, says it's especially shocking that so many tragedies should happen at once.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speakers: Shamima Ali, Fiji Womens Crisis Centre coordinator
ALI: They've been happening for quite awhile, but to have all of it happen on the one day and these things being found out at the same time. I think that is the shocking thing about it.
HILL: What is the underlying thing that ties all these terrible tragedies together?
ALI: Well, if you look at the things that have happened, it's usually the women who are the perpetrators, who have been the perpetrators who have done this. One needs to answer, ask the question why it's the women who are driven to such desperate lengths to be able to survive or just in desperation doing things like this. And had to do with the situation of women in this country, the fact that women are not financially well off. The poverty situation at this point of time in this country, unemployment and so on is increasing. Poverty is a big issue for women, the lack of access to education, lack of access to a good job, having money and things like that, the way they are treated. Women within their own homes, the high level of acceptability of women being treated like nothing in their own homes, having to be obedient to their husbands, tolerating all kinds of violence and terrible behaviour, just because they are women and or young women getting pregnant. The fact that we are finding foetuses in drains and buried here and there and so on that has to do with the unacceptability in our society of women getting pregnant out of wedlock and the stigma. They have to bare the shame, they have to bare when the men who have impregnated them have run away. They don't seem to bear any of this.
HILL: We've had these headlines basically in one day dead, babies block sewers. Pregnant women consumes kerosene, women drowns daughters. Is this going to shock people in Fiji into doing something, do you think, or is this been happening for such a long time now that nothing can be done?
ALI: I think this is shocking. We have become quite complacent about these things. We think that one or two of them are happening here and there. But the fact that all these have come together on the same day and all the media is blabbing all these things out. I think that might push people into some action. Definitely it has given us a lot of food for thought as to how we will conduct our community education and awareness.
HILL: What's it been like for you and the staff at the Fiji Women Crisis Centre today with all the stories going on. Have you had people calling in and talking about this to you?
ALI: Yes, actually I have just come back. I had two meetings today with the Crime Prevention Committee and another one with the Department for Women in Fiji and these are of serious concerns to people. People can't stop talking about that. We also have had a spate of terrible rapes and sexual assaults on young children by young men and these are things that are occupied wherever I have gone. For us here at the crisis centre, we are just dealing over the last two months with an increase in reporting of domestic violence cases, of women being battered by their husbands within their own homes. And this one here is again making us rethink our strategies as to how we're going to go forward in the community.
HILL: Could the stresses and strains on society as a result of the political situation be playing a role in this?
ALI: Oh a lot of it has to do, definitely with that, a lot of it has to do with that. And because it seems to be like almost uncontrollable and I would say that we need to address that situation also. If we really want to get rid of all this, we can do our best, but the political situation in this country has to straighten itself out.
