Females do 73 percent of the unpaid household work in Fiji, compared with 27 percent by males, says a new research report.

The report titled “Beyond 33 percent: The Economic Empowerment of Fiji Women and Girls”, authored by Professor Wadan Narsey, was launched in Suva last week by the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM).

“The largest share (46 percent) of the unpaid household work was done by the paid labour force (females 25 percent and males 20 percent) with fulltime domestic workers, commonly known as ‘housewives’ doing 39 percent,” the report said.

• READ MORE: The full ‘Beyond 33 percent’ report

“Students did a significant 11 percent of unpaid household work, 7 percent by female students and 4 percent by male students.”

The report also said that for students, the gender gaps began right from the earliest years in primary and the gaps continued to grow through secondary and tertiary ages.

“Females in the labour force generally did more unpaid household work per week (29 hours) than males (12 hours a week).

Labour workload gap
“The gap was 14 hours per week for wage and salary earners and employers, while it was an extremely large 23 hours per week for ‘others’ who are more in the informal sector such as family workers, self-employed and subsistence.

“Employees, employers and self-employed clearly have the highest work burdens with females working on average 64 hours per week or 13 hours per week more than the corresponding males.”

The report added that females were still doing the bulk of the unpaid household work in the labour force.

Women in Fiji comprise just 34 percent of the labour force.

The report solidly based on official data sources such as the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Fiji Revenue and Customs Service and Fiji National Provident Fund to generate evidence on status of women and girls in the Fijian economy and society.

Supported by the Australian government through the We Rise Coalition, the report comprehensively documents the many inequities that women and girls face in the economy in paid work (formal and informal sectors), unpaid household work and in the use of leisure time.

According to the report, females are concentrated in employment status work with extremely low average incomes, such as family work and subsistence.

The report stated females were concentrated more in occupations and industries with low average incomes.

“The female average income in 2015-2016 was $10,880 — 14 percent less than the $12,691 for males,” the report said.

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Part 2 of a two-part series on the one-year anniversary of the Taliban takeover. Read part 1: The world must not wash its hands of Afghanistan’s misery

The advent of Taliban rule in Afghanistan a year ago this month, after two decades under the more liberal, internationally supported Afghan National Government, threw the Afghan populace backward through a time warp.

The return to Taliban oppression has been most traumatic for women and girls, who suddenly find themselves in the equivalent of the Middle Ages again with respect to their rights and prospects.

Today’s Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans high-school education for girls and restricts females from working, with very limited exceptions. This not only robs girls and women of their futures, but has a much larger impact on Afghan society and the country’s standing in the world.

• READ MORE:  The world must not wash its hands of Afghanistan’s misery
• Other reports on Afghanistan since the Taliban takover

A lot has changed since 2001
Guided by a traditionalist, nativist dogma, the Taliban pursued a similar policy when it previously ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. Since then, however, much has changed for Afghan women, especially in the cities.

Nationwide, female literacy doubled — although granted it is still low — and women were eager for education and new opportunities. Some went into politics and public service.

After the 2019 election, 27 percent of Afghan parliamentarians were women, the same percentage as in the current US Congress. Every ministry and government division had at least one woman at a senior decision-making level — I myself was one of them.

More than 300 female judges, 1000 prosecutors and 1500 defence lawyers worked in the government’s judicial system.

Although women were less well represented in business than in government, there were more than 17,000 women-owned businesses in the country. Women were also prominent in other professions including diplomacy, academia and teaching, journalism, and civil society organisations.

Public opinion polls showed that most Afghan men favoured these new roles for women.

Mixed signals
With the Taliban takeover, girls and women suddenly found themselves disempowered, without work and facing severe hardship.

At first, however, there was some hope that the “new” Taliban would act differently from before. Indeed, when we in the Afghan National Government were negotiating with the Taliban pursuant to the 2020 Doha Agreement calling for reconciliation, the Taliban negotiators indicated a willingness to accept a more liberal female role in society.

However, in contrast to the Afghan government’s mixed-gender negotiating team, our counterparts were all male.

Once in power, the Taliban initially sent some mixed signals. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was closed. By September, schools for boys were reopened, but only elementary schools for girls.

Some women were kept in government offices only to be dismissed when men were trained to replace them.

In December, the Taliban did issue a decree that women could refuse marriage and inherit property, but otherwise nearly all their new measures have been repressive. As a result, the presence of women in Afghan society has been drastically curtailed, and in areas such as political life it is now zero.

The Commission on Human Rights was terminated. A May 7 decree forced women to cover their face in public, with threat of serious penalties.

Another on May 19 banned women from appearing in television plays and movies. Women journalists are required to cover their whole bodies, heads, and faces while reporting.

Deprived of women’s skills
There is no woman in the leadership and administration of the Taliban. None of the female judges, military officers, and women employees in the previous government have been allowed to return to their jobs.

Although a small number of women are allowed to work in the health, education, and journalism sectors, they cannot be effective or free to pursue their ambitions because of the severe restrictions imposed by the Taliban. This also affects aspirations; why should women even seek education if virtually no professional opportunities are available to them?

Although even male members of the mujahedeen have complained about the lack of opportunity for their women, the Taliban so far have privileged the most traditionalist elements of their base—even if they sometimes come up with excuses designed to hold out hope that they will change course later, like blaming the closure of girls’ schools on a supposed lack of female teachers.

The suffering from this is experienced not just at the individual and family level, but also by society as a whole, which is deprived of the skills of half its people.

Ironically, the Taliban also suffers, since it will never be accepted as a legitimate part of the international community if it denies basic rights and opportunities in education, employment, speech, and participation that are almost now universally regarded as fundamental rights of all mankind, including in most of the Islamic world.

It is hard to be optimistic about the future. But at the very least, foreign governments, the United Nations, and civil society organisations should continue to encourage Afghan women in any way possible and deny the Taliban government recognition and support beyond humanitarian assistance so long as it continues its brutal repression of women.

Dr Zakia Adeli was the Deputy Minister of Justice and a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Kabul University before she was forced to leave the country following the Taliban takeover last August.

It is the duty of men to uplift women and not undermine them or stand in their way, says Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

“Women are leaders. They are Fiji and it is our duty as men to uplift them, not undermine them or stand in their way,” Bainimarama said at an International Women’s Day celebration.

“Women are mothers, sisters, and wives, and they are CEOs, entrepreneurs, and managers.

• READ MORE: International Women’s Day around the world

“They are daughters, granddaughters, and nieces, and they are Olympic medal winners, civil servants, and ministers.

“We have always believed that women’s empowerment is the key to building a better country.”

Bainimarama said free education had put more girls in Fiji’s classrooms and that open-merit recruitment had put more women in leadership within the country’s civil service.

“Social support — like vouchers for rural pregnant women and free sanitary pads for students — has put security in women’s lives.

“And our laws punishing domestic violence have put offenders who abuse women behind bars.

Celebrating progress
“Today, on Women’s Day, we celebrate that progress knowing we have much more work to do to break gender biases and level the playing field in our society.

“So, as we acknowledge the achievements women in Fiji have made and are making, we recognise that true equality is a never-ending pursuit.

he also thanked the swomen who made up half of the staff of the Prime Minister’s Office for the effort in seeking to “modernise Fiji, empower all Fijians, and leave no one behind”.

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

Made up of present and retired police officers, former school teachers, village headmen, community leaders and representatives from the District Council of Social Services (DCOSS), 25 male advocates in Fiji have made a commitment to change themselves and their perception of women and honour their roles in society.

This was the outcome of a one-day Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) dialogue with male advocates from the Western Division in Lautoka on Monday.

The advocates who were part of a dialogue on engaging men to end violence against women and girls have committed themselves to be agents of change in their communities.

• READ MORE: Other gender violence reports

At the conclusion of the dialogue, the advocates made commitments to be agents of change and work towards ending violence against women and girls in their respective communities.

“When we leave this room and return to our communities, we will ensure that we get our house in order first before calling for change in the communities,” the male advocates declared.

“In our own homes, we need to bring up our boys in a manner that they learn to respect their own sisters, mothers, and other women in the community.

“We should teach our sons to respect women and girls and live with high moral standards.”

Rohit Deo is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

The Australian government has announced an A$170 million (F$267 million) programme for the Pacific region to strengthen gender equality initiatives over the next five years.

The commitment was revealed by Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Women Marise Payne during the high-level ministerial session at the 14th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women hosted by French Polynesia this week.

Payne said the programme reflected the importance of strengthening women’s leadership and would complement the work they were already engaged in with bilateral partners on gender and development.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific women summit reports

“We’ll work in partnership with regional organisations and Pacific women’s funds and organisations. It’s a flexible programme designed to respond directly to partners’ needs,” she said.

“We want to build on our successes and learn from our experience. We’ll also focus on women’s rights, on safety, economic empowerment, on women’s health, including sexual and reproductive health.”

The challenges ahead for the Blue Continent included tackling the current pandemic and ensuring a sustainable future for the Pacific region, according to Payne.

“Addressing global challenges such as climate change requires us to use all of our resources and potential – that’s 100 percent of our populations,” she said.

Ensuring women’s safety
“If we ensure women’s economic security, we ensure their safety. We promote their health and wellbeing that’s not only of benefit to women and girls but to their entire communities.

“That’s one of the reasons Australia pivoted our development partnerships to better respond to the unique challenges posed by covid-19 through our partnerships for recovery strategy.”

She said they were working with Pacific partners to strengthen the region’s economic recovery, its health security and stability.

Australia has also partnered with regional stakeholders to deliver safe and effective vaccines as well as vaccine delivery.

These objectives, she said, could not be accomplished without first addressing the structural and cultural barriers that exclude and discriminate against women.

Fiji’s Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Mereseini Vuniwaqa said the triennial conference and subsequent 7th Women’s Ministerial Meeting opening on Tuesday was an opportunity to be inspired, learn and recommit efforts towards accelerating and progress the goal of achieving gender equality through the endorsement of a bold, action-oriented, inclusive and transformative outcomes document.

“This is about reaffirming leadership, commitment along with concrete actions to prevent male violence against all women and girls before it starts,” she said.

Building back better
“It is acknowledging that, our work and efforts must address urgently the intersections between, women’s economic empowerment, unpaid care, safety, leadership, social protection and climate crisis preparedness and resilience.”

Vuniwaqa said recognising that building back better from covid-19 needed all women and girls at the centre, leading, making decisions that served the planet, addressed inequalities, and achieved equal power-sharing.

“It is also about recognising that data and statistics that adequately reflect the lived realities of all women and girls of the Pacific — gender statistics for short — are critical and indispensable tools for developing evidence-based policies, legislation and solutions to achieve gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls,” she said.

More than 1000 people participated in the conference, which ends tomorrow and delivered via a blended approach of in-person and virtual interaction given that travel restrictions are still being observed across the region due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The event was organised by the Pacific Community (SPC) with funding support provided by the Australian government and the Spotlight Initiative.

Josefa Babitu is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He is also the current student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. He a participant in the Reporting on Women’s Economic Empowerment workshop organised by the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) in collaboration with the Pacific Community (SPC).

Australian university leaders are nearly three times more likely to be a man than a woman.

Of 37 public university chancellors, just 10 are women (27 percent) and 27 (73 percent) are men. It’s exactly the same for vice-chancellors: 10 are women and 27 are men.

Together, this means men hold 54 of the 74 top jobs in Australian higher education.

• READ MORE: Most of Australia’s university leaders are white, male and grey. This lack of diversity could be a handicap
  

Last year presented a big opportunity for progress towards gender equity among university leaders. During 2020, vice-chancellors at 15 of Australia’s 37 public universities either announced their departure from the role, or actually left.

This move of 41 percent of the vice-chancellors in a single year provided the best opportunity for improving gender equity in living memory.

Unfortunately, Australian university councils, which appoint vice-chancellors, did not take up the opportunity. The gender ratio didn’t change at all.

To date, women have been appointed in just four of the 15 (27 percent) interim or ongoing replacements made. Two of these four women moved from one vice-chancellor position to another. In 11 of the 15 announced vice-chancellor replacements – 73 percent of cases – a man won the role.

Men also dominate the upper levels of Australian academia. The latest available figures (from 2019) show:

• 86 percent more men than women at associate professor and professor levels D and E (10,363 men, 5,562 women)
• 11 percent more men than women at senior lecturer level C (6,355 men, 5,724 women)
• 25 percent more women than men at lecturer level B (7,428 men, 9,253 women)
• 15 percent more women than men at associate lecturer level A (4,426 men and 5,093 women).

Overall, the numbers of men and women employed as academics aren’t very different. In 2019, Australian universities employed 54,204 full-time and fractional full-time academics: 28,572 men (53 percent) and 25,632 (47 percent) women. It’s the seniority of the positions they hold that differs starkly.

These figures do not include casual staff.

Isn’t the gender balance improving?
Optimists often assure me leadership gender equity is improving. Granted, the percentage of female chancellors in Australian has increased in the past five years. In 2016, WomenCount reported 15 percent of Australian university chancellors were women.

While the increase is positive, it remains disappointing that women occupy only about one-quarter of these increasingly powerful and important roles.

The shift in senior academic ranks has also been slow. In 2009, 73.5 percent of professors were men. Between 2009 and 2019, the proportion of female professors has risen from 26.5 percent to 35 percent. That’s an improvement of less than one percentage point per year on average.

At this rate, it will be the late 2030s before women make up half of the professoriate in Australia.

Why does gender inequity persist?
The most common reason put forward for gender inequity is related to women’s role in childbearing. But the fact that only women can grow, birth and breastfeed babies does not, on its own, explain why there are 86 percent more male associate professors and professors than women in these roles, nor why there are nearly three times more male than female vice-chancellors and chancellors.

After all, these womanly activities take a relatively short amount of time and most women I know can skilfully multi-task while pregnant and breastfeeding.

However, the fact that women take on the bulk of child-raising duties might help explain the inequities. Of course, people of every gender can equally well raise children. But they don’t – it’s mostly left to the women.

For women, the results of this unequal sharing of responsibility include:

• less time and energy for academic pursuits
• more teaching (often) and less time for research and publishing
• lower academic and leadership profiles (usually)
• fewer opportunities to engage in activities that count for promotion and for senior leadership roles.

Of course, not all women have children. And those that do find that they grow up, learn to feed, dress and eventually support themselves and move out of home.

Is it also possible that Australian university culture and practices privilege men’s careers and hold back women’s advancement?

University decision-makers, including promotion committees, might well favour men because of:

• relatively uninterrupted and neat career trajectories
• relatively greater freedom to engage in research and publishing without the disadvantages of part-time employment, never mind the mid-afternoon school run
• more easily quantified outputs
• more frequent opportunities to lead
• the cumulative achievements, profile and trajectory that come with all of the above.

Let’s shake up the status quo
Most universities try to redress gender inequity. Committees, agenda items, plans, targets and mentoring programmes abound. But evidently these efforts aren’t working.

After many years in executive and governance leadership, I continue to observe decision-makers often thinking of men first, or only of men, when searching for suitable leadership candidates.

On the rarer occasions that women are offered leadership opportunities, they have to adopt the “right” style and carefully balance gravitas and humility. They must learn how to perform gender judo and ensure they don’t fall into the success versus likeability conundrum that Facebook chief operating officer and author Sheryl Sandberg made famous.

In short, to become academic leaders, women must skilfully navigate the unconscious bias and sexism that permeate universities.

While shifts are occurring, they are painfully slow, as the gender data over the past decade and predicted trajectories show.

Might it be time for women (and enlightened men) to take matters into their own hands to begin to undermine the status quo? I think so – so I’ve written a book that proposes techniques to adopt to these ends.

What will you do to contribute to greater gender equity?

Dr Marcia Devlin is an adjunct professor, Victoria University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A school workbook containing “harmful” messages is being circulated in Fiji’s schools, says a local activist.

Roshika Deo said her attention was drawn to the Year 8 Healthy Living Pupil’s Workbook when she was helping prepare her niece for the school year.

Deo said she was shocked at the “community expectations” that were contained in the book.

READ MORE: Top 10 facts about girls’ education in Fiji

The book said women played a “secondary role” with no decision-making power and should be “passive” to men while not being too outspoken.

It also stated girls should be “interested in [their] looks” and at 15, be married “soon”. There was an onus to take care of domestic duties and stay at home.

Deo said young children were being taught that women were sub-standard and sub-human in Fiji schools.

The human rights and feminist activist, who has done work across the region, including for Amnesty International, pointed out that research showed a prominent cause of violence against women was gender inequality and unbalanced power relations.

Harmful stereotypes
Deo said the curriculum promoted harmful stereotypes.

“It’s perpetuating and intensifying the gender inequality and this is what leads to violence against women. This is what leads to the rape culture. This is what leads to victim blaming and such things that result in women being killed.”

Boys were being told they were superior to girls.

“It leads to male entitlement. Telling boys that they are better than girls, that women and girls have to listen to them, have to adhere to them and if they don’t, you have authority to do what you need to do,” she said.

Deo has notified the Minister for Women and Children on social media about her concerns.

RNZ Pacific has sought comment from the Ministry of Education and from the Minister for Women and Children, Mereseini Vuniwaqa, but has yet to receive a response.

Earlier this month, Vuniwaqa launched a National Plan to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls describing the country as being in a national crisis.

10 women died
Last year, 10 women in Fiji died due to domestic violence.

The minister told local media the prevalence of violence against women and girls in the country was among the highest in the world.

Deo welcomed a number initiatives the government had launched to address the issue but was surprised that this material had become part of the curriculum.

“It’s get a bit perplexing that if you are going to launch this and you already understand the basic tenets of crime prevention, and if that is the case why are you not already working with the Ministry of Education in terms of reviewing this curriculum because the longer we leave it in there school system, the more harm we are causing.”

Deo said it did not matter if millions of dollars of development and government funds were spent on preventing violence against women if young, impressionable minds were given the current material.

Koro Vaka’uta hosts RNZ Pacific’s Dateline Pacific. This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Seventeen women journalists from the Asia-Pacific region gathered in the Victorian capital of Melbourne this week to work on an empowerment strategy for reporting on gender-based violence against women.

Organised by the Canadian-based Centre for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), the workshop on gender-based violence against women (GBVAW) at Monash University was a key step toward ensuring better collaboration with the media.

The media plays a vital role in influencing the attitudes toward gender-based violence, especially in environments where the development of women and girls is overlooked.

Within the Asia-Pacific region, a common thread is the vulnerability of women and girls in the face of gender inequality and sociocultural norms identified by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).

From Papua New Guinea to the Philippines, putting gender-based violence into context remains a challenge in terms of recognising women’s rights as human rights.

The Rutgers University-based centre has been instrumental in raising awareness of the issue through its 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign.

It has recognised the need for journalists in different spaces to be well informed and equipped on covering the issue.

Support needed
The centre says journalists need support when it comes to reporting challenges such as data, resources and logistics, newsroom culture, and state accountability.

Throughout the two-day workshop, journalists shared their experiences in reporting gender-based violence against women and highlighted the gaps that could be filled in their countries.

News framing of survivors was stressed as essential toward changing a culture of victim-blaming.

Women journalists themselves are vulnerable when covering stories on gender-based violence.

Although strategies on improving gender-based violence coverage are still a work in progress, the centre’s workshop provided a needed forum for Asia-Pacific journalists.

Papua New Guinean television journalist Quintina Naime found suggestions in the workshop about improving reporting on gender-based violence especially helpful.

Passionate reporting
“Coming from a country with diverse cultures and where domestic violence has become a norm, I’m privileged to have met other influential female journalists who are passionate about reporting on gender-based violence issues affecting the most vulnerable in society,” she says.

“I’m encouraged that my contribution will contribute to the professional development and networking opportunities of journalists reporting on the issues. I’m privileged to have represented Papua New Guinea and PNGTV.”

Other countries represented in the consultation were Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, New Zealand, Philippines and Samoa.

The centre will continue to convene with journalists from other regions to improve reporting of gender-based violence against women and to hopefully change attitudes.

The centre has already hosted workshops in the South Asia and Middle East regions.

It is hoped that the dialogue emerging from all these workshops will help develop a tool or guideline that will assist journalists in tackling the issues.

Pauline Mago-King is a masters student at Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre researching gender-based violence issues in Papua New Guinea. She was a participant in the gender-based violence against women workshop.

125 years ago today Aotearoa New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant all women the right to vote.

The event was part of an ongoing international movement for women to exit from an inferior position in society and to enjoy equal rights with men.

But why did this global first happen in a small and isolated corner of the South Pacific?

READ MORE: Women’s votes: six amazing facts from around the world

In the late 19th century, Aotearoa/New Zealand was a volatile and rapidly changing contact zone where British settlers confidently introduced systematic colonisation, often at the expense of the indigenous Māori population. Settlers were keen to create a new world society that adapted the best of Britain and left behind behind the negative aspects of the industrial revolution – Britain’s dark satanic mills.

Many supported universal male suffrage and a less rigid class structure, enlightened race relations and humanitarianism that also extended to improving women’s lives. These liberal aspirations towards societal equality contributed to the 1893 women’s suffrage victory.

At the end of the 19th century, feminists in New Zealand had a long list of demands. It included equal pay, prevention of violence against women, economic independence for women, old age pensions and reform of marriage, divorce, health and education – and peace and justice for all.

Widespread support
The women’s suffrage cause captured widespread support and emerged as the uniting right for women’s equality in society. As suffragist Christina Henderson later summed up, 1893 captured “the mental and spiritual uplift” women experienced upon release “from their age-long inferiority complex”.

Two other factors assisted New Zealand’s global first for women: a relatively small size and population and the lack of an entrenched conservative tradition. In Britain, John Stuart Mill presented a first petition for women’s suffrage to the British Parliament in 1866, but it took until wartime 1918 for limited women’s suffrage there.

As a “colonial frontier”, New Zealand had a surplus of men, especially in resource towns. Pragmatically, this placed a premium on women for their part as wives, mothers and moral compasses.

There was a fear of a chaotic frontier full of marauding single men. This colonial context saw conservative men who supported family values supporting suffrage. During the 1880s, depression and its accompanying poverty, sexual licence and drunken disorder further enhanced women’s value as settling maternal figures. Women voters promised a stabilising effect on society.

New Zealand gained much strength from an international feminist movement. Women were riding a first feminist wave that, most often grounded in their biological difference as life givers and carers, cast them as moral citizens.

Local feminists eagerly drew upon and circulated the best knowledge from Britain, America and Europe. When Mary Leavitt, the leader of the US-based Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) visited New Zealand in 1885, her goal was to set up local branches.

This had a direct impact, leading to the country’s first national women’s organisation and providing a platform for women to secure the vote in order to affect their colonial feminist concerns.

Shared egalitarian beliefs
Other places early to grant women’s suffrage shared the presence of liberal and egalitarian beliefs, a surplus of men over women, and less entrenched conservatism.

The four frontier US western mountain states led the way with Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1895). South Australia (1894) and Western Australia (1899) made the 19th century and, before the first world war, were joined by other western US states, Australia, Finland and Scandinavia.

New Zealand was fortunate to have many effective women leaders. Most prominent among them was Kate Sheppard. In 1887, Sheppard became head of the WCTU’s Christchurch branch and led the campaign for the vote.

The campaign leaders were well organised and hard working. Their tactics were petitions, pamphlets, letters, public talks and lobbying politicians – this was a peaceful era before the suffragette militancy during the early 20th century elsewhere.

The women were persistent and overcame setbacks. It took multiple attempts in parliament before the Electoral Act 1893 was passed. Importantly, the suffragists got public opinion behind the cause. Mass support was demonstrated through petitions between 1891 and 1893, in total garnering 31,872 signatures, amounting to a quarter of Aotearoa’s adult women.

Pragmatically, the women worked in allegiance with men in parliament who could introduce the bills. In particular, veteran conservative Sir John Hall viewed women’s suffrage as a way to a more moral and civil society.

The Suffrage 125 celebratory slogan “whakatū wāhine – women stand up!” captures the intention of continuing progressive and egalitarian traditions. Recognising diverse cultural backgrounds is now important. With hindsight, the feminist movement can be implicated as an agent of colonisation, but it did support votes for Māori women. Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia presented a motion to the newly formed Māori parliament to allow women to vote and sit in it.

New Zealand remains a small country that can experience rapid social and economic change. Evoking its colonial past, however, it retains both a reputation as a tough and masculine place of beer-swilling, rugby-playing blokes and a tradition of staunch, tea drinking, domesticated women.

Dr Katie Pickles is professor of history at the University of Canterbury and current Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow, University of Canterbury. This article is republished under a Creative Commons licence from The Conversation.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark is the new patron for the National Council of Women and she shared her stimulating thoughts and insights at the national conference in Auckland yesterday.

In an interview format with NCW chief executive Dr Gill Greer, Clark talked about violence against women, pay equity, leadership, abortion law reform, and sustainable development aid in the Asia-Pacific region.

Clark is a former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The conference theme was He Toa Takitini – “strength in diversity”.

The Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede, of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), was on hand at Mount Wellington to get some pictures.

• PMC’s Jessica Marshall’s report on the conference

He Toa Takitini - 'strength in diversity'

1 of 16

Indonesia is set to lose its first and only female constitutional justice, whose term is up next year, potentially dealing a blow to women’s rights in a country where they’re being challenged in the face of growing religious conservatism.

Maria Farida Indrati will end her second and final term in about eight months, leaving the nine-member board of justices entirely male on one of the two highest courts in the country — where cases on discrimination, domestic violence, early-age marriage and female political participation continually arise.

The constitutional court differs from the supreme court, where the top judges are all male and which determines final appeal in legal matters not deemed to be constitutional.

“The point of view I bring to the table is different from what my male colleagues present,” the 68-year-old judge said in an interview.

It’s not a certainty that Indrati’s replacement, who likely will be chosen by President Joko Widodo from a list of three candidates picked by a committee, will be male.

While her successor won’t be known for several months or even until after her departure, Indrati said there are several qualified women to consider. She herself was chosen by former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2008 after decades of lecturing in law at the University of Indonesia and assisting lawmakers in drafting legislation.

In Indonesia, female law students prefer a career outside the courtroom rather than in it because “women don’t like to be seen as argumentative or to debate,” said Indrati, who plans to return to teaching full time when her term finishes. Quotas aren’t the solution to increasing women’s participation in public life, including on the bench, she said.

‘Be unafraid’
“It is important that women take this role and be unafraid to take this role,” said the judge, who suffered from polio as a child and walks with a limp.

Although when she was young she aspired to be a piano teacher, Indrati listened to the advice of her father, a journalist and former teacher who had wanted to complete his unfinished law degree.

He encouraged his daughter to study to become a law professor instead, according to her official biography.

When the constitutional court in 2015 declined a judicial review to raise the decades-old minimum legal marital age for women from currently 16 years old to 18, Indrati was the only justice with a dissenting opinion.

Raising the marriage age to 18 would allow girls more of a chance to secure their futures, Indrati said. The challenge was brought by a group promoting women’s health. Activists are again appealing, seeking to have the case heard again.

Last week, Indrati cast a decisive vote in the court’s decision rejecting by 5-4 a petition by conservative academics seeking to deem extramarital and gay sex as crimes punishable by prison terms.

She has also ruled in favour of other gender and minority-related cases such as pornography and blasphemy.

More difficulties
“It’s not always the case where the existence of a female justice means the law will take the side of women,” said Indri Suparno, a commissioner at the National Commission on Violence Against Women. “But the absence will give more difficulties to women to become more progressive.”

Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is considered a model of moderate Islam.

The president, known as Jokowi, has put more women into senior roles compared with other Muslim-majority countries — a record nine of 34 cabinet ministers, the most among the world’s most populous countries.

High profile officials include Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi — a first in the country’s history — and Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti. Rosmaya Hadi became Bank Indonesia’s only female deputy governor this year.

The country also imposes gender quotas for political party candidates put forward for public office.

In 2016, Jokowi launched the first nationwide survey on violence against women and children. However, he’s been silent on calls from human rights groups to end virginity tests for women applying to the military and the police.

Polygamy app
Worries over women’s rights have increased as attempts to hamper equality have been made more openly. A Tinder-like app, AyoPoligami, or Let’s Do Polygamy, and a seminar called “The Quickest Way of Getting Four Wives” have sparked controversy.

Indonesia allows Muslim men to take up to four wives if granted by a court and approved by the first wife.

Some 26 out of 153 countries have women as chief justices, or 17 percent, according to a World Bank report in 2016 called “Women, Business and The Law.”

Outside court
It’s possible that the challenge to the law legalising the age of marriage at 16 may be heard again while Indrati is still on the bench.

Campaigners for women’s rights say that women who marry young will miss out on what’s being called a demographic bonus by 2030 — when the numbers of working-age people are greater than the numbers of elderly — by not being able to further their educations and embark on careers.

The government wants to improve its professional workforce, but allowing women to marry at 16 means they likely will have to stay home and raise families instead of being able to participate, said Zumrotin Susilo, chairwoman of the Women’s Health Foundation, who was involved in the first appeal of the marriage law.

A Central Statistics Agency census in 2010 found 6.7 million out of 78 million women age 15 to 64 hold a bachelor’s degree, or 8.5 percent. About 500,000 women have postgraduate degrees.

“Women have to fight for the presence of female justices and build strong communications and perspective at the constitutional court,” said Suparno of the women commission.

The Jakarta Post

The director of Va’aomanū Pasifika at Victoria University in Wellington, Dr Teresia Teaiwa, has died following a short illness.

She was described in a statement by Victoria University today as a friend, colleague, renowned scholar and poet, and a generous and warm personality of the academic community.

Dr Teaiwa died yesterday in close company of friends and family after a short battle with cancer.

Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Pasifika) Luamanuvao Winnie Laban said the loss would be felt widely among the Pasifika community in New Zealand, the Pacific region and elsewhere around the world.

“She was a wonderful Pacific woman and leader who was a role model for all Pacific people. She was hugely committed and passionate about people and social justice in the Pacific, and she will be missed dearly.”

Dr Teaiwa was internationally known for her ground-breaking work in Pacific studies.

Her research interests in this area embraced her artistic and political nature, and included contemporary issues in Fiji, feminism and women’s activism in the Pacific, contemporary Pacific culture and arts, and pedagogy in Pacific Studies.

Marsden Fast Start
In 2007, she was awarded a Marsden Fast Start research grant for her oral history and book project on Fijian women soldiers.

In 1996, Dr Teaiwa turned down a job with Greenpeace to take up her first lecturer position at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.

During this time, Dr Teaiwa enjoyed being part of intellectual communities that stemmed from the university environment such as the Niu Wave Writers’ Collective, the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Movement and the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum.

In 2000, she moved to New Zealand to join Victoria University to teach the world’s first undergraduate major in Pacific studies, of which she was programme director until 2009.

Most recently she was promoted to director of Va’aomanū Pasifika, home to Victoria’s Pacific and Samoan Studies programmes.

Dr Teaiwa’s talents in the classroom were formally recognised in 2015 when she won the Pacific People’s Award for Education, in 2014 when she received the Victoria Teaching Excellence Award and as the first Pasifika woman awarded the Ako Aotearoa Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award.

In 2010, she received the Macaulay Distinguished Lecture Award from the University of Hawai’i.

Outside of her Victoria role, Dr Teaiwa was co-editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics (2008-2011), and was an editorial board member of the Amerasia Journal and AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples.

‘An inspiration’
Pacific Media Centre director and Asia Pacific Report editor Professor David Robie, a contemporary of Dr Teaiwa at the University of the South Pacific, described her as an extraordinary academic and creative talent and cultural icon, adding she was “an inspiration to Pacific peoples right across the region”.

The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement farewelled Dr Teaiwa with sadness.

“This is a huge loss for Fiji and the Pacific as Dr Teaiwa inspired many as an educator, researcher, friend and colleague,” said FWRM executive director Nalini Singh.

Dr Teaiwa was a trailblazer in research and education, Singh added.

A memorial service will be held for Dr Teaiwa at Victoria University in the coming weeks.

Young Papua New Guinean women and girls must be encouraged to enter into a broad range of careers and be involved in decision-making, says a ward councillor in in Lae.

Carol Yawing, the only woman in the Lae urban local level government, said parents must take the education of girls seriously.

Her comments came days after Papua New Guinea celebrated International Women’s Day with the rest of the world this week.

Her plea also followed the visit of Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who also spoke out in support of better educational opportunities for girls.

Stop press: A visa has been subsequently granted to the Iranian filmmker

Amnesty International has criticised the denial of a visa for Iranian film director Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami who is due to visit New Zealand during the Documentary Edge Film Festival next month.

This award-winning documentary, Sonita, addresses the issue of forced marriage in Iran.

Through the journey of a young Afghan refugee turned rapper living in Tehran, the film tells the story of how Sonita Alizadeh narrowly escapes forced marriage at 16 by writing the song “Brides for Sale”.

A human rights activist, Ghaemmaghami was due to speak at screenings of the documentary and also to feature as a guest masterclass speaker at an international industry event.

Amnesty International, sponsor of the documentary, said in a statement today that the Screen Edge Forum was giving New Zealand audiences the opportunity to explore these important issues.

“Film directors are often the target of crackdowns by governments in their own countries,
but it is deeply concerning to see our own country rejecting this visa application”, said Margaret Taylor, activism manager at Amnesty International.

“Rokhsareh plans to visit several other countries such as Australia, Turkey and the United States on her worldwide tour to promote this documentary, so it’s surprising that New Zealand has rejected her application on the grounds that she may be a flight risk.”

Amnesty International said it would like to hear more from Immigration New Zealand on how officials came to this decision and the organisation would welcome a reassessment of this case.

Sonita will screen at The Roxy in Miramar, Wellington, on May 13-15 and at Q Theatre, Auckland, on May 19-29.

The festival has set up a petition calling for Immigration NZ to reverse its decision on
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami’s visa.

You can add your name here.

The Pacific Islands conjure up images of paradise: white sand beaches, transparent sparkling aquamarine seas, and happy smiling islanders.

But what lies beneath is the unacceptable treatment of women and rampant gender inequality, as the iconic tourist images mask the highest rates in the world of intimate partner sexual and domestic violence against women, ranging from around 68 percent in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Kiribati to 40 percent in Samoa.

Against this milieu, paradise is surely lost for women and girls in the Pacific.

Gender equality appears to have advanced everywhere, and so, you would think, would attitudes about wife beating. However, according to a new United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young People in Asia and the Pacific, this is far from the truth.

The report highlights how in Timor-Leste a staggering 81 percent of teenage girls believe a husband is justified in beating his wife for at least one reason.

The figures were slightly lower for Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, and Vanuatu, but still speak volumes about how girls perceive their mothers’ status.

In Tonga, faring somewhat better, just over 25 percent of girls think domestic violence is acceptable in some circumstances.

Dreaming a different dream
Aren’t we asking them to dream a different dream, one that allows them lives with dignity, husbands who respect them, and a decent education followed by paid work? Not so, it seems.

Picture how the intergenerational cycle of domestic violence, actual criminal assault against women in the home, is perpetuated.

Teenage girls watch their mothers being beaten by their fathers. The father is the patriarch after all. It is he who must be obeyed. These impressionable young women consider it justifiable, because their mothers do.

They too get beaten when they are grown women, and in turn they teach their own daughters—even if it is only by subliminal socialisation—that it is acceptable too. And so the cycle continues and that’s why those 81 percent of Timorese girls think it’s fine for their fathers to beat their mothers.

This month Dame Meg Taylor, Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum and the first female leader of the regional organisation, reminded us of some of these problems in the Pacific.

In ADB’s Manila headquarters as annual Gender Month distinguished speaker, Dame Meg pointed out that the last 2012 Women’s Economic Opportunity Index, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, provided a global comparison of women’s economic opportunities including, for the first time, six Pacific countries.

The Pacific ranked very poorly in this index of 128 countries, with most of the six surveyed countries in the bottom 25 per cent. The Solomon Islands and PNG were ranked at 124 and 125, respectively.

Urgency self-evident
“The urgency of dealing with gender-based violence in the Pacific is self-evident,” she said.

It is important to remember that one cannot point to individual successful women to rationalise the advancement of gender equality, as is commonly done in the Pacific.

Gender indexes measure women’s advancement as a group. The success of individual women is laudable, but it is an anomaly, an exception to the rule.

They succeed in spite of the system, not because of it. It is important and appropriate to celebrate them for many reasons, including their importance as role models to girls and young women. But this cannot, and should not, be an overall indicator of gender equality.

For a start we need to question the fundamentals of patriarchy‎ that require fathers to reign supreme. Based on my experience representing hundreds of battered women in court, try counseling and mediation first, but if that does not work then prosecute and seek punishment.

Women should expose their husbands and partners for their criminal acts. This would send an important message to their daughters.

We must raise our daughters and sons differently than we have been. We need to tell them over and over again at home, at school and in the churches, mosques and temples that hitting a woman is a criminal assault, a violation of a woman’s human rights. The same act committed outside the home would be considered a crime. They need to understand that if their father considered their mother his equal, he would not beat her.

Defending themselves
Women have to defend themselves and say enough is enough. Ultimately they have to walk away from marriages in which men refuse to change. These small acts of dignity may turn the tide for their daughters.

All of this reminds me of why I am still a feminist. For Pacific Island women and girls, we need to keep working until paradise is regained.

A lawyer by profession, Imrana Jalal was a commissioner with the Fiji Human Rights Commission. She is the author of the Law for Pacific Women, architect of the Family Law Act 2005, and former chair of the UN Committee on Harmful Practices Against Women. She is a member of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Women Living Under Muslim Law, the Asia-Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. She is also a commissioner on the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva. This commentary was first published on the Asian Development Blog.