SUVA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Fiji will consolidate a national prevention strategy on violence against women through an inclusive and consultative process in the next few months to address gender based violence.
Fiji's Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Mereseini Vuniwaqa made the comments while officiating at the National Convening of Rural Women Leaders Community Media Network in Suva, the capital of Fiji on Monday.
Vuniwaqa said they will be counting on the voices of women and girls amplified through organisations like FemLink to ensure that pertinent issues are addressed.
Vuniwaqa said the strengthening of a vibrant women-led community media network in Fiji and the possibility of reaching out to other remote areas was commendable.
"An increased availability of media content from rural areas, produced by both young and older women, or representatives of our disability bodies, brings to the fore, key grounded and deep-seated issues," she said.
She said for decades, violence against women in Fiji has always been seen as a private matter thriving in a shroud of silence within the four walls of a home.
Vuniwaqa said implementation of legal reforms, policies and programs which sought to amplify the voice of women changed the dynamics of domestic violence and for the first time gave Fiji a true picture of the cancer that it had become.
"We need yours and all our voices amplified to make transformative change and to progress commitments in the priority sectors for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls."
Vuniwaqa said the Pacific region has some of the highest rates of violence against women recorded in the world, and as the United Nations and other donor partners have documented - an estimated two in every three Pacific women are impacted by gender based violence.
The three-day event that is hosted by FemLink Pacific and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement with other development partners hopes to strengthen women-led community media network in Fiji as the heart of amplifying voices of rural women and ending violence against women.
