Campaigning Women's Rights

A sample submission for FWRM

The Impact of Culture on Women’s Rights in Fiji
By Maggie Boyle


In the Collins English Dictionary, Culture is described as the state of manners, taste and intellectual development at a time or place.

A broad definition that if I were to put into one context of the focus of this article, it would suggest that at some point in my life I would have come to the conclusion that this was how things worked, the status quo so to speak.

To elaborate, let me tell you a story.

In Amelia’s neighbourhood domestic violence was a common occurrence, it was random and it silenced the surrounding neighbours while the usual suspects, Jone and Sera took to bouts like they do in a boxing ring.

For Amelia, living in an informal settlement on the fringes of Suva, this reality was normal, she knew and felt that this type of behavior was wrong, but it had been around as long as she had, so there was no telling what better behavior was.

Amelia is 12 years old, she’s a smart, articulate child but is mostly quite and easily frightened. Her first real memory at a 4 year old was seeing her mother slapped in the face because her father didn’t like the tea she made for him.

In class 8, Amelia feels that life is much better than her first memory, her father only hits her mother sometimes and for the most part, Jone and Sera are the one’s the rest of her community are always bitching about.

Plus Amelia has a boyfriend, Tomasi and he’s good to her, he always says he loves her and that he’ll take her to Australia. Her cousin, Alanieta lives in Australia and one time, she wrote to Amelia telling her how great it was living in Brisbane and how she should come over and live with them, because it was better than Fiji.

Tomasi is 18 years old and Amelia isn’t his only girlfriend, he’s got a few. To him, women are there for a good time, they’re so easy, you say a few nice words and they’ll do anything you want.

Amelia is pregnant and Tomasi says the child isn’t his. She doesn’t want a child, she’s only 12, and she wants to live in Australia. She didn’t want to have sex with Tomasi, but he told her she had to, or else they would break up.

She didn’t know any better and now she’s pregnant. What will she do? What will she do?

The impact of culture on women’s rights is that women, like Amelia, like Amelia’s mother didn’t know their rights, weren’t aware that domestic violence has a no-drop policy and that if reported to the Police, charges must be followed up

At 12 years old and pregnant, Amelia will drop out of school and struggle to raise her child. She’s unaware of her right to education.

Her mother, while angered by her daughters situation is resigned to the fact that this too is normal, having being only 15 years old when she gave birth to Amelia, her 3rd child, family planning, an alternative her husband wouldn’t tolerate.

In school, Amelia was not taught that it’s okay to say No to sex. She was not embraced with a mother’s wisdom that she deserved more in life and that if she wanted to go to Australia, she could, pursuing her education which she was entitled too.

Amelia with baby Asenaca sits in the hospital, it’s her baby’s first clinic, she sees a torn poster on the wall, and Women’s Rights are all she can make out on it.

She looks at the child in her arms, little Asenaca and thinks, I want more for this little girl, what will make it possible for her to have a better life, what will make it possible for her to not have the life I have, the life my mother has had?

What do these Women ’s Rights mean?