WUNRN
Please see both parts of this
WUNRN release..
On 10 March 2000, 18 girls and a matron died in a fire in the girls
hostel at Tuvalus only secondary school. The hostel was locked and they were
trapped inside.
Many girls hostels around the world follow this practice. It is well known that
in the Pacific many hostels lock in their female students to prevent them from
being attacked and molested by males - both young and old. Some boarding
schools also, through their puritanical and outdated ideas of female chastity,
lock these girls up so they do not Ôget up to mischief.
This is an area of concern for the Fiji Womens Crisis Centre especially in
regards to work in the Pacific region. In light of these concerns, we wrote a
press release calling for an investigation into the incident as well as
demanding a safer society for women and girls. FWCC also organised an Ecumenical
Memorial Service on Thursday 17 March, 2000 in collaboration with the
Ecumenical Womens Committee at the Sacred Heart Cathedral.
The service was attended by about 600 people. The Tuvalu community and their
High Commissioner as well as the Australian High Commissioner and the First
Secretary of Papua New Guinea Embassy were present. About 60 Adi Cakobau School
girls came for the service in a special bus. During the service, there was a
moment of dedication through lighting of candles for the lives lost. This was a
very moving part of the ceremony as the candles were lit by the girls of ACS
together with young girls from the Tuvalu community in Suva.
The Tuvalu community participated through the reading of a verse by the Deputy
Registrar of the University of the South Pacific, Mr Tito Esala, which was
later sung by their community in Tuvaluan. The ACS students also contributed by
singing a hymn for the lives lost. It was a moving service and allowed people
to reflect on the incident as well as look towards a future in which similiar
tragedies do not happen again.
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26th July, 2007
“Who is a feminist?”
“What’s the difference between a women’s movement and a feminist women’s movement?”
These were just two of the questions raised at the second regional feminist advocacy training organised by the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) Pacific, held in Papua New Guinea from the 16th to 21st July.
As the week-long training began, many of the young
women participants said they would never consider identifying as feminists,
mainly because of the negative images the word evoked. One participant
explained that this was why she was evasive when her partner asked about the
training. However by the end of the week, feminism was de-mystified and most of
the women who initially shied away from the concept stood up and claimed their
identity as feminists.
The training, which was held on Loloata Island off
Port Moresby, was about promoting gender equity and women’s participation by
enhancing analysis and advocacy skills around issues of sexual and reproductive
health and rights, political restructuring and social transformation, the
political economy of globalisation, and political ecology and
sustainability.
The day spent on sexual and reproductive health and
rights got participants to start visualising their bodies and how they can be
sites of resistance. In one of the day’s exercises, participants analysed the
tragic story of a group of Tuvaluan girls who were burned alive in their
dormitory. The girls, many of whom were from far off villages and outer
islands, were locked up every night in their barred dormitory in order to
“protect” them from having sex, getting pregnant and “shaming” their families.
There was also a strict 9pm lights-out policy, in contrast to the freedom of
the boys’ dormitory. The fire started when one girl, who was using a
candle to study, fell asleep.
In the session on political restructuring, the group
discussed the marketisation of governance. The roll back of the state, from the
aims of providing for the people to the aims of facilitating business and
investment, was clear in the Pacific’s experiences of structural adjustment
programmes (SAPs). Many participants experienced SAPs in one form or the
other in their
One participant explained how in her health clinic in
PNG there is no doctor and many women have to travel long distances to get any
medical attention. When the state is asked for assistance, the response is
always “no money”. However, the state responds very differently to requests by
financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and other transnational organisations.
On Friday, the young women got an introduction to
global trade and sustainable livelihoods. The participants had to examine
a can of tuna, and draw a chart of where it came from – which began with the
tuna fish and included fishing boats, canning, advertising and
distribution. Many were astounded at the complex issues crammed into a
single little can, such as sex workers and the fishing industry, the health and
safety of women working in canning factories, and the huge fisheries wealth of
the Pacific region and how that plays out in the international trade arena.
“The 2007
Young Feminist Advocacy Training was highly successful. Using examples
and experiences from their own lives, the participants came to a deeper
understanding of a feminist analysis of issues affecting women in the Pacific,”
said FWRM Executive Director, Virisila Buadromo, who was also on the
facilitators.
“This is
not just a one-off experience for these young women, they have formed a
network, and have also developed realistic action plans to carry their feminist
analysis into their everyday work.”
The 28
participants came from PNG,
FWRM and
DAWN Pacific are grateful for the support of our partners NZAID and Oxfam New
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