Page 24 - Islands Business March 2024

Having only limited access to food, money, shelter, and every
New report sheds light on
Fijian women’s experiences with Poverty
24 Islands Business, March 2024
women with disabilities, and women who have married into a
means for a safe, comfortable life is a reality that Katia Cakacaka community with more risk of social isolation and lack of kinship or
lived with for most of her life. Katia, who was raised on Matuku, local status. “Poverty in Fiji is not just about lack of decent work.
one of Fiji’s very remote islands, shared that her family struggled It is that work in Fiji is a hybrid of communalism and individualist
a lot “since there were six of us needing school”. “Black tea neoliberal capitalist systems. Women are captured in oppressive
and cassava were a normal menu item. Whatever money mum familial and community relationships, to provide endless work
received, she made sure that we had flour, sugar, rice, and oil while being subjected to heightened conditions of poverty. This,
in the cupboard. For the rest of the food to go with it, she went while the State and society choose not to see, nor to respond, to
fishing or got vegetables from the plantation,” she recalled. the consequences,” the report stated.
Poverty hit harder when she and her family decided to relocate The articulation of national, regional, and global development
to the capital city of Suva, as her parents “thought that putting strategies and measures to address poverty and economic
us in a boarding school would be best”. “I saw how much they injustice generally do not address patriarchy and misogyny,
were struggling to put us into boarding school so when it was it stressed. “The feminisation of poverty and gender injustice
my turn to continue my studies in Suva, I opted to stay with a deepens as legislation, policy and practice do not serve women,
relative in Vatuwaqa [a neighhourhood near Suva] so that it could children nor gender diverse people but rather an imagined male
ease their burden,” she said. “Going through this experience was led, nuclear family-oriented system that is colonial, patriarchal
a big challenge as I tried to navigate my way through. I had to and does not serve us in this complex time of polycrises, climate
walk most of the time back home from school, since I was not emergency, and ecological unrest,” it added. DIVA is aiming to
given enough cash, and I would be fed nicely only if mum and address these issues at the 68th Commission on the Status of
dad sent food rations on time,” she added. Katia, a survivor of Women (CSW68) in New York on the 11th to the 22nd of March
breast cancer and gender-based violence, says despite facing this year.
adversity, it was support from her family and her faith in God that Executive Director of DIVA, Noelene Nabulivou, at the launching
kept her.
Penina Tusoya, a single mother, has faced similar challenges: of the report, said: “We’re saying to each other, as women and as
people, that in order to make things really about no one [being]
“Moving through so many work fields was one of the many left behind, we have to look behind us and also say, am I part of
challenges of my life as I tried to find a secure job to support the problem? Am I not providing support to women and girls in
my children.” She says joining a well-known regional organisation my own area of work? Am I maybe leaving out people who really
and earning only $20 FJD a day was just not enough. “It is very need urgent and lifelong support to change the systems? “The
unfair to women when overseas staff make so much money. They government already says that there are issues to do with water
paid me as a ‘volunteer’ even though I have qualifications,” she and sanitation, to do with housing, to do with adequate issues
said. “A time came when I was only given $30 FJD a week for my around gender-based violence and violence against children.
transport to and from work after my formal contract had expired. What we need to do now is to work out what we are going to do
So, my children and I walked miles to my workplace for months, about it,” she said.
and I saved whatever I could for my children to eat and pay bills,
at the end of the week,” she added. “When we go to CSW68, we’re not just interested in what’s the
language in the UN. We’re interested in feminists who are working
Penina is now looking after a community centre and garden, on it at a ground level. What is it that we bring that maybe other
focusing on women-led agroecology and other projects at the groups don’t bring? They bring their own analysis, but we bring
Diverse Voices and Action for Equality (DIVA), a grassroots our knowledge from the streets and from the communities. “You
feminist collective based in Nadi, Fiji. “They (DIVA) offered me should not just be talking up in the air. You should be listening to
work and gave me all kinds of care, support, and feminist training. those of us who are doing the work on the ground. So that’s our
I have been through so much lately, some that I thought would right, ...that makes sense in the work that we do,” she added.
break me… Now, I earn a living wage, and I am in a safe and
caring workplace,” she said. Savena Devi, a member of DIVA’s Poverty to Power Network,
reiterated: “We really need to know what our community needs
In February, DIVA released a new report, ‘Gender, Poverty and and we should not work in silos.” As a grassroots woman leader,
Economic Justice in Fiji: Grassroots-led Feminist and Human Savena has helped numerous women in Rakiraki, a small town
Rights Analysis’, which revealed that for female poverty, Oceania on the north-eastern end of Viti Levu, engaging them in “local
has the second highest rate (34.3%) after Sub-Saharan Africa community activities to make use of the resources around”.
(41.2%). The report highlights 23 sensitively described brave and “Gardening, farming – poultry, vegetables, crop and fruits, include
often harrowing life-stories and analysis of the DIVA Poverty to people in organic awareness campaigns, form groups or clubs to
Power Network, of which Katia and Penina are members. “Poverty help community members, and all these can change things to
is very much present in the Pacific region, whether we choose to some extent,” she said.
recognise it or not. It is a major gender and development justice “If I can change, others can change.” Savena believes to
issue in Pacific small island states and societies,” the report
overcome poverty, change is necessary. “Many of us can live
stated. “It is a gross unfairness and distortion that Fijian state
through poverty but we can be transformed to having power in
and society do not recognise in policy or in practice the huge
burden of unpaid care, domestic and communal work carried by ourselves. I think we need to start from childhood, not when we’re
older. We can teach our children financial literacy and savings
the women, girls, and gender diverse people,” it continued.
and teach them to budget – we use a part of their school spending
According to the Fiji Country Gender Assessment, unpaid and save the rest. Help them make this a habit and understand
work is highest among young mothers, single mothers, widows, the importance of money and saving.”
To read the full report, visit the DIVA official website at https://divafiji.org/research/
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