Page 20 - IB September 2024

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Delegates to the 15th Triennial Conference for Pacific Women in the Marshall Islands in July. Photo: Pacific Community (SPC)

commitments in the regional level, down to the national ethnic groups, age group, gender, and geography to ensure
and local level, and also do more to help motivate women in that different aspects of needs are looked at in any legislation
leadership,” Guttenbeil says. that we make,” she said.
The question of having more women representation in Kiran quickly found out after from her visits around the
Parliament was also posed to the Tongan Prime Minister, country and speaking to women from different backgrounds
Hu’akavemeiliku Siaosi Sovaleni. and across managerial positions that women find themselves
“We believe that women should be represented. There were lacking when it comes to running for elections.
a lot of candidates in the last election, and we are certainly According to Kiran, whether it be a group of 50 or 200
going to try to encourage and provide resources for them to women she is in dialogue with, when it comes to the
actually be better represented the next time around,” he told possibility of seeing themselves joining politics, only two or
Islands Business. none at all raise their hands. Often, women in managerial
The same question was posed to political parties in Fiji by positions do not see themselves as ready to enter politics.
Dialogue Fiji Executive Director, Nilesh Lal, when he asked if “They didn’t feel they were prepared enough; they didn’t
they could include 50% of women in their internal quota. feel they were trained enough; they didn’t feel that they had
“They told us that there weren’t enough credible and the right emotional or mental support and mentorship,” Kiran
popular women candidates for them to be able to field at said.
least 50 percent of women in their party list,” Lal said. Kiran has suggested a program that can help prepare
Fiji’s Assistant Minister for Women, Children, and Social women for leadership positions in municipal elections.
Protection, Sashi Kiran, reflected on her journey as a woman Lal said: “This time around, we have gone back to them
entering politics in Fiji at a panel discussion on ‘Breaking [political parties], and we have told them, ‘Look, the stakes
Barriers: Increasing Female Participation in Local Government are way lower; this is just the local government elections, and
Elections in Fiji’, hosted by Dialogue Fiji in August. this can be a perfect training ground for us to train women
Kiran said: “When I joined parliament two years ago, and maybe later, for a subsequent career in national politics
one of the things that struck me was five women out of 55 as well.’”
in Parliament; it immediately impacted me that when we Dialogue Fiji is teaming up with stakeholders from Australia
are talking in either the standing committees, while we who have had years of training female candidates to increase
were looking at different legislation, or in Parliament, the their prospects for elections.
perspective of women is very limited. “So, we are working with them to essentially build the
“And we know that to make any good legislation, it is capacities of women, identifying a cohort of women, and
important to have viewpoints from different areas, different recruiting these cohorts of women in a very systematic way,”

20 Islands Business, September 2024