Transcript
The co-ordinator of the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre Shamima Ali, says there was a clear desire from all parties for more proactive strategies.
SHAMIMA ALI: "You know looking at prevention and response. Particularly prevention, working with men and also perpetrator programs and how the health services respond to survivors of violence of this nature and so on."
Participants compared lessons learned from working in their own countries. The co-ordinator of Vanuatu's Women's Crisis centre Merilyn Tahi says Vanuatu brought with them representatives from the police and local churches. She said they had all learned a lot and were aiming to use this knowledge to adjust and improve national efforts to end violence against women.
MERILYN TAHI: "We want to establish a branch, churches want to take things up at a higher level and the police want to improve on the implementation of the family protection act and enforce strategies that can assist women in access when they have violence against them."
The Pacific women's network will submit its outcomes to the Pacific Islands Forum. The director of Tonga's Women and Children's Crisis Centre, Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, says they want to ensure leaders know what front-line workers are doing. She says this will also help build on the growing awareness that gender violence is a regional problem.
OFA LIKILIKI: "Some of these smaller organisations at the seventh meeting have come out and are reporting really well and are able to articulate and make the connection between violence against women and girls on the ground at the grassroots level, connecting their voices and their experiences to regional commitments and international commitments."
The network has also called for an independent mission to investigate violence against women in Indonesia's Papuan provinces. West Papua representatives raised some critical issues and gaps in service delivery for gender violence victims. Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki said the network stands in solidarity with the women from West Papua.
OFA LIKILIKI: "Members of the network in the outcomes resolution are calling for a fact-finding mission to be undertaken in West Papua to look into the status of women and girls and the impact of the conflict and political tensions on women and girls as a result."
On a more positive note the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre's co-ordinator says there are improvements being made in the region. Shamima Ali says this includes regional police forces taking a zero tolerance approach to violence against women and being more sensitive in their handling of cases. She said there is also a lot more legislation being brought in to protect women and victims of violence as well as an increase in the number of parliamentarians and church leaders in the Pacific speaking out.
SHAMIMA ALI: "So these things, the good things that are happening. But the fact remains that women are still dying at the hands of their partners, husbands, they are still getting raped and so on at the hands of men. So the struggle ahead is till long."
Shamima Ali says part of this struggle includes ongoing resistance from Pacific governments to calls for more gender neutral legislation. The Pacific Women's Network Against Violence Against Women will next meet in 2020.
