Teaching Men and Boys by Sharon Bhagwan Rolls*

On the eve of World Human Rights Day, listeners to the suitcase radio broadcast on 89.2FM in Labasa were reminded that faith based organizations and men are key partners in championing the cause of non-violence:

“The community and the church have the responsibility to teach the men and boys that men can be champions of non violence and violence against women," said Reverend James Bhagwan, who is currently in Labasa as part of the Pacific Conference of Churches team conducting a human rights training programme: which is contributing to improving the theologiical and faith based understanding of the universal principles of human rights.

According to Rev Bhagwan, too often one one small sentence or text from the Bible is misinterpreted:“For example, in the Bible, it is written that ‘Women should submit to men’ and people at times use this as an excuse for violence towards women without reading the whole passage, in which its written “Man should love their woman unconditionally”, therefore due to this attitude, religion is sometimes used as an excuse for violence,” he added.

Rev Bhagwan highlighted that that most of the time, boys and men are brought up to believe that they have to be strong and have to show their emotions through physical means instead of crying or being sentimental about a situation.

“Men in most cultures are taught to be strong, not show their emotions through crying but through the use of their ‘fist’; but for me and men who agree with me on this topic the sentence ‘Real men don’t hit women’ rings true and I truly believe that men can be the ones to change the attitude to violence against women”

He said “This global campaign on the 16 days of activism to end violence against women, is well into its 2nd decade, and people are asking, what difference has been made, but a difference has been made. Attitudes have changed compared to back in the days. I would like to add that as long as people are frustrated, as long as people are insecure with their jobs and other factors in their lives, they will continue to put other people down to make themselves feel better but people must remember that each and every is a child of god and god loves them, and nobody should ever feel any less.”
He added that understanding of human rights as a Christian lies in the understanding from the human rights perspective that every human being is worthy of respect and has the right to live in dignity.

FemLINKPACIFIC’s "suitcase radio" broadcast team includes Kalpana Prasad (Community Media Officer), Sulueti Waqa (Technical Producer) and members of Generation Next Labasa. The daily programme for the continuation of the 16 days community radio campaign in Vanua Levu includes live interviews with rural women from femLINKPACIFIC’s Labasa "1325" network and features produced by members of Generation Next in Suva and Nadi.

* Executive Director, femLINKPACIFIC
+6799244871 (Mobile) +6793310303 (Office DL)
www.femlinkpacific.org.fj


Economic security includong the availability of safe and secure employment,  health security, personal security through access to justice and law and order, and community security through access to land, topped the Women, Peace and Human Security agenda at a consultation convened by Femlinkpacific in Labasa today, to commemorate World Human Rights Day.

Local women leaders who have been participating in the 16 Days of Community Radio Campaign travelled from as far Tawake Village which is 120km away from Labasa town to be part of today's consultation. The participants from Mali Island travelled almost an hour. First they took a 30 minute boat ride and then a 20 minute bus ride to join other participants from Naleba, Vunicuicui, Bua and Dogoru.

Speaking in a radio programme produced for the final day of the 16 Days Community Radio Campaign (tomorrow) they brought the stories of how realising the human rights commitments to gender equality, is also about ensuring women have the platform and the means to enjoy these rights, to define development, and to address some of the root causes of conflict.

Unaisi Dogunu from Tawake Village,  access to quality health services,  lack of job opportunities for women and the lack of community police posts in the rural areas are some of the most common issues faced by women from the different communities: “Nurses are not interested to be transferred to our village because they live in the dispensary clinics and when patients get admitted, the nurses have to find another place to live. We need better clinics, to improve the quality of health care provided to us. Also our group member from Vunicuicui has raised the issue of the non availability of community police post in their area, as there is a lot of crime in their area by youth and the town police post is very far from their community."

Adi Makitalena who this year has assisted in the establishment of a multiracial women's forum in Naleba agreed adding that the rate of unemployment in Labasa is a major concern for many of the women at the consultation today: “Our main concern is lack of jobs and this gives rise to other problems such as poor education for children, no food on the table for family and financial problems,” she said.

She added that women also would like to be able to access land and also be consulted and involved in land management issues so that they can also get directly involved in agriculture production, which would also enable food security at the family level: “(Currently) there is no assistance for land for the community and we can’t plant any food crops because of the land issue. We also need the prices of the food items to go down as there is a lack of jobs in our communities, especially for women and we need it to happen now!” said Adi Makitalena as she made this call on behalf of the rural women from the communities in Labasa.

As a community leader, she is keen to see women mobilizing together to become stronger advocates for their peace and security, to define the type of development they would like: “(These) issues (of concern) have been here for a long time and we will  keep raising these issues and concerns until proper authorities take action and I am calling on other women in the community to join us or other women’s groups and make a collective call for action” she added.

FemLINKPACIFIC’s team will be wrapping up their suitcase community radio broadcast to end violence against women tomorrow with an extended weekend broadcast with local rural women leaders in Labasa.
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