Seventy-two per cent of Fijian women experience one or more types of violence which include physical, emotional and sexual violence in their lifetime from their husbands or intimate partners.
This was highlighted by the Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Rosy Akbar who updated Parliament on the Monitoring and Evaluation mechanisms in place to monitor the impact of the Ministry’s Elimination of Violence Against Women Programs earlier this week.
Minister Akbar said “violence against women is a matter of grave concern as Fiji’s statistics on violence against women rates amongst the highest in the world.
She added that in 2019, 10 women lost their lives due to intimate partner violence; in 2020, 4 women lost their lives the same way.”
The Minister said Fiji requires a coordinated effort and partnership with various Government Ministries/Departments, Non – Government Organisations and the community, in particular, working to address the issue of violence against women and children through public awareness and training.
“This plan further identifies available opportunities to overcome challenges in regard to programming on Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls and provides insights on some of the key outcomes of Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls programs from designing and managing, implementing, monitoring and evaluation across a range of different types of Violence against Women and Girls programming,” Minister Akbar said.
“The Ministry’s Monitoring and Evaluation is undertaken internally and externally. Methods of evaluation include both Qualitative and Quantitative methods that include a planned, structured, objective and systematic process to explore, understand and explain the range and diverse data.”
