BY the stroke of the pen from the Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka – relevant stakeholders should be directed to produce gender-dis-aggregated and ethnicity statistics annually to monitor progress towards gender equality and development.
This was the statement by Prof Wadan Narsey while speaking virtually from Australia during the launch of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) research report Beyond 33 per cent: The Economic Empowerment of Fiji Women and Girls yesterday.
He said as the leader of government, the Prime Minister has the capability to request for an immediate release for any government entities such as the ministers responsible for civil service, public enterprise, Fiji National Provident Fund, Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Fiji Revenue and Customs Service and the Reserve Bank of Fiji to release the gender-dis-aggregated and ethnicity statistics for public viewing.
“I do add that ethnicity factor because this is one of the most horrible things that has happened over the years,” he said.
“In the quest to say everybody’s a Fijian, all entities in Fiji were required to stop producing data by ethnicity and yet ethnicity is important for all kinds of things in development.
“The fact that this was done in Fiji is one of the terrible things that were allowed to happen, and I would recommend Government start to producing these statistics as soon as they can.”
He claimed FNPF had refused to give him data in the past.
“I was trying to get some data for this study on what has happened to women’s income over the last two years because of COVID-19 had affected them more adversely than males and FNPF would not release any data to me at all.
“They said to wait for the report to be tabled in Parliament. Well it’s been tabled in Parliament, and it’s still empty of all information.”
