The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre urges women in violent relationships to seek urgent help.
The Crisis Centre is appalled and saddened at the deaths of two young women in the past two weeks, allegedly at the hands of their partners.
Coordinator Shamima Ali says the deaths are a tragic reminder that intimate partner violence is a bigger problem in our communities than many people realize or acknowledge.
Ali says it is commendable that government leaders, including the Minister for Women Rosy Akbar, and the Police Commissioner Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho, have acknowledged the problem of violence against women and have committed to using all their powers to address it.
But she says in order to truly begin to eliminate violence against women, it should become everybody’s concern.
Ali says women in violent relationships are at a higher risk of ending up disabled or, in extreme cases, dead, the longer the relationship progresses.
The Women’s Crisis Centre’s landmark nationwide survey on violence against women published in 2013 showed that 64 percent of women who had ever been in an intimate relationship had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a husband or intimate partner in their lifetime, and 24 percent are suffering from physical or sexual partner violence today.
The global prevalence for physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence over a woman’s lifetime is 30 percent, compared to 64 percent in Fiji.
The survey showed that an average of 302 women every week or 43 women every day are injured due to violence by their husband or partner.
However, only about one in 10 of these women will tell a health worker the true cause of their injury.
Further statistics show that 437 women will suffer from burns each year - about eight a week or one a day.
More than one in 10 of women surveyed had either been threatened with a weapon, or have had a weapon used against them, and 6 percent have been choked or burnt on purpose.
