By Monika Singh
The lack of female representation in parliaments across the world remains a vexed and contentious issue.
In Fiji, this problem again surfaced for debate in response to Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica’s call for a quota system to increase women’s representation in parliament.
Mr Kamikamica was speaking at the “Capacity Building Training for Prospective Women and Youth Candidates in Local Elections” workshop in Suva in November last year.
The workshop was organised by Suva-based civil society organisation, Dialogue Fiji, in collaboration with Emily’s List Australia and funded by Misereor.
Mr Kamikamica noted that women’s representation in Fiji’s Parliament peaked at 20 per cent in 2018, only to drop to 14 per cent after the 2022 elections.
He highlighted what he saw as an anomaly: 238,389 females voted in the 2022 election, surpassing men’s turnout. However, female candidates garnered only 37,252 votes, accounting for just 8 per cent of the total votes cast. This saw only six out of 54 female candidates elected to Parliament.
He said implementing supportive policies and initiatives, such as reducing financial barriers to running for office and providing childcare support could address some of the structural challenges faced by aspiring female leaders.
While agreeing with Mr Kamikamica’s supportive remarks, Suva-based lawyer and former journalist Sainiana Radrodro called for urgent and concrete actions to empower aspiring women candidates, besides just discussions.
She identified finance, societal norms and more recently, bullying on social media, as major obstacles for females aspiring for political careers. She said measures to address these problems were either insufficient, or non-existent.
Ms Radrodro, who participated in the 2024 Women’s Mock Parliament, supports a quota system, but only as a temporary special measure (TSM). TSM is designed to advance gender equality by addressing structural, social, and cultural barriers, correcting past and present discrimination, and compensating for harm and inequalities.
Ms Radrodro said that TSM could be a useful tool if applied in a measured way, noting that countries that rushed into implementing it faced a backlash due to poor advocacy and public understanding.
She recommends TSM based on prior and proper dialogue and awareness to ensure that women elected through such measures are not marginalised or stereotyped as having “ridden on the back of government policies”.
She said with women comprising half of the national population, it’s only sensible to have proportional representation in parliament.
While she agreed with Mr Kamikamica that finance remained a significant obstacle for Fijian women seeking public office, she stated that non-financial barriers, such as attacks on social media, should not be overlooked.
To level the playing field, Ms Radrodro’s suggestions include government subsidies for women candidates, similar to the support provided to farmers and small businesses.
“This would signal a genuine commitment by the government to foster women’s participation in the legislature,” she said.
Ms Radrodro’s views were echoed by the University of the South Pacific postgraduate student in sociology, Lovelyn Laurelle Giva-Tuke.
She advocates a holistic approach encompassing financial assistance, specific legislation to address violence against women in political contexts; capacity-building programs to equip women with leadership, campaigning, and public speaking skills; and measures to ensure fair and equitable media coverage, rather than stereotyped and discriminatory coverage.
Ms Giva-Tuke emphasised that society as a whole stand to benefit from a gender balanced political establishment. This was also highlighted by Mr Kamikamica in his address. He cited research showing that women leaders tended to prioritise healthcare, education, and social welfare.
While there is no disagreement about the problem, and the needs to address it, Ms Giva-Tuke, like Ms Radrodro, believes that discussions and ideas must translate into action. “As a nation, we can and must do more to create an inclusive political landscape that values women’s contributions at every level,” she says.
Protection against social media attacks
For Ms Radrodro one of the most urgent and unaddressed problems is the targeting of women with harmful social media content, which is rampant and unchecked in Fiji.
“There is a very high level of attacks against women on social media even from women against other women. These raises reservations in potential women candidates who now have another hurdle to cross.”
Ms Radrodro said a lot of women were simply terrified of being abused online and having their lives splashed across social media, which was also harmful for their children’s and families.
She said it was disheartening to see the lack of consistent support from leaders when women politicians faced personal attacks.
She called for stronger policies and enforcement to curb online harassment, urging national leaders to take a stand against such behavior.
Another female rights campaigner, the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement executive director Nalini Singh, called for stronger and more effective collaboration between stakeholders—communal groups, women’s groups, local government departments, political parties and the Fijian Elections Office.
Ms Singh highlighted the need for a major educational campaign to change the mindsets with gender sensitisation programs targeting communities. She also recommended increased civic education and awareness of government structures and electoral systems.
While she supported reserved parliamentary seats for women, Ms Singh said temporary changes in laws or regulations to eliminate systemic barriers and promote gender equality were also needed.
Ms Singh also highlighted the importance of bridging the generational gaps between older women who have worked in local government, and young women with an interest in joining the political space by establishment of mentoring programs.
She said mandating specific changes or participation levels within a defined timeframe and advocacy and awareness campaigns targeted at changing societal attitudes and promoting the inclusion of underrepresented groups were other options.
“These are just some ways or strategies to help increase representation of women in leadership spaces, especially their participation in politics,” said Ms Singh.
The views of women such as Ms Radrodro, Ms Giva-Tuke and Ms Singh indicate not just what needs to be done to address this problem, but also how little has actually been done. On his part, Mr Kamikamica has said all the right things, demonstrating a good understanding of the weaknesses in the system. What is lacking is the application of these ideas and sentiments in a real and practical sense. Unless this is done, the ideas will remain just that—ideas.
Disclaimer: This article was originally published in the Fiji Times and is republished here with the author’s kind permission. The opinions expressed in this piece are her own and do not represent the views of this publication.
Contributing Author: Monika Singh is a Teaching Assistant with the University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme and the Supervising Editor of the student newspaper Wansolwara.
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