Chapter 16

Fiji: Mobilizing Women Through Community Radio for Post-conflict Transformation

By Sharon Bhagwan Rolls

In an ideal situation, the emphasis on engendering governance and leadership is particularly critical for strengthening the capacity and skills of women to facilitate their access to political and economic decision-making positions and to support their development as transparent, accountable, transformational leaders, who can effectively advance a pro-poor and pro-women agenda. However, in the context of post conflict reconstruction, when the agencies of the state have been disempowered due a cycle of coups (in Fiji’s context, this is about a series of coups since 1987 – military, religious and civilian), women’s leadership not only has to be transformed and revitalized, but sustained for the long term.

The Fiji context

The military coup of December 5th, 2006 in the Fiji Islands has defined a critical role for femLINKpacific: Media Initiatives for Women, the operators of Fiji’s only mobile women’s community radio station – femTALK 89.2FM, building on our efforts of the last seven years in advocating for the full implementation of the UN Security Council resolution 1325 (Women, Peace and Security), in particular to promote women’s participation in the peace process and reconstruction/transformation. Community Radio is a critical tool for Track I and Track II dialogue, as well as a significant tool for the promotion of active non-violence strategies, including the convening of the weekly Blue Ribbon Peace Vigil in Suva.

In Fiji, the formal process of negotiation established as a result of the Eminent Persons Report continues to negotiate only with the Interim Administration without offering a formal space through which women in all our diversities can inform and contribute. It is now time for the women of Fiji, through civil society leaders who are committed to the realization of a just’ peace and women’s human rights are involved and supported to review and define a more gender-inclusive – community empowerment process for the return to parliamentary democracy by March 2009. Otherwise, the road map for Fiji will not highlight the realities of women in all our diversities.

Community radio is the vehicle – “to increase the options and opportunities for Pacific women, especially those living in poverty, by offering them a ‘space’ to ensure they are able to participate in and shape political decision making at all levels toward a more gender-responsive and people-centred governance that puts the interest of the whole society, especially the poor, above the traditional politicians’ and elites’ interests.”

Women’s experiences as a result of Fiji’s political history of internal conflicts have also meant dealing with new social and economic problems, but unfortunately mainstream media and government based information sources have not provided a multi-ethnic vehicle for people from all our ethnic and communities, to collectively articulate their views on issues and stories.

Women’s limited access or even inability to access media, let alone technology, is actually a reflection of the personal, institutional and systematic barriers, including traditional practices, at work in many societies. Other drawbacks include gender barriers such as illiteracy, time constraints, costs, geographical location and social cultural norms, which mean women have to continue to play ‘development catch up’. These are important factors for consideration, if we want to ensure the women’s perspective at all levels of decision making and implementation; after all, one of the best ways to mainstream the gender perspectives is through the media.

Community media as a vehicle for empowerment and transformation

femLINKpacific develops, produces and distributes a range of women’s Community Media Initiatives in order to:

• Empower women to understand their social, economic, political and civil rights through media initiatives, which assists them in linking the principles of human rights with their daily lives, and women just like them in communities across Fiji.

• Support the advocacy of women’s groups to increase women’s participation at all levels of decision making – local, regional, national and international levels.

• Provide women’s groups around Fiji with an advocacy and awareness tool that will assist them in devising appropriate strategies for local and national action.

• Contribute toward the process of reconciliation in our country as we share common stories and experiences of women from various communities in an effort to breakdown the barriers that lead to racial intolerance.

• Advocate for greater recognition of and integration of women’s peace initiatives using the UNSC RES/1325 as a tool for advocacy and lobbying.

• Assist in formulating policy interventions on a range of issues raised by women in their communities.

femLINKpacific was established because our experiences during the peace vigil showed that “conflict remains commercially viable” for the mainstream media, and we needed our own media forms not only to continue to advocate for the issues which had emerged through the peace vigil but also to contribute toward the reconstruction of our country in a holistic way. We also wanted to document women’s accounts of the crisis and their visions for peace.

The very fact that the mainstream media did not prioritize this themselves resulted in our media productions to date – community videos, a women and peace magazine called “femTALK 1325” and our mobile women’s community radio project – femTALK 89.2FM. This “radio in a suitcase” travels out to women in various communities. It offers women a “safe space” to articulate and exchange their viewpoints. Using a low-power transmitter, femLINKpacific encourages women to speak to each other and with their communities. As a way to implement the station’s slogan, “Women speaking to women for peace,” the mobile broadcasts feature pre-recorded audio reports and interviews in the local language with an English translation. The stories and interviews travel from one community to the next, sharing views and opinions rarely heard on mainstream radio.

femTALK 89.2FM is about community empowerment; it is about taking radio to women in their local communities; it is about enabling women and young women to have a voice and share an opinion about a range of social, economic and political issues that will help bring about sustainable development and peace.

Each broadcast is an opportunity to promote the potential that exists within women leaders in local communities to identify critical development priorities as well as to advise development programs. The women who participate in each broadcast are free to express their opinions and beliefs in a peaceful and inclusive manner. The radio broadcasts are an opportunity for women to be heard by local leaders, by those in local government and by the leadership of district and provincial councils, who remain predominantly men. During the broadcasts in the capital city, the interviews also reaffirm the need for national decision making to be inclusive of rural women’s realities.

The suitcase radio has permitted to advocate for the use of appropriate and accessible information and communication technology, it reinforces the role of women’s media as a platform for policy advocacy and peaceful change for all. When people in our country are able to share their opinions freely and safely, then we can say we are truly experiencing democracy.

In the lead up to the 2006 General Elections in Fiji, using the suitcase radio, femLINKpacific staged a series of focus group pre-broadcast consultations and radio broadcasts in three rural communities, to assist women in these communities to articulate their development priorities and vision statements for the future of the country during the elections. This community media initiative, “Not Just Sweet Talk,” also served as an important platform to once again highlight the marginalization of women’s opinions and representation from the mainstream political processes and decision making in Fiji. Interviews with several of the 25 women candidates showed that, even within the many political parties, women remain at the periphery of decision making and there is an urgent need to review and reform electoral and other decision-making forums to provide a more democratic space for the participation of women, young women and other marginalized groups. These interviews have proven to be a source of valuable documentation, to influence and inform programs to increase women’s participation in the local and national political sphere, as they provide strong anecdotal evidence of the experiences of women’s political participation and attempt to offer political commentary to the mainstream media. This is sad proof of women’s continued marginalization from mainstream political debate and formal decision-making spheres.

By working in partnership with NGOs, the government and regional partners who are also working with grassroots women, femLINKpacific was able to transform the radio broadcast content into policy advocacy statements to show how media can be used to assist in the advancement of gender equality.

Since November 2000, UNSC RES/1325 has become a tool for empowering us to engage at the policy level. It is a critical platform for mobilizing on local, regional, national and international levels. It has provided the impetus to advocate and further define what peace means to us. The international law, is a base to which we can hold our political and traditional leaders accountable in lobbying for the participation of and leadership by women in the process of conflict resolution.

However, it is also important to note that since the events of December 5, 2006 in Fiji, femLINKpacific has also had to respond to the changes caused by the military coup in the target communities we work in, in managing the volunteers at our community media centre as well as in networking and relationships with other partners. Subsequently, our rural network of local partners as well as rural correspondents have become a critical source of information to assist us in formulating practical policy responses to the ongoing and emerging social, political and economic developments.

It has also been critical to ensure that during the first six months of 2007 our media initiatives served as a voice for women who remain marginalized and isolated from decision making as well as information/communication forums, including those in the mainstream media. Our media forms include monthly e-news bulletins, media and policy advocacy alerts as well as the production and dissemination of media reports and productions. These prodcutions are distributed to the mainstream media, CSO/NGO partners as well as policy level and development partners. And we have recognized that our role as a woman’s media organisation is not just to strengthen women’s capacity to speak out but to ensure that these voices are transformed into policy language to influence key policy makers and national leaders.

Women’s voices to transform a nation

This year, our community radio campaign, “My Life, My Issues, My Peace” has given rural women an opportunity to remind society of the issues that affect their lives; and gives them a chance to discuss their experiences, and express their perception of life in rural areas. In addition, initiatives like ‘Generation Next’ (the young women’s community radio project in the capital city) is proving to be an inspiring advocacy tool for young women of different ethnicities and backgrounds to engage amongst themselves and their communities, while also becoming an important tool to train future advocates and leaders on women’s issues.

These initial “post-coup” broadcasts are also paving the way for women in our target local communities to prepare to participate in the broader issues of conflict transformation and political reconstruction. Subsequently, the implementation of UNSC RES/1325 within the context of community radio is more than just about the struggle for the realization of women’s human rights. Peace is seen as: a freedom from violence; access to safe housing; employment and education; equality in the eyes of the law and society; the right to property ownership; and a return to normalcy.

In our range of efforts, we are bringing the voices of the marginalized and unrepresented into the political arena. We are advocating and demonstration strategies for inclusion, equality, freedom and plurality, focusing on a holistic notion of peace, defined not just in military security and political terms but also in terms of human security, rooted in a combination of political, economic, personal, community and environmental factors.

Coupled with our work as the regional hub for a Women’s Media Network on UNSC RES/1325, we are working with counterparts in PNG/Bougainville, Solomon Islands and Tonga to use women’s information/communication sources and media to provide vital anecdotal evidence, including early warning indicators of conflict. We seek to inform and assist, amongst others, the annual Forum Regional Security Committee process in the lead up to the annual Pacific Forum Leaders meeting. We will also continue to provide women’s media coverage of this and other pivotal events, including the coverage of national elections in the Pacific region countries and being responsive to any emerging situations.

We have developed a series of program activities. They include the production of media initiatives, strengthening our communication networks, facilitating training and attachments to enhance our collective media skills. We are staging annual partners meetings, which provide a valuable opportunity to review our progress and identify priorities for the future, in order to continue to provide coverage of the implementation of UNSC RES/1325 in our countries and in the regional policy level. This regional network will also be the platform for establishing women’s community radio stations initially in Solomon Islands and Tonga.

Conclusion

Women’s exclusion and marginalization pose a significant threat to sustainable human security. The consequences are far-reaching and manifest in core security risks such as the absence of legal and human rights, lack of protection against gender-based violence and access to justice, health, education as well as exclusion from participation in economic life, credit, land and natural resources. These consequences not only constitute underlying sources of political and economic instability, but also result in the weakening of social and family units.

What is clearly needed is the opportunity to continue to build women’s skills and confidence and support women’s representation in the social, political and economic spheres, especially as the reality is that many women, in Fiji and the rest of the Pacific Island Region, are excluded from the structures that make the decisions to sustain peace or engage in conflict. There are few women in political and civil service leadership positions across Pacific island countries. Despite the important role played by women’s groups in prevention and recovery efforts, we are also marginally represented in decision-making bodies, whether these relate to recovery planning or formal peace processes.

Community radio offers the opportunity to build and strengthen alliances from local, national and trans-national levels to ensure that women’s experiences and expertise can be shared from the community level to the international scene, in order to better inform power and decision-making structures – whether it is the Pacific Forum Regional Security Committee or the UN Security Council. Stronger and therefore more responsive information and communication channels can assist in addressing the status quo, especially to create greater visibility of Pacific women’s realities in the evolution of the global and regional human security framework.

The femLINKpacific community radio model represents an opportunity to strengthen women’s capacity to speak out on their own issues and to also ensure that these voices are transformed into policy language to influence key policy makers and national leaders. At the same time, it is important to create a women’s peace network through which women can contribute to the prevention of further conflict. Community radio is therefore a locally-driven, locally-owned and inclusive process where women can assert their right to participate in the decisions being taken about our future. This is especially important during a critical transition period, during which time institutions, structures and relationships within society can be transformed and the root causes of conflict can be addressed.

Women have recognized the potential of community radio – what is needed is that development agencies and partners also recognize and invest in these processes that will transform decision-making structures to ensure sustainable peace.