Report - Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

Actions/Interventions –
The Sexual Minorities Project has been running within Women’s Action for Change (WAC) since 1998
and Eta and I are part <strong>of</strong> a group <strong>of</strong> GLBT people and human rights supporters who are trying to
improve our own conditions and those <strong>of</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Fiji.
The lack <strong>of</strong> adequate housing is just one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> symptoms <strong>of</strong> underlying human rights violations in
many areas for lesbians in Fiji. We are protected under our Constitution and by international
conventions such as CEDAW and UNHRC, but until <strong>the</strong> state, vanua and wider community in Fiji
in partnership with international organisations recognises and acts on <strong>the</strong> violations that are at <strong>the</strong>
source <strong>of</strong> our disempowerment, we will not truly gain and sustain secure homes and communities
in which to live in peace and dignity.
In Fiji <strong>the</strong> vanua and <strong>the</strong> state must be examined in <strong>the</strong>ir joint roles as perpetuator <strong>of</strong> gender stereotypes
that suppress women. They must be held to account for <strong>the</strong>ir refusal to engage with diversity <strong>of</strong> gender
roles, including that <strong>of</strong> lesbians. If we don’t get into a dialogue about what we keep and what we change,
if we are not allowed to get into dialogue with <strong>the</strong> custom or <strong>the</strong> State, we will continue to suffer.
For indigenous Fijian lesbian women, some <strong>of</strong> us are already working for our own empowerment, but
we need to frame our work in that <strong>of</strong> universal human rights to safety, to security, to adequate housing,
to our rights <strong>of</strong> equality as women. We can only do that if we call on o<strong>the</strong>r partners at international,
regional and local level to examine <strong>the</strong>ir own silences in assisting us in our campaign.
As Diane Otto pointed out, we need to adopt laws and practices that realize substantive equality,
including affirmative action where required. We need to create an enabling environment for those <strong>of</strong>
us who are in same sex relationships. We need to change <strong>the</strong> social and cultural beliefs that justify
our secondary status and that perpetuate exclusion.
We need to work with o<strong>the</strong>r women’s NGOs because sometimes we can’t even get into rooms that o<strong>the</strong>rs
can. We need o<strong>the</strong>r organisations to assist us. Unless we work on violations that are at <strong>the</strong> source
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> problem, such as VAW and gender and sexual discrimination, we cannot address adequate
housing.
We need most <strong>of</strong> all to recognise and tackle <strong>the</strong> intersections and layers <strong>of</strong> discrimination that suppress
us, and that stop us from exercising our rights. We need to work along real and imagined boundaries
<strong>of</strong> religion age, ethnicity, sexuality, gender etc. If human rights are indivisible, <strong>the</strong>n your human rights
as women and as men are bound up also in ours as Indigenous lesbian women in Fiji - so <strong>the</strong> call
is for you all to partner with us.
174 WOMEN’S RIGHTS TO ADEQUATE HOUSEING AND LAND