Report - Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

access to land, ownership, or leases <strong>of</strong> land. For ethnic women, security <strong>of</strong> tenure and freedom from
dispossession is one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most critical elements <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> human right to adequate housing. It is critical,
because it determines <strong>the</strong> extent to which <strong>the</strong>y are able to access services, enjoy a good location or
environment and access a means to livelihood.
The constitution <strong>of</strong> Fiji allows for compensation in cases where land and housing have been
repossessed. But compensation is calculated only according to value <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> land and fails to
include o<strong>the</strong>r costs such as <strong>the</strong> efforts and contributions <strong>of</strong> ethnic women towards improving <strong>the</strong>
land and house.
After <strong>the</strong> coup in Fiji, most land leases expired, and many ethnic people were dispossessed <strong>of</strong>
<strong>the</strong>ir houses, in some cases violently. In such situations, women fleeing burnt homes with <strong>the</strong>ir
children and indigenous women, are <strong>the</strong> most vulnerable to violence and assault, and need to be
protected.
In addition to a history <strong>of</strong> discrimination, <strong>the</strong> dispossession <strong>of</strong> many ethnic women after <strong>the</strong> coup was
a result <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir being excluded from decision-making on housing, land and inheritance issues. Ethnic
women who are evicted from <strong>the</strong>ir homes do not have <strong>the</strong> same family and community support systems
as indigenous Fijians, which places <strong>the</strong>m in positions <strong>of</strong> even greater vulnerability.
35% <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> population in Fiji lives in poverty and two-thirds <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m are women. 18 Ethnic women form
a significant proportion <strong>of</strong> this group. Many <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se women are forced to live in housing settlements
that have poor living conditions, including poor water and poor sanitation.
The key obstacles that ethnic women face in realising <strong>the</strong>ir right to adequate housing in <strong>the</strong> Pacific
include:
• Discriminatory laws and policies (for example, Tonga’s constitution has no clause prohibiting sex
discrimination);
• Lack <strong>of</strong> implementation <strong>of</strong> policies (for example, Tonga passed <strong>the</strong> Gender and Development Policy
in 2001, but it has still not been implemented);
• Conflicts in communities and villages;
• Customary, traditional and cultural limitations on women’s right to own land and housing;
• Denial <strong>of</strong> access to land for minority women.
Recommendations to States:
– Negotiate with chiefs and land owners for access to land and extension <strong>of</strong> leases (where <strong>the</strong>
landowner wants to lease <strong>the</strong> land);
– Develop and implement policies to specifically address <strong>the</strong> discrimination faced by ethnic
women;
– Provide gender and human rights training to service providers, legislators, policy-makers and
those working in <strong>the</strong> Native Title Land Board;
– Adopt a human rights-based non-discrimination approach to land and adequate housing.
18
These statistics were provided in Seema Shaleshni Naidu’s testimony (see Annex H).
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