Report - Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

Preface
The Fiji Consultation on women and housing and land is <strong>the</strong> fifth in a series <strong>of</strong> civil society regional
consultations that have played a critical role in unearthing <strong>the</strong> experiences <strong>of</strong> women facing violations
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir right to adequate housing and land on a daily basis. These consultations have contributed
enormously to <strong>the</strong> analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> state <strong>of</strong> women’s rights to housing and land contained in <strong>the</strong> three
reports that comprise <strong>the</strong> global study on women and housing requested by <strong>the</strong> UN Commission on
Human Rights in April 2003.
Too <strong>of</strong>ten <strong>the</strong> United Nations is seen as a remote entity, operating at a level far removed from <strong>the</strong>
grassroots. These regional consultations have served as a unique mechanism for bridging this gap,
bringing toge<strong>the</strong>r grassroots women’s and civil society groups to fur<strong>the</strong>r inform <strong>the</strong> normative content
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> discourse on women’s right to adequate housing.
Pursuant to this goal, <strong>the</strong> inter-regional consultation process has featured <strong>the</strong> training <strong>of</strong> participants
from groups working on women’s rights and housing rights, through <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Habitat International
Coalition – Housing and Land Rights Network Tool Kit, on strategies and methodologies for <strong>the</strong>
prevention <strong>of</strong> violations, monitoring, advocating for, and overcoming obstacles to women’s enjoyment
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir rights to adequate housing and land. Central to this process have also been <strong>the</strong> individual,
and <strong>of</strong>ten intimate and courageous testimonies, provided by grassroots women and organizations
working at <strong>the</strong> local and national level to inform UN processes.
The testimonies at Fiji were particularly informative, received from a diversity <strong>of</strong> women and men from
communities and civil society organizations across <strong>the</strong> region, including Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands,
Tonga, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea and indigenous Australia. Each
testimony explored <strong>the</strong> specificities <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> contexts in which women were facing considerable violence
and discrimination in <strong>the</strong>ir efforts to claim <strong>the</strong>ir human rights, and highlighted <strong>the</strong> vital contribution
such grassroots dialogues <strong>of</strong>fer to informing more amply <strong>the</strong> core content <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> right to adequate
housing.
As <strong>the</strong> issues <strong>of</strong> land and housing tend to feature prominently within <strong>the</strong> everyday language <strong>of</strong> Pacific
cultures and societies, <strong>the</strong> Fiji consultation sought to focus on <strong>the</strong> interlinkages between women’s access
to land, housing and inheritance rights and <strong>the</strong> customary laws and traditions that typically govern
decision-making processes related to such issues. In addition, <strong>the</strong> related issues <strong>of</strong> urbanisation and
migration were also explored, with an eye toward fur<strong>the</strong>r clarifying <strong>the</strong>ir connection to <strong>the</strong> lack <strong>of</strong>
adequate housing.
VI
WOMEN’S RIGHTS TO ADEQUATE HOUSEING AND LAND