17 Nov 2005

Fiji NGOs accused of aggression in promoting women

9:29 am on 17 November 2005

Non-governmental organisations in Fiji have been accused of being too aggresive in the way they promote the interests of women.

This comes from the news director for Communication Fiji Vijay Narayan, who's attending the Pacific Island News Association meeting in Tonga this week.

He says one NGO even called for men to be put on curfew as a way of controlling the number of violent attacks on women.

"Men cannot control themselves so they should have a curfew, what will that achieve? In the end people just ignored it, meaning that they knew that it was meaningless. We cannot have a curfew for just men. I mean if you're talking about discrimination, then that issue comes into play."

The Fiji Broadcasting Corporation's news director, Matai Akauola says that abuse of women is a major problem.

Mr Akauola says however, the current government of Laisenia Qarase, has a pretty good track record.

Things are changing from the Ratu Mara era, where he had a chief, and now he's a commoner that's taken up that position, so it's continuing to break down, so there's more dialogue and more promotion of women to higher status.