SUVA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Women in the rural and urban communities across the South Pacific island nation of Fiji will now have their concerns integrated into national plans and policies, a Fijian government minister said here on Friday.
Speaking at the opening of the Beijing Platform for Action Forum in Suva, capital of Fiji, Fiji's Minister for Women and Children Mereseini Vuniwaqa said that the forum is crucial because there is a lot of evidence that shows that there is still a lot of work for them to do in this area.
These areas are evident in the high rates of violence against women, the lack of sex-disaggregated data to inform sound policies across the various sectors of the economy, the need to further improve women's economic participation and the need to expedite better access to justice, she said.
The minister stressed that a Steering Committee will be allocated in Fiji to collect data and conduct research leading up to the submission of Fiji's Beijing Platform for Action +25 Progress Report due on May 31 this year, which shall include an assessment of current challenges that affect the implementation of the agreements of women's rights and women's empowerment.
The Beijing Platform for Action is a landmark document for advancing the rights of women and gender equality worldwide agreed during the 4th World Conference on women in Beijing, capital of China in 1995.
