Fiji CEDAW NGO Coalition Welcomes Concluding Observations And Marks 30 Years Of Fiji’s Commitment To Women’s Rights

The Fiji CEDAW NGO Coalition welcomes the adoption of the Concluding Observations on Fiji’s sixth periodic report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), following the Pacific Technical Cooperation session held from 7–11 April 2025 in Suva at the Committee’s ninety-first session.

The Coalition highlights the significance of this milestone — this is the first time the CEDAW Committee has convened in the Pacific. The Pacific Technical Cooperation Week demonstrated genuine efforts by the Committee to work alongside diverse stakeholders in a spirit of partnership and dialogue. For Fiji and the wider Pacific, this unique regional review process offered an unprecedented opportunity to bring women’s lived realities directly into global human rights mechanisms.

This year also marks 30 years since Fiji signed CEDAW in 1995. Three decades on, while some gains have been made, the Concluding Observations make clear that women and girls in Fiji continue to face systemic barriers, weak implementation of commitments, and deeply entrenched patriarchal attitudes.

“The review underscores the urgency of action,” said the Fiji CEDAW NGO Coalition. “Thirty years after signing CEDAW, Fiji must move beyond rhetoric and take bold, concrete steps to ensure women’s equality in law, policy, and practice.”

The CEDAW Committee’s recommendations to Fiji are wide-ranging and urgent. They include:

• Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG): Strengthening the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls (2023–2028), with strong accountability for perpetrators of offline and online GBV, and ensuring survivors have access to comprehensive support services.

• Access to Justice: Addressing financial, linguistic, procedural, and socio-cultural barriers, particularly for rural and maritime women, through affordable legal aid, simplified procedures, and expanded mobile court services.

• Temporary Special Measures (TSMs): Introducing quotas, scholarships, and timebound targets to accelerate women’s participation in leadership, governance, and the economy.

• Legislative Reform: Closing gaps in anti-discrimination laws to address both direct and indirect discrimination, including intersecting forms that affect the most marginalised women.

• SRHR and Bodily Autonomy: Expanding access to sexual and reproductive health services, including reviewing restrictive abortion laws, addressing HIV/AIDS, and ensuring women’s health rights are prioritised.

• Economic Equality: Tackling the gender pay gap, workplace discrimination and harassment, and the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work that limits women’s advancement.

The Committee also called for greater investment in awareness, education, and advocacy to challenge harmful gender stereotypes and patriarchal norms that continue to block women’s equal participation in society.

Equally important, the Committee urged Fiji to ratify the Optional Protocol to CEDAW, which would provide a crucial complaints mechanism for women seeking justice when their rights are violated.

The Coalition stresses that delaying accession undermines women’s ability to hold the State accountable and weakens Fiji’s international commitments.

“The Pacific Technical Cooperation Week was historic because it brought global human rights processes closer to Pacific realities,” the Coalition added. “Now Fiji must show leadership by implementing these recommendations in full — because women and girls cannot wait another 30 years for equality.”

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