RECLAIMING LOLOMA: (RE) FOCUSING ITAUKEI INDIGENEITY AS AN ACTION BASED FRAMEWORK AGAINST GENDERED VIOLENCE

Abstract

The United Nations advances the perceived interests of human development, peace and progress, through international frameworks that have become a collective form of standardized guidelines. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is one of these international frameworks that has been a guideline for the address of gender inequality. This is in its framework to guide member countries in defining and addressing socioeconomic and cultural barriers to achieving gender equality. The convention has been used as a form of reference after its ratification in Fiji; national policies focused on gender and gender issues have become an increasing reality in the country in its pursuit to address gender based violence, amongst other prevalent gender issues. The inquiry put forth in this research is on the clash of two very different cultures in their comprehension of the world. CEDAW represents a different culture in comparison to the iTaukei (Indigenous Fijian) culture, in the ways it intersects (in its underlying themes) the meaning of gender, women’s rights and how women’s rights are translated into the iTaukei sacred spaces for women. An analysis of the linkages between culture, gender and the effectiveness of gender policies will help reveal a missing link in CEDAW’s cultural elements- that is, an understanding of the foundational cultural values of the international community itself. The umbrella concept of ‘loloma’ that encompasses the values of vuvale (family), veirokovi (respect) and veimaroroi (protecting one another) will be distinguished as a conceptualized possible solution- a perspective that hopes to incorporate these cultural values on the level of transformative societal change, in a cultural understanding that can be incorporated into advocacy programs for a better understanding between policy institutions and individuals at the communal level in Fiji.