Women and men from 12 Pacific countries have gathered at the Naviti Resort on the Coral Coast in Fiji for Fifth Pacific Regional Meeting on Violence Against Women which opens tomorrow (8 June).

Facilitated by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the meeting includes 60 participants who work in the area of violence against women from across the Pacific.

The week-long meeting will be opened by former Fiji High Court judge and former Vice-President Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi.

At this year’s meeting the members of the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women will seek to agree on prevention strategies that could be used to successfully reduce the high levels of violence against women in the Pacific.

Held every four years since 1992, the Pacific Regional Meeting on Violence Against Women, brings together practitioners from Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The meeting will hear from representatives of Pacific countries on the milestones, challenges and emerging issues in the field of women’s human rights in their respective countries.

Also to be discussed will be law as a prevention strategy, how HIV/AIDS is linked with violence against women, and violence within a cultural and religious context.

Other sessions will include effecting change through community education, building coalitions to combat violence against women and measuring the impact of such work.

The Pacific Regional Meeting on Violence Against Women is supported by AusAID and UNIFEM.