ANSWERS OUR QUESTIONS
The operation of one of Fiji’s leading women civil society organisations, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre came under the spotlight last week after the resignation of two trustees.
Sufinaaz Dean and Maureen Penjueli resigned on separate occasions over a period of two months. They resigned amid allegations of governance issues in the running of the Centre.
Questions posed to the centre’s coordinator, Shamima Ali, are answered below:
Given that you have been the coordinator of FWCC for more than three decades, do you have any succession plan? If not, is this something you will consider?
Succession is important to every successful organisation to remain sustainable and effective - so of course we have a succession plan. We have had one in place for many years.
Does the Centre have a whistleblower policy? If not, what avenues are there for your staff to raise their concerns in a safe space without the fear of being victimised?
We have several whistleblower policies in place which relate to different activities and programmes in which we are involved.
What is your comment on claims of your close ties with some members of the Opposition and spreading antigovernment sentiments at FWCC?
I have engaged with many senior Government officials and politicians, on both the Government and opposition sides, for decades. This is an essential part of my work. FWCC continues to interact with the Police, Welfare and iTaukei Affairs Ministries and the judiciary on critical issues such as domestic violence and we are even funded by the Government to work on domestic violence measures. Lobbying for law and policy changes, and working to get the Government to deliver on its promises, makes this necessary. For example, the Police are supposed to have a “no drop” policy for cases of domestic violence. But this does not happen often in reality. So I communicate with the Commissioner of Police, Government politicians for action and with opposition politicians to demand change.
In the last 18 months, Fiji has had a health and economic crisis of a size we have never seen. The effects on women and children in particular have been devastating. These are the people the Centre is duty-bound to protect and for whom we must advocate. So we have certainly criticised the Government for its ineffectiveness and its unwillingness to work with us to find the best solutions. Their performance has been woeful. This is a view shared by all the organisations in the CSO Alliance for Humanitarian COVID Response. We have all spoken up about this as a coalition.
The Government and the Fiji Sun may believe these are “anti-government sentiments”. They need to get real. Fiji is supposed to be a democracy which allows criticism of people in power, the people who hold the purse-strings of our Government. If they have not performed well, they deserve to be criticised and I will keep criticising them. And it is the Government’s duty, as those who are paid by the people’s money, to respond to that criticism and to communicate with us about what they will do better.
So I have always communicated with all sides of politics to achieve the Centre’s aims.
There are two other things that are important for the Fiji Sun to understand.
(a) We have had long relationships with overseas governments such as Australian and New Zealand and many international NGOs connected with the rights of women and girls and broader human rights. They have given us millions of dollars in funding over the years. These organisations demand transparency and good governance at all times. They require that we have rules for managing conflicts of interest and for responding positively to whistle-blowers. So these are things that we manage at a much higher level than most public organisations and certainly better than most Fiji government organisations. If we do not manage our affairs well, we do not receive this support.
(b) the source of your allegations appears to be a single so-called “whistleblower” who made allegations some years ago. These allegations were largely discredited at the time they were made and, as must be clear, none of our funding or other material support has been affected by it. So you should consider which side – the Centre or the whistleblower – has more credibility among knowledgeable and neutral people.