The creation of a Men's Department show a fundamental misunderstanding of gender inequality and the purpose of Fiji's existing gender machinery.
This has been highlighted by Fiji Womens Crisis Centre (FWCC) Coordinator Shamima Ali, following a call made by Reverend Manasa Kolivuso last month during the Symposium n Child Sexual Abuuse, who said that it is about time political leaders should have the political will to begin a department that deals with men, who are the perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
Ali says proposing a Men’s Department recentres male privilege in a system where men already dominate parliament, cabinet, business, policing, defence and religious leadership.
Ali stresses that the women's ministry and the national women's machinery exists to correct historic and ongoing inequality, not to give women special treatment.
She says women have been structurally excluded for generations, in law, politics, economic life and national decision-making.
She also warned that establishing a men-specific department would also reduces already scarce resources needed for violence prevention and survivor support, create a false equivalence between men’s challenges and women’s systemic discrimination, and undermine decades of feminist organising that made women visible in national policy.
Ali adds the centre acknowledges that men face real issues, including mental health struggles and pressure from harmful masculine norms, but these require strengthening existing ministries, not building a new one.
