Status of women in urban squatter settlements in Fiji

Abstract

This thesis aims to assess women's living conditions and family and community participation in Jittu Estate, the largest squatter settlement in Fiji. It reflects on the support services that are available for women in order to meet those challenges that hinder their and their family's development. The research has two primary concerns. Firstly, it focuses on the views of women about their living conditions and family and community participation, and secondly, it identifies the support systems that are available and that the service providers (government and civil society organisations The abbreviation is CSOs and refers to non-government and religious organisations.) claim to provide for women, more precisely in the squatter settlement. To find answers to these issues, quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted. A quantitative approach was used to obtain statistical information from secondary sources and a qualitative approach adopted participatory tools to collect data from the research field. The participatory tools that were adopted were a prioritisation chart, a focus group and open-group interviews and semi-structured interviews. Fifteen women participants are chosen from Jittu Estate using the snowball method, and service providers were chosen via emails, internet home pages and telephone calls. However, a number of service providers were approached using the snowball method, especially when the researcher Throughout this paper, the word 'researcher' is used instead of the pronoun 'she' to acknowledge women of squatter settlements, and at the same time, present the voices of women through the writer. came to realise that the service providers approached were not specialised in the field of the research topic. This thesis identifies those women who live in squatter settlements and lack assistance and support systems, are likely to face a hardship in their living conditions as well as difficulties in family and community participation. The support systems seem to be inadequate and, overall, are ineffective in providing satisfactory services to women, since many service providers do not have gender-specific policies or weak have implementation of the existing gender-specific plans in place to focus specifically on women's needs. This thesis concludes by offering some feedback from women participants that was incorporated in the researcher's recommendations. Hopefully, these recommendations aim to improve women's living conditions and family and community participation, and enhance the working relationship between women of squatter settlements, the government, CSOs and the community.