CARE Humanitarian Workers: meet Shirleen Ali

Shirleen Ali is the Pacific Gender and Inclusion Senior Advisor for CARE International in the Pacific. She is based in Fiji, and has been fighting inequality her whole career. In this interview, she speaks about her career, and the many ways COVID-19 has compounded issues for women and minorities. Interview given in August 2021.

On Fiji, Her Work, and Herself

I work closely with our local partners here in Fiji and around the Pacific. We do training sessions together, and I visit communities with them during emergency responses, and support them to design the best possible programs and responses to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. My main role is ensuring that our local partners are incorporating a gender-specific approach to their work.

I have experience working in frontline Gender-based violence work. I have worked with women and learned about their life and experiences, and I know how to weave it into a conversation so that they know I can support them if they are experiencing GBV. These learnings and lived experiences are transferred into the work I do with our partners, because it’s vital to be able to do this without putting the woman’s safety at risk. We don’t want to do more harm than good.

Battling gender inequality has been my passion throughout all my career. It’s still such a deeply entrenched problem here in Fiji, across the Pacific, and all around the world — in societies which are dominated by the patriarchy.

Right now I am working with our local partners here in Fiji to make sure that our response to COVID-19 takes into account the environmental, traditional, cultural and societal norms which are harmful to women, and to people of diverse of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics.

RPF and FDPF understand how to do this because they do long term work in communities — they build the connections, whilst doing work in WASH, or food security, or shelter. They value that human rights approach to the work. They actually want to do it and commit to doing it. And it’s their organisation’s culture.

RPF are great at this because they have experience in this and are advocates for women’s rights. It’s lifelong work. They are able to work with all genders and weave tricky topics into the conversation, and they know who to report it to, who to refer the survivors to. Their local knowledge of the community is vital to the success of their work. They and the FDPF have been doing this in Fiji for years. They are the best people for the job.

Rainbow Pride have spent years working in communities where the patriarchal rule is still embedded, and they know how to work within those structures to advocate for people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics.

LGBTIQ+ communities face so much discrimination based on their gender or sexuality, or expression, and RPF have done so much research on this and studied their experiences. And it’s sad because there is still so much discrimination here because Fiji still has very harmful, patriarchal societal norms which are deeply entrenched in its society.

For those of us who do this, it’s not just a job — fighting gender inequality is a way of life. But it’s not like that for everyone — especially in countries like Fiji, where traditional norms can oppress women. Where a woman’s role is still seen to be a wife and a mother and look after the home and the family — doing work which is unrecognised, and unpaid. And my life’s goal is to keep doing my work until I make myself redundant one day when all genders have the same opportunities and are treated equally by society. That would be amazing. But we are still very far off from that day.

The pandemic

I first heard about COVID-19 in February 2020. At first, we weren’t concerned, but as it started spreading around the world, and people started dying, we started worrying.

This wave though, I was preparing to do a workshop with our partners back in April, and the lockdown was called. I worry for our communities because access to basic items like food and water is a challenge during lockdowns. Most of our community members have lost their jobs because they’ve been told to stay home. But if you stay home you don’t get paid. And if you don’t get paid how do you feed your family? And so prices have gone up because others can’t sell their produce. So everything is impacted — the entire socioeconomic situation has changed.

I am so scared of catching COVID-19! Especially because I have underlying health conditions. So I have to be very careful and avoid getting sick at all costs because it would be a challenge to access health services. There is only one doctor in my neighborhood, and she has been isolating because she was exposed to the virus, so she is not accessible. And young people are dying here. An eleven-month-old baby died last month. So the only one in my house who goes out is my husband, and he wears double masks, and a face shield, and he only goes out when he absolutely must and when there is no one else around. My parents live with us, but they stay upstairs and we don’t come near each other. We only interact with each other by phone. I can see them across the yard, but we have not been close to each other. I have not hugged my mother in four months. As soon as the lockdown was called, we stopped coming into contact with each other. We phone each other only. Or yell to each other from a distance.

I am freaked out by COVID — and I don’t want to take a risk and I don’t want any chance of our kids getting sick because the health system will not be able to support us. We are afraid of dying. So we are avoiding contact with others at all costs — even if it means our own family.

I know community workers have tested positive in the course of their work. So they have to be extremely careful not to pass it on to the communities we work with. It is very dangerous being a frontline worker in Fiji at the moment.

As soon as this is over, I’ll hug my mother. Straight away. Meeting families and friends in person again will be so wonderful.

The multiple impacts of COVID on women

And I worry for our communities because so many of them are living with their extended families in the homes with them. Some houses have up to 12 people in them. So more and more people are living in smaller spaces. And we’re asking people to physically distance. And you’ve lost your job, you’re not going to prioritise a mask or sanitiser over food. So people are making their own masks, which don’t work. So it’s a challenge to keep people safe. This is impacting all genders who are vulnerable — calls to Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre support lines have gone up by 300 per cent. That’s a huge, huge spike!. Even men have been calling that number because they are becoming stressed too. Patriarchal society demands that men support their family and provide for them, and they are not able to, so they are becoming stressed. Even men have been calling the support networks reporting thoughts of suicide.

And now COVID-19 is making our jobs much harder, and stands to set our gender equality work back dramatically because of the ways women are affected by disasters. Even before the pandemic hit Fiji, we already had a high rate of unemployment. And it’s women’s jobs that go first, because of the sectors that they work in. With so few women in leadership roles and decision-making positions, there’s not a lot of thought given to the specific challenges faced by women and other genders during this pandemic. Women bear the responsibility for feeding their families, but lockdowns mean they can’t buy food at the markets — or sell produce either, so they can’t make any money to buy food.

Then there’s the increase in violence against women — again, even before the coronavirus spread here, Fiji already had one of the highest rates of GBV in the Pacific, and the Women’s Crisis Centre support line has reported a 300 per cent increase in calls since the pandemic lockdowns were put in place. And this is just women who are able to report their stories! Because lockdowns mean they are stuck at home, with the perpetrators of violence, their movement is restricted, and they can’t necessarily seek help or healthcare, or even have access to their usual support networks. It is a very scary time to be a woman living with a violent man. This is a massive inequality concern.

CARE’s response to increases in GBV

In the wake of a crisis like this, a woman’s best source of help, and her best coping mechanism, is her support network — and COVID has cut off that access because of the necessary separation. And that’s where our partners, The Rainbow Pride Foundation, and the Fiji Disabled People’s Federation are so important. They have been working with the people in their communities for years, and are specifically trained to deal with people who might be enduring gender-based violence, and put them in touch with the right organizations to help them.

That might be the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre who provide counselling for GBV survivors. Or the Medical Services Pacific, who have doctors and nurses who can test rape-survivors for STIs or pregnancy.

The partnerships we form are important because they will drive the success of the work. This is why we carefully choose who we partner with. And why we have chosen RPF and FDPF.

I recently visited a very remote community, right in the centre of one of the islands, with RPF to discuss the impact of TC Yasa and COVID on the community. There are a lot of single mothers there, a lot of widows, some polygamous marriages, many vulnerable women, but when we would ask about GBV, there was a reluctance to acknowledge that it exists. Because culturally, traditionally, it’s just accepted, and it’s still seen as a shameful thing to talk about.

And given the compounding crises of the Cyclone and COVID, by that point, they were just focused on survival, on repairing their shelters, on how they would feed their families, and look after their children. So GBV was so secondary to those immediate needs. But it was evident there. You can tell, after years of doing this work, when something isn’t right in the family. You can tell when there is violence in the home. Especially when you interview a woman and her husband insists on listening in on the interview — that’s an immediate indication that he has something to hide.

“One woman who still haunts me.”

Now, I’ve worked in gender for years. But there was one woman who I met there… Right in the center of the island. Three hours drive by 4WD through treacherous roads. Her home had been blown away by the cyclone, so she was living just under a tarp, which had been given to her.

But imagine the context of living in this region, with no electricity, no telephone, or phone, so no ability to call a toll-free phone number or have any access to support service. How is she going to know what support exists for her? And how are any of the support services going to know she needs help?

So we go to where most NGOs and other organizations don’t go — to informal settlements where women do not have access to services. This particular woman had three young children all aged below ten. And she hadn’t visited the town for over a year — so how would she access GBV support services? Her nearest neighbour is kilometers away. So in this strong, patriarchal community, if she is facing GBV, where does she go for help? Especially in the context of Covid when we can’t move around, how is she going to seek help? It is very sad to see that the systems around us do not accommodate women like her. She told me that after the cyclone destroyed their home, she looked at her kids as they stood there, shivering, starving. They had no water because their water tank had blown away. She said, “I’m in a state of hopelessness.” She had lost hope in finding support for herself. When I asked what she needed, all she wanted was help for her kids to get a good education so that they could one day get out of that situation and have a better life than she had. That woman still haunts me. You think you’ll get used to it, but you don’t. It’s always a fresh reminder of privilege.

When I think about that woman and her children, she had enough food to feed her family just two more meals — after that she didn’t know how she would feed her children. And the children were there looking at me, and their eyes told a haunting story of what they’d gone through. And COVID is making the situation for women like this so much worse. Even though they may not know it. It’s impacting on the services which are available. Even where I live, doctors and healthcare providers are having to isolate as well. Basic healthcare is becoming inaccessible. How do women with underlying health conditions access help? If there is GBV, how will she access her service? Yes, the phone line is there, but under lockdown, can you safely make that call while your abusive husband is nearby? And women in Fiji are so communal — we rely on each other for our support network. And we have lost that because we cannot meet each other in person. So if you are stuck at home with your husband beating you up every day, what are you going to do?

Some islands are only accessible by boat or plane. Other than police and some doctors, all the service providers and healthcare workers would come by boat or plane. The boats might usually go monthly, the planes twice a week. But because of COVID, the planes have stopped, the ships have stopped. What happens then for women on those islands experiencing GBV? How would a woman experiencing GBV access support? The police and doctors there may not know how to handle GBV — they haven’t been trained. Organizations like CARE and RPF help women learn about their options.

“My close friend was murdered by her partner.”

Someone I know who experiences GBV and is not ready to take steps to leave that situation — because for women the hope is always that the violence will stop. I am still trying to help build her confidence and help her feel empowered to leave.

But she needs more support mechanisms. Beyond her own family and friends, she may be able to go into a safe house for a while, and receive food parcels, and counseling. Her finances are her biggest fear. How she will financially support herself and her kids? And COVID has made her situation worse because she is always confined to the house. How does she escape him when she is stuck at home? She calls her friends, but what can we do when we can’t leave our house to intervene?

My close friend was murdered by her partner. One of my very closest friends, Losana McGowan. She was a witness at my wedding. And I didn’t even know she was in a violent relationship. I met her in 2003 when we were both working at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre — supporting GBV survivors. We became close friends.

And in 2015 she was murdered by her partner. He was put in jail but it took years. My circle of friends still all talk about the fact that even though we knew her so well, we never saw the evidence of her partner being violent. I still remember the last time I saw her. I was still living in New Zealand and she visited me one night, and two weeks later she was killed by him. And throughout that last evening, there were signs. She kept having to leave the room to answer a phone call from her partner. He was checking up on her every hour. My husband and I picked up on it instantly. It was the first time we’d ever noticed this from her. And I talked to her about it. I asked her about her husband, and she just glazed over it. Didn’t want to talk about him. Just wanted to focus on being happy talking to me. And then two weeks later she was dead. And the manner in which she was killed was very brutal.

And it made me realize: the signs are there. The signs are there. But we need to continue to raise awareness about what to look out for. For our families, our friends, our daughters, to recognize the signs, and to support our women to speak to at least one person about it. Someone they trust and feel safe with. But that takes time to build trust. Even we, who had known each other for so long, and were so close, I didn’t know.

I still haven’t had the courage to visit her grave because I feel so guilty. The guilt lies inside me, asking me, “She was my friend. I should have known. Could I have done something? Could I have done more?” But I only saw the signs on that last night I saw her. And she’s not the only woman.

In a previous role, I’ve done frontline domestic violence work. I have visited women in hospitals, in their homes, and supported them at court appearances. And over time you realize that GBV is all around us, even when there are no physical signs.

What’s reported in terms of statistics are just those who are able to find the courage and support and the means to report it. But it is a certainty that there is a lot more going on out there. And so many people refuse to acknowledge that it even exists. A lot of women, now with COVID restrictions and lockdowns, it’s unimaginable what women like Losana are going through now.

I was impassioned by what happened to Losana. Soon after that, I got a job back at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre where she and I had met all those years before. And I still work in GBV support to this day.

Changing hearts and minds.

For most people, it’s just another story, just another statistic, just another number, but the reality is: it’s women you know. Women who are your friends, your family. Most people turn a blind eye. But violence in the home leads to death. When women try to leave, the greatest risk is that it will lead to death. That’s why safety planning and support networks, and organizations like RPF and FDPF are so important.

Doing frontline work, it’s hard to go home and not think about it. You don’t see it as work. You see it as your duty as a human being. You want to help women get through this. So you try your best to get them out of that situation. And sometimes your family is your greatest support, but sometimes they’re also your foes. Because you need to challenge years and generations of ingrained thinking that GBV is just an accepted part of life, and believe that women who get hit deserve it. You have to challenge that way of thinking. Women don’t report it because they are worried they are going to be blamed for it. They feel shame. They are worried about what their family might think.

It’s women’s rights organizations who have brought attention to GBV in Fiji, and helped it get called out, and brought it to the forefront of people’s minds, and that advocacy is still going on. There’s still a lot of work to be done.

People need to know and understand that within their environment, GBV exists. And they need to know how they might be perpetuating the culture in which it exists. Everyone always asks “Why didn’t she leave?” But it’s never easy to leave. We need people to be asking what is happening in a society in which GBV can exist. And how we can change it.

We need a society where there aren’t such terrible consequences for the women who report their abusers. The biggest risk is their life. But also, everyone is going to scrutinize her. And put her through a nightmare, even before anyone even starts to investigate her issue. We need to continue to change society so that women are safer.

So I ask people to support systems, structures, people, women’s rights organizations, and organisations like CARE, RPF, FDPF, so that we can continue to do this work. Organizations like CARE ensure that even when we are just distributing a tarp, or a WASH kit, we are weaving in awareness and interventions around GBV, so that rural and remote women and girls are able to safely access services and support systems to help them survive and escape their situation.

We adapt instructions and manuals and training to suit local contexts and cultures in countries across the Pacific. And when we train groups, we start by focusing on the personal perspectives of the individuals. Everyone who undergoes this training brings their own ingrained perspectives on gender with them, so we need them to think about themselves and their values first. That is the first step. It makes people reflect on their own lives, and their own impact on the world around them.

Recently, after one of those sessions, a young man wrote to me to say that he was so glad that he attended, because I made him think about himself and how he could be better. He realized that it starts with him, and how he can be a better man. And better for his family. And then he can apply this in his work too. But it starts with him. One person. And if I can get through to one person out of every 50, that’s excellent. When one person recognizes their power and their privilege and is prepared to change and work with you, then that one person will now be a great ally in this work. And together we can work on changing the hearts and minds of the other 49.