As Fiji marks International Women’s Day on March 8, 2026, Mereseini Navilo — the newly identified Nadroga District Women’s Network representative for FemLINK Pacific — has published a personal appeal that reframes empowerment as a daily requirement of protection and accountability, not an annual celebration. In a pointed opinion piece titled “When silence protects harm, we lose,” Navilo uses her own experience of marriage, abuse and community silence to argue that loyalty to reputation over survivors corrodes whole communities.
Navilo recounts remarrying as a widow with hope for partnership and a safe home, only to see that hope erode as verbal abuse and, later, physical violence became routine. “Many heard, many saw, few spoke and still, I gave,” she writes, listing the unpaid labour she provided — from paying hospital bills to arranging transport and showing up in corridors of crisis — while receiving humiliation in return. Her testimony centres on a stark observation: when communities give silence instead of protection, they forfeit justice; when families protect reputation over victims, they lose their integrity.
The piece elevates “Give to Gain” from a slogan to a moral framework. Navilo argues that giving women safety, belief and protection yields stronger families, justice and truth; conversely, giving silence, gossip or misplaced loyalty only perpetuates harm. She urges communities to consider what they gave when help was needed, when harm was visible and when strength was required. “Empowerment is not a stage event once a year. It is daily protection,” she states, insisting that accountability — not complicit quiet — must be central to any claim of progress.
Navilo’s intervention arrives against a backdrop of broader national concerns about how speech and silence shape outcomes for victims. In recent months public debate in Fiji has wrestled with the harms of online commentary and the risk that social media chatter can undermine justice. Those conversations underscore Navilo’s warning that witness conduct — whether public posts or private silence — has concrete effects on survivors’ access to support and accountability.
The rep for FemLINK Pacific frames her refusal to be shamed by gossip as a deliberate moral stance: she will not “fight lies with lies” or answer gossip with bitterness, but she will refuse to carry blame that is not hers. Her message is both personal and civic — a challenge to families, faith leaders, neighbours and institutions to move beyond passive observance and towards active protection. For Navilo, dignity is the hinge for future safety: “When we give women dignity, we gain a future free from violence.”
As International Women’s Day prompts ceremonies and statements across Fiji, Navilo’s piece seeks to shift attention from symbolic recognition to everyday practices. By naming the costs of silence and the concrete ways women give labour and care for their families, she reframes empowerment as an obligation shared by communities — a daily giving that, if reciprocated with protection and accountability, will bring meaningful gains.
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