On 5 March, 2013 at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW57) , Pacific women advocates gathered to discuss a range of experiences in advancing analysis, advocacy and movement-building in a region showing very slow and uneven progress on eliminating violence against women, girls and people with diverse and non-heteronormative sexual orientation and gender identity, and also on overall gender equality gains.

The session was chaired by Virisila Buadromo of Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Fiji. Speakers included the Director of the Department of Women’s Affairs, Dorosday Kenneth Watson of Vanuatu; Leentjie Be’Soer, Voice for Change, Papua New Guinea; Brigitte Leduc, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Nouvelle-Calédonie ; Lucille Sain, Chuuk Youth Council and Pacific Youth Council, of Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia; and Noelene Nabulivou of DAWN, and DIVA for Equality, Fiji.

The speakers raised key risks and possibilities to interrupt, disrupt and transform the continuum of gender and sexual based violence in the Pacific. They spoke of personal, organisational and movement journeys in the Pacific region. Also of the challenges related to state and non-state actor relationships; and the experiences of diverse Pacific women in challenging gender unequal norms, heteronormativity, poverty, state corruption, maldevelopment, extractive industries and more,  in these various small island state environments.