Fiji: Where

A Girl May

Pay To

Get A Job

Sexual blackmail is alive and l malevolent in Fiji, writes a young Fiji Indian woman. In a\ country where losing a job cam mean being forced into am unwanted marriage, the average Fiji girl does not have much i choice but to give in to the ugly whims of her superiors.

A girl hurried down the street, her raven black hair flying in the wind. A group of-young men stood on the footpath. As;

she passed, one hissed]

I Bajaroo ’ (Hindi for whore).|

The tears welled. Moments later, a limousine quietly slid to rest in front of the factory the girl had entered. The group of men signalled their respect to

the pot-bellied factory owner

as he emerged from his carl There lay the irony. Sumintra; was the whore; the factory owner was the man who had made her one.

Sumintra, at 17, is starved for love and affection. For the past five years, life has been hard.

Born a beauty, still a beauty, at 12 her father defiled her be neath his wife’s nose. He threa tened to kill them both if they told. Sumintra’s father dropped her to school dailyj picked her up each afternoonj beat her if he caught her speaks

ing to a boy. According to

Sumintra, he even kept guard outside the door while she went to the bathroom or the lava tory.

After two years, mother and

daughter decided they could

take no more. They escaped to an aunt’s house and told all.

But by the time the three took their story to the police the father had fled Fiji. Mother and daughter felt better times were ahead. But the aunt could not resist the urge to peddle her

gossip. Mother and daughter

found themselves social out casts. Even the aunt and two of Sumintra’s brothers, who took over the family business, disowned her.

Sumintra, at 14. was trained

for nothing. Mother was an un educated ex-housewife. Both tried to get jobs. The ‘news’ always kept ahead of them. In desperation, the two resorted to prostitution. No one wanted to know how or why they had been reduced to this age-old

profession.

They became rolling stones, moving from town to town as soon as their reputations caught up with them. Eventu ally they reached Nadi, home

3f Fiji’s international airport.

\ factory wanted cleaners,

fhey applied. The owner noted

sumintra’s beauty, her

nother’s handsome profile, fhey were hired.

Within a month the owner nade clear his intentions, fheir duties, he informed hem, also involved sleeping vith him. They had little iption but to agree. Sumintra nd mother joined the ranks of iundreds of women and girls a Fiji who every day have to uccumb to sexual blackmail to old their jobs.

Working women are still in

i minority in Fiji. Any female

Hio finds a job is considered ucky because it gives her a per onal security. But the difficult cs do not lie only is getting a oh. Keeping it is often more

lifficult. Sumintra’s case high

ights the agony. Abortion in r iji is illegal. In two years she nderwent three abortions.

Women who work for the : iji civil service, the Fiji Sugar ’orporation and the various anks, are the lucky ones. In

lese jobs there are no strings

ttached. They only have to

fork efficiently and diligently

nd their jobs -are usually se

ure. Sexual blackmail is sually the practice of usinessmen and some poli cians. It is the female who 'orks for the smaller concern 'ho is the most likely victim.

Girls who try to get work

;raight after leaving high

:hool are hopelessly inex

erienced in dealing with the pposite sex. Despite the grow ig influence of Western cul ire, Fiji is still a basically Dnservative country, par cularly in its attitude toward omen. Though 50% of the opulation is female, women njoy no equality in the true mse of the word.

There are some women’s or

ganisations working toward the idea of equality and a few women who can boast they have it. But, generally, women are subordinate to men.

The conservatism is most marked in the Fiji Indian com

munity. Boy-girl relations are

openly discouraged. A girl

caught with a boy is severely reprimanded. High schools are remarkably narrow in their attitude toward boy-girl friend ships in school. One school a few months ago, banned girls and boys from talking to one

another except, when necess ary, in the classroom. One boy complained in the local press that he could not even wish a girl ‘Good morning’.

This senior school separation hardly prepares a girl for what is to follow on leaving school.

Experience of social contact between boy and girl, even tol erance of puppy love, would help build a girl’s resistance to the schemings of lecherous old men.

Some sexual blackmail is

subtle. Other approaches are horrifyingly blunt. A senior male staff member or a boss might keep a female late in the office. Then he will drop her home. Along the way he will compliment her which she may find pleasant, knowing that when she gets home her relatives won’t give a damn whether she’s had a good day or not, or what she looks like.

During one of these trips he will invite her to a dinner. The first invitation is usually turned down. He plays it cool and re peats the invitation. To ward off suspicions he might even invite the woman to bring her

husband. The dinner, he will tell her, is a gesture of his ap preciation for her work. Then the boss will tell her of his problems with his wife, how she doesn’t understand him.

And so on. She is being lured by the ‘soft sell’.

Others don’t beat about the bush. Kasturi, a typist, worked for a small company. She never got a rise. She asked the boss for one. Shamelessly, he offered her SFSO plus fringe benefits such as driving lessons, the use of his car and some pieces of furniture, if shre would become his mistress. Kasturi,

recently married, fled, leaving

the office staff agape.

But her problems were only

just beginning. Because she

had left her job, her husband’s attitude changed. She no longer had any money of her own to buy items for herself.

Quarrels began. Bitterness set in. Separation was the result.

But not every female is reluctant to play along. Kirtan was happy to sell her body for money, jewelry and clothes.

The rot set in when she found herself being set aside for a newcomer. The crunch finally came when, in a fury, she stormed into her union office saying her boss had bribed her to leave the union. Kirtan was fired. The union failed to get her reinstated. The scandal spread far and wide. Kirtan’s husband kicked her out.

Ironically, some of the men who indulge in sexual black mail are part of a group of fathers who will go to any length to ensure that their daughters remain chaste. One wealthy man, a well-known Casanova, came across a letter his teenage daughter had received from her boyfriend.

An SOS went out to friends in Canada. Soon the daughter was on her way out of temp tation.

Women have few voices fighting for them. An indi cation that unions by and large have male needs on their minds more than female came in a log of claims by the Fiji Mineworkers’ union some years back. It wanted a ‘sex break’ for its members.

Of course, there are excep tions. Some bosses genuinely care for their staff. But for the victims the agony tends to go on long after the first degra dation. Sometimes the situ ation arises where a young woman’s parents hold her boss, who already has the daughter sleeping with him, in high esteem. They may even ask his opinion about whom their

.daughter should marry. Young

women in this situation find it difficult to communicate with their parents.

In a country like Fiji, where at the beginning of 1978 there were 17 000 registered jobless, where losing a job can mean being forced into an unwanted

marriage or being deprived of

the simple luxuries of life, the average girl does not have much choice but to give in to the ugly whims of her su

perior.