Women and girls are still facing difficulty in pursuing further studies at tertiary institutions.

Graduate Women Fiji believes expectations from society at times affect a woman’s decision to move to another level of education, career or even take-up a leadership role.

President, Ronna Pastorizo-Sekiguchi, says women sometimes face multiple challenges in their career.

“It’s wanting to take a certain level of leadership wherever you are and you feel like you’re expected not to. Because maybe it’s male-dominated. Maybe you’re in that kind of field or whether it’s juggling between being a working mum and a single mum and not having enough support.”

Mentor Tiri Naulivou says that the majority of times, women lack support from one another.

“It’s so important that women support each other especially intersectionalities. You know women with more experience and women who are just coming up. Just being able to interact and share our experiences especially with challenges we’ve been through and how we’ve come out the other side.”

Over the years, the importance of women in matters of nation-building and social reforms have been realized but more needs to be done to ensure gender equality.