A group of 13 women and 4 men will go down as trail blazers in the history of NGO movement in the Pacific having broken away from a government controlled structure to have greater control and autonomy in particular when taking on the role of advocates on women’s human rights.
This is the newly established Women and Children Crisis Centre in Tonga (WCCC) which came into being in October 2009. The TWCCC officially opened its doors on 3 December 2009. According to ‘Ofakilevuka Gutteinbeil-Likiliki, the Coordinator of the new organization the WCCC is set up to provide counseling and support for women and children experiencing gender-
based violence as well as providing shelter services. The TWCCC will also conduct community education programs and advocate and lobby for legislative and policy change.

Keynote speaker at the opening of the Centre, Shamima Ali, Chair of the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women, stressed the importance of programs like the TWCCC in particular in our societies which often misunderstand the underlying causes of VAW. “Violence against women is caused by inequality between women and men, specifically unequal power relations. The imbalance in gender power relations is long- standing, historical and embedded in key social institutions such as the family, the Church, traditional culture and custom, the economy, the law, the education system, the media and the political system. Underlying this systematic and institutionalized gender-based discrimination is a lack of understanding, knowledge and belief in the human rights of all people – which also contributes to an acceptance of violence generally in society as a way of resolving conflict,” said Ali.

Ali went onto to stress the importance of using a human rights framework for all interventions – “this approach recognizes that violence against women is “both a means by which women’s subordination is perpetuated and a consequence of their subordination”.  Ali acknowledged the
groundbreaking work of the Tonga Centre for Women and Children in this area and said that the WCCC has been set up to deliver its work from a human rights framework and to add to work being done in this area.

More than 150 people, from various sectors such as NGOs, the Judiciary, the health sector and faith-based organizations turned up to join the WCCC in its celebrations. In true NGO fashion, the money received during the Tau’olunga performed by the staff and six year-old Alamita Likiliki went towards the rent for the month of January.