Roshika Deo

Roshika Deo is a Fijian feminist and activist. She is the founder of the Be The Change Campaign/Movement in Fiji, which is a movement endorsing feminism, LGBTQI, disability rights, human rights, and environmentalism. The mission of her organisation is to transform Fiji's social, political, economic, and cultural landscape.

Roshika Deo, in 2014.

Career

In 2009 Deo became the youngest person in the Pacific region to have received the Paul Harris Fellowship Award, which she was given in recognition of her enthusiasm and commitment to helping her community.[1] She was nominated for the Amnesty International Human Rights Defender award in 2013. She also received US Secretary of State International Women of Courage Award from Michelle Obama in 2014, once again the youngest Pacific recipient to date.[2]

Roshika Deo was a candidate in the general elections in September 2014 and ran as an independent. She campaigned alone during the election and declined assistance from well-known parties because they lacked a clear stance on her main rights-based issues.[3] Deo fell short of the votes needed by a large margin receiving 1055 out of the 248,183 votes needed to win.[4][5]

After the election, she started working to create the planned Be The Change Party in order to transform her commitment to LGBTQI, women's, and human rights into a platform for political engagement and to give young people in Fiji a voice.

Deo's career as a female politician in Fiji has garnered international interest. During the 2016 DLP Annual Conference, Priya Chattier, Research Fellow in Gender at the Australian National University's State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia Program, discussed "Power, Politics, and Positive Deviance," which included a presentation on Deo's experience.[4][3]

She is also known for her advocacy and work in the area of women's rights and ending violence against girls and women.[6]

Personal life

Roshika Deo belongs to an Indo-Fijian Hindu family. Her father Indar Deo was a councillor, a politician for the National Alliance Party, and a businessman, who now lives in Australia.

Deo attended Suva Grammar School and holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of the South Pacific (USP).

See also

References
  1. "Balance" (PDF). Fiji Women's Rights Movement. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  2. "Bios of 2014 Award Winners". state.gov. Archived from the original on 2014-03-07.
  3. "Fiji's Roshika Deo - outlier, positive deviant or simply feisty feminist?". www.dlprog.org. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  4. Developmental Leadership Program (DLP) (2016-02-26), Priya Chattier: The political journey of Roshika Deo in Fiji's 2014 elections, retrieved 2017-03-07
  5. Chattier, Priya. "Fiji's women speak up in growing numbers inside parliament". The Conversation. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  6. Pacific Women. "Fiji and Vanuatu Rise to End Violence Against Women".
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