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FARA CAILLARD
In 1999, with the creation of the Union of Citizen Women of New Caledonia, the emancipation of women became a societal project. In 2000, the nonprofit founded the Observatory of the Condition of Women and has, ever since, taken part in the yearly worldwide Women’s March, a movement that fights all discrimination against women. The nonprofit has known great victories, mobilizing its troops to help establish gender equality in politics, but also fighting for the legalization of abortion. It has initiated a reform project that was filed with Congress, striving to compensate the victims of customary status and promote the rights of kanak women. Today, as she takes part in the debates over violence against women, Françoise Caillard knows that nothing can ever be taken for granted.
A native of the island of Lifou, Valentine Holle is one of the first kanak women to attend public school in the 1950s. She still remembers the insults that rained upon her before she imposed herself as Kanak and as woman. Now over 70-years old, the little 5’11’’ woman still seems to fear nothing and especially not men. Still an activist in the angry movement, she presides over the council of women from the southern province. She calls out politicians and members of the customary Senate, which manages the Kanak social and judicial organization, so that kanak women can finally be recognized for their true worth.
Today, the debate over violence against women is out in the open and a law to protect women should soon appear, thanks to the willpower of these feminists, who encourage the new generation to also get angry.
- En pays kanak, Ethnologie, linguistique, archéologie, histoire de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, by Alban Bensa, Isabelle Leblic
Publisher: Maison des sciences de l’homme
- Kanaky, paroles de femmes, Bernard Mounier published by PUF
Through the eyes of New Caledonian women from various social and political backgrounds, this film addresses the various problems faced by New Caledonia: civil customary status, education, culture…
- Josiane et Franciska, deux jeunes filles kanak, Marie-Jeanne Dihan https://vimeo.com/172236725
This film delves into the lives of Josiane and Franciska, two young kanak girls who were schooled at the MFR, Maison Familiale et Rurale de Pwêêdi Wiimîâ. (Pwêêdi Wiimîâ Family Rural Home)
Une quête de la vérité sur la route des larmes
C'est à l’hôtel Bonaventure de Montréal qu'ont eu lieu les premières auditions de la commission d’enquête. Fanny Wylde retrouve Cheryl, de la communauté Mohawk, sidérée par le désintérêt de la police pour la recherche de sa sœur après le signalement de sa disparition. Carleen, mère de trois enfants, sera retrouvée par hasard par un chasseur, sept semaines plus tard, à deux kilomètres de chez elle. Morte. Elle s'est suicidée. Cheryl s’interroge encore sur une forme de racisme, l’apathie politique et l’indifférence des médias qui font passer ces crimes pour de simple faits divers. Pour Cheryl et pour toutes les autres familles de victimes, la commission d’enquête offre une lueur d’espoir et de justice.
Nouméa, the capital, attracts over half of the Kanaks from tribal backgrounds, in search of employment. But the lack of housing and means has resulted in 10,000 people living in squats without running water or electricity, and beneath the poverty line. This is the case of Wattu, from Maré. Since 2009, she has been living “in a shack” on the edge of the Vallon d’Or road. Unemployed, she lives alone with her three children in sweltering heat between sheet metal walls, rust-damaged by the sea air. A life of misery and courage, marked by the fear of losing her children, who belong to their father’s clan, according to the customary status of kanak women. But Wattu clings to hope and dreams of a better future.
Françoise Caillard, born Sipa, is a kanak woman from the “Seriwo” clan. She is a native of Maré Island, on the Loyauté archipelago of New Caledonia. The first thing one notices about her is her striking, luminous gaze as she welcomes us. We are then struck by her strong personality as a female activist, fighting for the condition and rights of women. Françoise Caillard battles on all fronts. Her activism finds its source in the wounds of colonization. From the time she was an adolescent, she has been aware of the discrimination against Kanaks and in particular against kanak women. Ever since then, she has been chasing the dream of an egalitarian society based on respect between men and women. She presents herself as an heir of the global struggle of women “who have risen to claim their share of humanity.”
New Caledonia holds an unfortunate record: that of physical and sexual violence perpetrated against women. In New Caledonia, women are eight times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse than in France. This tragedy is most widespread among the Kanaks, the native people of this [French] overseas territory. This means that one in eight kanak women has suffered sexual abuse, attempted rape or rape before the age of fifteen.
Since the Matignon Agreements (1988), much has been done to atone for the harm of colonization, make up for the backwardness of infrastructure, provide access to education and employment, and redistribute wealth in fairness to the Kanak. Despite these efforts, however, new tensions have sprung up within the kanak tradition itself, in its management of women’s issues and lives. There now exists a rift between those attached to conservative values and those, younger ones, who share a more open outlook.
Still today, violence and rape go unpunished, or are very lightly reprimanded.
The Kanak social structure is undergoing a mutation within a society that is learning coexistence under the terms of the French Republic.
LIFE IS
ALMOST
OF KANAKS
LIVE IN THE CITY
EUROPEANS COMPRISE
OF THE POPULATION
IN NEW-CALEDONIA
THE POPULATION IS
KANAK
OF NEW CALEDONIAN WOMEN
HAVE NO DIPLOMA
NEW CALEDONIAN IS AN
OVERSEAS COLLECTIVITY
EIGHT TIMES MORE SEXUAL AGGRESSION
THAN IN MAINLAND FRANCE
6 OUT OF 10 PEOPLE
SEEKING EMPLOYMENT ARE WOMEN
OF KANAKS
LIVE UNDER THE POVERTY LINE
COLONIZED
BY FRANCE IN
MORE COSTLY IN
NEW-CALEDONIA
THAN IN MAINLAND FRANCE
%
%
%
%
%
%
THE PORTRAIT
THE PORTRAIT
ANGRY WOMEN
ANGRY WOMEN
WOMAN IN A SQUAT
WOMAN IN A SQUAT
VALENTINE HOLLE : THE ROOT OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT
VALENTINE HOLLE : THE ROOT OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT
FARA CAILLARD
VALENTINE : 60 YEARS OF FIGHTING
CRÉDITS
LIVING IN A SQUAT AS A WOMAN
ANGRY WOMEN
TO KNOW MORE
THE PORTRAIT
THE SUBJECT
