Shamima Ali

Shamima is the Coordinator of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (since 1986). Much of her work has been in advocating for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls and advancing women’s human rights in Fiji and the Pacific.

She is also the founder and chair of the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women and a founding member of the:

• Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (1986)
• APWLD (1986)
• NGO Coalition on Human Rights (1998)
• 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women (Rutgers University, 1991)

Additionally, Shamima also served as a Human Rights Commissioner in Fiji from 2004 to 2006.

She has received recognition for her years of service in the Pacific region on behalf of women, which has included:

• being the recipient of Vanuatu’s 40th Anniversary Presidential Medal 2022 for supporting the work on women’s human rights in the Pacific region
• Pacific Person of the Year by Islands Business Magazine in 2011 for her work on the elimination of violence against women and promoting human rights
• the Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural Human Rights Defender Award in 2009
• Named one of 100 influential persons of the last century in Fiji for her work on the advancement of women’s rights (Twentieth Century Fiji – People Who Shaped this Nation, ed. Stewart Firth and Daryl Tarte)

Shamima is a self-proclaimed passionate feminist and human rights activist.