Let’s be clear: we are not here to be managed. We are not here to fit our lives, our survival, or our movements into the neat, sanitised boxes of calendar-based NGO project cycles or corporate development jargon.

At a powerhouse Feminist Disruption and Direction: Gender Justice, SRHR & SOGIESC in the Pacific panel at Women Deliver 2026, grassroots feminist activists and frontline women and human rights defenders from across the Pacific disrupted the status quo. Co-moderated by Noelene Nabulivou and Viva Tatawaqa, Co-Executive Directors of Diverse Voices in Action (DIVA) for Equality, the room was a radical feminist space of resistance. Grounded in a profound acknowledgement of unceded First Nations lands, the session was a fierce reminder that our struggle is intersectional, interlinked and intergenerational, our bodies are political, and our decolonial fight cannot be compartmentalised.

“We Carry the Injustice in Our Bodies”

Opening the session, Noelene Nabulivou broke down the 14-year journey of DIVA for Equality; moving from within a grounded management collective set of organising to being a powerful feminist network of lesbian, bisexual, trans masculine, gender non-binary Pacific Islanders working with all women, all people, all human rights on social, economic, ecological and climate justice. She didn’t hold back on how neo-colonial donor structures try to dilute grassroots organizing, demanding instead a radical feminist praxis of continuous action and political reflection.

“We carry every single right and injustice in our bodies… One of the most stupid arguments for not doing intersectional work is that it’s a really, really long word. We claim it, and there is a reason why we claim it.” — Noelene Nabulivou

For true liberation, Noelene outlined our feminist non-negotiables:

  • Centering both individual rights and collective, communal sovereignty.
  • Embracing an embodied, intersectional analysis of power.
  • Smashing thematic silos, because climate justice is economic justice, which is reproductive justice and so on.
  • Holding the line for genuine, self-determined Indigenous and First Nations leadership.

The panel brought together a diverse group of activist panelists who refuse to let their identities be siloed or tokenized:

  • Melania “Mela” Tanoa (Co-lead, Disability Pride Hub): Mela laid bare the violent structural neglect faced by LGBTQ+ women with disabilities in Fiji. She spoke of the systemic erasure of deaf communities  in medical settings, sharing the painful loss of a deaf sister who passed away after a C-section simply because hospitals refuse to provide sign language interpreters. “Inclusivity is not a buzzword,” Mela reminded us. It requires dismantling barriers so that no one is left to navigate life-and-death healthcare in isolation.
  • Krishneer “Krish” Sen (Founder, Disability Pride Hub): What started as a group of friends surviving the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic has grown into a vital political space. Krish shattered the puritanical, ableist myth that disabled people are asexual, demanding that their sexual and reproductive rights be fiercely defended. He called for disaggregated data owned by the community to force states to provide safe, dignified living conditions and emphasized that the work they are engaging is translating gender justice, SRHR & SOGIESC words into Fiji Sign Languages.
  • Julia Evans (Owner & Co-founder, RedPack): Taking on period poverty in the Cook Islands, Julia exposed the capitalist exploitation of menstruation, where commercial plastic pads cost $7 against a $9 minimum wage and pollute the land for 500 years. Backed with funding support from the Pacific Feminist Fund, Julia’s collective creates reusable alternatives, distributing them free to schools to heal the colonial shame and stigma that erased indigenous celebrations of SRHR language.
  • Moneka De Oro (Micronesia Climate Change Alliance – MCCA): Speaking from the heavily militarized, US-occupied territory of Guåhan (Guam), Moneka connected the dots between colonial military occupation, environmental racism, skyrocketing cancer rates, and domestic violence. When Super Typhoon Mawar hit, it wasn’t the state that saved people; it was feminist mutual aid networks. Moneka called for deep, trans-Pacific feminist solidarity that links sovereign Pacific nations with occupied Indigenous struggles to disrupt global platforms like the UN.
  • Sophy Rodrodro (Co-founder, Strumphet Alliance Network): Sophy brought the indispensable voices of Pacific sex workers to the center. She called out the state-sanctioned violence, criminalization, and intense stigma that pushes sex workers to the margins of healthcare and leaves them unsafe in disaster evacuation shelters. Decriminalization, Sophy insisted, is a fundamental baseline for human rights and bodily autonomy. 
  • Louisa Hareirua Wall (Women’s Chair, ILGA Oceania & Pacific LBQ Technical Working Group): Louisa grounded the space in an indigenous framing of disruption, reminding us that pushing back against oppressive systems is simply the living practice of indigenous values and sovereign beliefs. Reclaiming the sacred, eternal lineage of queer identities across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean), she noted: “Across the Pacific, our identities have existed mai rānoa—forever. We know inherently that we’re not broken. Nothing’s wrong with us, but we have a broken world and a broken system that doesn’t allow us to be exactly who we are as mokopuna—as the imprints of our ancestors.” She honored DIVA’s radical feminist inclusivity; noting they never leave the station until everyone is safely on the collective bus; before performing a powerful Māori chant (waiata) celebrating the absolute heart of the struggle: the people (he tangata).
  • Tamani Rarama (Pacific Feminist SRHR Coalition Programme, DIVA for Equality): Identifying as an Indigenous, gender non-conforming young person, Tamani laid bare the grueling reality of organizing within deeply heteropatriarchal Pacific societies facing double the global rate of gender-based violence, lowest legislative representation of women, and ongoing criminalization of homosexuality. Tamani brought a sobering critique of mainstream funding models, lifting up the invisible, heavy labour of feminist accompaniment, walking side-by-side with survivors and queer folks through socio-economic, legal and justice systems, and direct mutual aid like physically moving water tanks to frontlines of the climate crisis. Celebrating trust-based feminist funding from Pacific Feminist Fund, Urgent Action Fund – Asia and Pacific and others, Tamani highlighted how flexible resources allow the movement to intentionally bypass colonial frameworks that systematically exclude occupied territories like West Papua, Kanaky, and the Northern Pacific.

“We Refuse For You To Refuse Us”

The struggle stretches far beyond the walls of any conference room. With the Pacific Feminist SRHR Coalition now standing 250 members and 150 organizations strong across 22 Pacific Island states and territories,  our movements have a collective blueprint: a list of 10 Pacific Feminist Gender Justice, SRHR & SOGIESC priorities to shift regional power dynamics, backed by a newly launched Pacific Women Lead SOGIESC and SRHR guidance note authored by Noelene Nabulivou and Kris Prasad to completely eliminate institutional excuses that this work is “too hard.”

Wrapping up the session, Noelene Nabulivou called out the hypocrisy of governments and funders who loudly state that “the answers are in the movements” while refusing to shift actual resources, power, and analytical control to the frontlines. Reflecting on over 40 years of organizing, she urged activists to stop tearing one another down and instead focus our collective line of fire on dismantling patriarchy to protect our rapidly crossing planetary boundaries.

Recalling how a decade ago, queer feminists could not even enter traditional, indigenous women’s networks in Fiji, Noelene celebrated the radical persistence that has forced those doors open today: 

“We wouldn’t even have solidarity partners within that space if we hadn’t taken the first small step to say: we are going to work with you regardless. You are human, you are a woman, and you are here to work with us. We refuse for you to refuse us.”

The baseline has been set. The tools exist. The interlinkages are clear. We depart the room not to adapt to the system, but to break and rebuild it for the seven generations to come.

In solidarity. To align with the 10 Key Priorities or connect with regional organizing, reach out to the DIVA for Equality and/or the Pacific Feminist SRHR Coalition.