Afu Billy

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Afu Lia Billy (born 1959) is a women’s rights activist and writer in the Solomon Islands. She helped set up the Solomon Islands National Council of Women and was its general secretary from 1984 to 1988.

She has campaigned for women’s rights and against violence toward women since the late 1970s, working with many local and international groups.

Billy was born on Kwai island in Malaita Province. Her parents, Ariel Billy and Crystal Ufariaia, were evangelical leaders. She grew up in a strict home and was sent to live with her uncle in Honiara to get a better education. She became the first in her family to finish high school, part of the first generation of Solomon Islands women to complete secondary education.

She married young and had two daughters. After years of domestic violence, she divorced, despite her family’s disapproval. She then studied at Charles Sturt University in Australia, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management in 1992.

As an activist, Billy has worked with many women’s groups. She helped found the Solomon Islands National Council of Women and served on the Solomon Islands YWCA board beginning in 1979. She has been co-chair of the Women’s Rights Action Movement and helped start the Family Support Centre to combat violence against women and children. She has also worked with the Commonwealth Youth Programme, Save the Children Australia, and the United Nations Development Programme.

In politics, Billy ran for Parliament in 2001 for East Malaita with the Solomon Islands Alliance for Change, losing by two votes to Joses Wawari Sanga. She ran again in 2006 but did not win. She returned to politics in 2014, joining the People First Party as a youth adviser and vice president.

As a journalist, she worked for the government information service from 1978 to 1981 and helped found the Vois Blong Mere Solomon women’s information network. She hosted a radio program, Olgeta Mere (“Women”), on the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation until 1982. She writes fiction and co-edited Mi Mere: Poetry and Prose by Solomon Islands Women Writers in 1983, with Hazel Lulei and Jully Makini. Her stories include "Loke" and "Against My Will."

She has two daughters from her first marriage and two sons with a former partner.