An International Conference on Girmit is scheduled to be held from May 12 to 13 this year at The University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. The Fiji National University, the University of Fiji, the Government of Fiji among others are co-sponsors of the conference.
Titled ‘Celebrating Girmitiya Lives: Documenting, Researching, Writing and Communicating Histories and Lives’, the conference aims to facilitate discourse on all aspects related to histories and lives of Girmitiyas.
‘Girmityas’, referring to all those who can trace their ancestry back to the Indian Indenture System (1834-1921), are estimated to number between 12-15 million worldwide, although no confirmed figures exist. These individuals, who now reside in nearly every country in the world, are bound together by a shared history.
See www.girmit.ac.fj for more details.
