Elizabeth Clayton

Elizabeth Clayton is an Australian businesswoman and social worker, now living in Fiji. She operated a successful furniture business before she turned her interests to welfare issues.

She is well known for having discovered Sujit Kumar, in a child-like state due to neglect, at the age of 29. She took Sujit to live with her along with several other needy boys in Fiji, in a boy's home in Suva called the "Happy Home".

Clayton is the widow of New Zealand mountaineer Roger Buick who died on a solo ascent of Mount Everest in 1998.

More recently, Clayton has been in the news for questioning the motives of pro-democracy activist Laisa Digitaki, her one-time business partner. Digitaki, an opponent of the military coup which deposed the Qarase government on 5 December 2006, claimed to have been physically assaulted by Military personnel, and to have required hospital treatment, during interrogation in the very early hours of Christmas morning. Clayton wondered aloud whether Digitaki might be exaggerating the extent of her injuries, and questioned her judgement in opposing the Military, saying that in her opinion, the deposed government was very corrupt.

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