A new law in Papua New Guinea, requiring a political parties to meet a quota for fielding women candidates, is being described as a step in the right direction, but maybe not far enough.

The new elections rule that women must make up 10 percent of parties’ endorsed candidates was recently announced by Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates Commission (IPPCC).

The law is an affirmative action aimed at trying to address the chronic lack of women as elected representatives in the country.

• READ MORE: Other women in PNG politics reports

There are currently three women MPs in PNG’s 111-seat Parliament. Since the country gained independence 50 years ago, only 10 women have been elected MPs.

Persistent cultural norms continue to disadvantage women, but attitudes are slowly changing.

Yet to be tested
A PNG academic specialising in gender equity in governance, Dr Orovu Sepoe, who is also a former chair of the commission, said Parliament passed the law but it has yet to be tested.

“We’ll wait and see how it turns out in the 2027 election. As an affirmative direction, it’s good, but could have been thought out carefully,” she said.

“There are other issues. How many political parties will actually actively seek out women candidates? They’re not very good at doing that for women candidates in the PNG context.”

Dr Sepoe said that the law’s compliance measures could mean it has limited impact.

The penalties for parties who fail the quota in consecutive elections are de-registration and a fine of 5000 kina (about NZ$1900), which she admitted was “peanuts” for the main political parties.

“There is a catch here that I thought might present challenges because the penalties will only apply after two consecutive elections, rather than just one, rather than straight away,” she said, noting that a general election takes place only every five years.

Party leaders
People’s Reform Party leader and East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said the rule was a good idea, indicating the main parties should have no trouble complying.

“I think everyone complies, all the political parties comply. In the case of my party, we’re running about 30 candidates, and so three of those will definitely be women, in order to comply,” Bird said.

Social Democratic Party leader Powes Parkop also said his party would meet, if not exceed, the threshold.

Parkop, who is also chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, described the rule as a positive discrimination measure, saying it was a welcome step, even if temporary.

“We need to take all steps necessary towards achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, and more importantly, creating a environment by which we can overcome all the barriers that impede women from having a equal playing field to be able to contest with everybody else, men especially, to have a chance to be elected to National Parliament,” he said.

Parkop said whether other parties follow the rule would depend on their selection processes, acknowledging that women are disadvantaged at every level of the political process.

“The reality in PNG is that everything is tough against women in PNG, especially having access to resources, financial resources, is hard for them, and culturally they are not seen as leaders, or traditionally not playing that leadership role.”

Unfinished business
PNG’s Parliament has grappled with affirmative action on gender equality in politics before.

Back in 2011, a proposal to create 22 reserved seats for women in the Haus Tambaran gained limited support among PNG’s “big men” of politics, and subsequent other attempts got nowhere.

“It is still an unfinished agenda, as far as I’m concerned, at the moment,” Dr Sepoe said.

“In the recent past, we’ve not had the political will to make it come into effect, so that’s where we are now.

“There have been talks, there have been conversations, discussions about doing a lot more, but we’re only a year away from the election, and how much time do we have to bring any substantive changes for special seats in parliament?”

In the past two general elections in PNG, women made up only around five percent of overall candidates. The fact that it resulted in less than three percent of MPs elected being women is telling.

This new quota rule may be a small step, but in PNG any step towards addressing the gender imbalance in Parliament is better than nothing.

Parkop said the move may not change the entire dynamics, but it is a step in the right direction.

“And that’s what PNG needs. We need to create a step by which we can enable women to have an opportunity to be elected.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Despite calls from women’s groups urging the government to implement policies to address the underrepresentation of women in politics, the introduction of temporary special measures (TSM) to increase women’s political representation in Fiji remains a distant goal.

This week, leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa), Cabinet Minister Aseri Radrodro, and opposition MP Ketal Lal expressed their objection to reserving 30 percent of parliamentary seats for women.

Radrodro, who is also Education Minister, told The Fiji Times that Fijian women were “capable of holding their ground without needing a crutch like TSM to give them a leg up”.

• READ MORE: Pacific women in Parliament

Lal called the special allocation of seats for women in Parliament “tokenistic” and beneficial to “a few selected individuals”, as part of submissions to the Fiji Law Reform Commission and the Electoral Commission of Fiji, which are undertaking a comprehensive review and reform of the Fiji’s electoral framework.

Their sentiment is shared by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who said at a Pacific Technical Cooperation Session of the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Suva earlier this month, that “putting in women for the sake of mere numbers” is “tokenistic”.

Rabuka said it devalued “the dignity of women at the highest level of national governance.”

“This specific issue makes me wonder at times. As the percentage of women in population is approximately the same as for men, why are women not securing the votes of women? Or more precisely, why aren’t women voting for women?” he said.

Doubled down
The Prime Minister doubled down on his position on the issue when The Fiji Times asked him if it was the right time for Fiji to legislate mandatory seats for women in Parliament as the issue was gaining traction.

“There is no need to legislate it. We do not have a compulsory voting legislation, nor do we yet need a quota-based system.

However, Rabuka’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Speaker Lenora Qereqeretabua holds a different view.

Qereqeretabua, from the National Federation Party, said in January that Parliament needed to look like the people that it represented.

“Women make up half of the world’s population, and yet we are still fighting to ensure that their voices and experiences are not only heard but valued in the spaces where decisions are made,” she told participants at the Exploring Temporary Special Measures for Inclusive Governance in Fiji forum.

She said Fiji needed more women in positions of power.

“Not because women are empirically better leaders, because leadership is not determined by gender, but because it is essential for democracy that our representatives reflect the communities that they serve.”

‘Shameless’ lag
Another member of Rabuka’s coalition government, one of the deputy prime ministers in and a former Sodelpa leader, Viliame Gavoka said in March 2022 that Fiji had “continued to shamelessly lag behind in protecting and promoting women’s rights and their peacebuilding expertise”.

He pledged at the time that if Sodelpa was voted into government, it would “ensure to break barriers and accelerate progress, including setting specific targets and timelines to achieve gender balance in all branches of government and at all levels through temporary special measures such as quotas . . . ”

However, since coming into power in December 2022, Gavoka has not made any advance on his promise, and his party leader Radrodro has made his views known on the issue.

Fijian women’s rights and advocacy groups say that introducing special measures for women is neither discriminatory nor a breach of the 2013 Constitution.

In a joint statement in October last year, six non-government organisations called on the government to enforce provisions for temporary special measures for women in political party representation and ensure that reserved seats are secured for women in all town and city councils and its committees.

“Nationally, it is unacceptable that after three national elections under new electoral laws, there has been a drastic decline in women’s representation from contesting national elections to being elected to parliament,” they said.

“It is clear from our history that cultural, social, economic and political factors have often stood in the way of women’s political empowerment.”

Short-term need
They said temporary special measures may need to be implemented in the short-term to advance women’s equality.

“The term ‘temporary special measures’ is used to describe affirmative action policies and strategies to promote equality and empower women.

“If we are to move towards a society where half the population is reflected in all leadership spaces and opportunities, we must be gender responsive in the approaches we take to achieve gender equality.”

The Fijian Parliament currently has only five (out of 55) women in the House — four in government and one in opposition. In the previous parliamentary term (2018-2022), there were 10 women directly elected to Parliament.

According to the Fiji Country Gender Assessment report, 81 percent of Fijians believe that women are underrepresented in the government, and 72 percent of Fijians believe greater representation of women would be beneficial for the country.

However, the report found that time and energy burden of familial, volunteer responsibilities, patriarchal norms, and power relations as key barriers to women’s participation in the workplace and public life.

Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) board member Akanisi Nabalarua believes that despite having strong laws and policies on paper, the implementation is lacking.

Lip service
Nabalarua said successive Fijian governments had often paid lip service to gender equality while failing to make intentional and meaningful progress in women’s representation in decision making spaces, reports fijivillage.com.

Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry said Rabuka’s dismissal of the women’s rights groups’ plea was premature.

Chaudhry, a former prime minister who was deposed in a coup in 2000, said Rabuka should have waited for the Law Reform Commission’s report “before deciding so conclusively on the matter”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

US President Donald Trump and his team is pursuing a white man’s racist agenda that is corrupt at its core. Trump’s advisor Elon Musk, who often seems to be the actual president, is handing his companies multiple contracts as his team takes over or takes down multiple government departments and agencies.

Trump wants to be the “king” of America and is already floating the idea of a third term, an action that would be an obvious violation of the US Constitution he swore to uphold but is doing his best to violate and destroy.

Every time we hear the Trump team spouting a “return to America’s golden age,” they are talking about 60-80 years ago, when white people ruled and schools, hospitals, restrooms and entire neighborhoods were segregated and African Americans and other minority groups had little opportunity.

• READ MORE: Obama praises Harvard for ‘setting example’ to universities resisting Trump
• Other Giff Johnson articles

Every photo of leaders from that time features large numbers of white American men. Trump’s cabinet, in contrast to recent cabinets of Democratic presidents, is mainly white and male.

This is where the US going. And lest any white women feel they are included in the Trump train, think again. Anything to do with women’s empowerment — including whites — is being scrubbed off the agenda by Trump minions in multiple government departments and agencies.

“Women” along with things like “climate change,” “diversity,” “equality,” “gender equity,” “justice,” etc are being removed from US government websites, policies and grant funding.

The white racist campaign against people of colour has seen iconic Americans removed from government websites. For example, a photo and story about Jackie Robinson, a military veteran, was recently removed from the Defense Department website as part of the Trump team’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Broke whites-only colour barrier
Robinson was not only a military veteran, he was the first African American to break the whites-only colour barrier in Major League Baseball and went on to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for his stellar performance with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

How about the removal of reference to the Army’s 442nd infantry regiment from World War II that is the most decorated unit in US military history? The 442nd was a fighting unit comprised of nearly all second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who more than proved their courage and loyalty to the United States during World War II.

The Defense Department removing references to these iconic Americans is an outrage. But showing the moronic level of the Trump team, they also deleted a photo of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II because the pilot named it after his mother, “Enola Gay.”

Despite the significance of the Enola Gay airplane in American military history, that latter word couldn’t get past the Pentagon’s scrubbing team, who were determined to wash away anything that hinted at, well, anything other than white, heterosexual male. And there is plenty more that was wiped off the history record of the Defense Department.

Meanwhile, Trump, his team and the Republican Party in general while claiming to be focused on eliminating corruption is authorising it on a grand scale.

Elon Musk’s redirection of contracts to Starlink, SpaceX and other companies he owns is one example among many. What is happening in the American government today is like a bank robbery in broad daylight.

The Trump team fired a score of inspectors general — the very officials who actively work to prevent fraud and theft in the US government. They are eliminating or effectively neutering every enforcement agency, from EPA (which ensures clean air and other anti-pollution programmes) and consumer protection to the National Labor Relations Board, where the mega companies like Musk’s, Facebook, Google and others have pending complaints from employees seeking a fair review of their work issues.

Huge cuts to social security
Trump with the aid of the Republican-controlled Congress is going to make huge cuts to Medicaid and Social Security — which will affect Marshallese living in America as much as Americans — all in order to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans and big corporations.

Then there is Trump’s targeting of judges who rule against his illegal and unconstitutional initiatives — Trump criticism that is parroted by Fox News and other Trump minions, and is leading to things like efforts in the Congress to possibly impeach judges or restrict their legal jurisdiction.

These are all anti-democracy, anti-US constitution actions that are already undermining the rule of law in the US. And we haven’t yet mentioned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its sweeping deportations without due process that is having calamitous collateral damage for people swept up in these deportation raids.

ICE is deporting people legally in the US studying at US universities for writing articles or speaking about justice for Palestinians. Whether we like what the writer or speaker says, a fundamental principle of democracy in the US is that freedom of expression is protected by the US constitution under the First Amendment.

That is no longer the case for Trump and his Republican team, which is happily abandoning the rule of law, due process and everything else that makes America what it is.

The irony is that multiple countries, normally American allies, have in recent weeks issued travel advisories to their citizens about traveling to the United States in the present environment where anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t fit into a male or female designation is subject to potential detention and deportation.

The immigration chill from the US will no doubt reduce visitor flow resulting in big losses in revenue, possibly in the billions of dollars, for tourism-related businesses.

Marshallese must pay attention
Marshallese need to pay attention to what’s happening and have valid passports at the ready. Sadly, if Marshallese have any sort of conviction no matter how ancient or minor it is likely they will be targets for deportation.

Further, even the visa-free access privilege for Marshallese and other Micronesians is apparently now under scrutiny by US authorities based on a statement by US Ambassador Laura Stone published recently by the Journal

It is a difficult time being one of the closest allies of the US because the RMI must engage at many levels with a US government that is presently in turmoil.

Giff Johnson is the editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and one of the Pacific’s leading journalists and authors. He is the author of several books, including Don’t Ever Whisper, Idyllic No More, and Nuclear Past, Unclear Future. This editorial was first published on 11 April 2025 and is reprinted with permission of the Marshall Islands Journal. marshallislandsjournal.com

Freedom of speech at the Marshall Islands High School

The above is one section of the outer wall at Marshall Islands High School. Surely, if this was a public school in America today, these messages would already have been whitewashed away by the Trump team censors who don’t like any reference to “inclusiveness,” “women,” and especially “gender equality.”

However, these messages painted by MIHS students are very much in keeping with Marshallese society and customary practices of welcoming visitors, inclusiveness and good treatment of women in this matriarchal society.

But don’t let President Trump know Marshallese think like this. — Giff Johnson

Vanuatu’s only incumbent female parliamentarian has lost her seat in a snap election leaving only one woman candidate in contention after an unofficial vote count.

The unofficial counting at polling locations indicated the majority of the 52 incumbent MPs have been reelected but also with some high profile departures.

Former deputy prime minister Jotham Napat, head of the Leaders Party, has secured up to nine MPs, putting him in poll position to try to form a coalition government.

• READ MORE: Leaders Party on track to be Vanuatu’s largest bloc as coalition talks underway
• Vanuatu one month on: aftershocks, a no-go zone and anxiety
• Other Vanuatu election reports

Vanuatu’s snap election last Thursday was called in November and held in spite of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that devastated the capital Port Vila in December.

The election results will be confirmed by the official count of votes in the capital once all ballot boxes have been transported from electorates to Port Vila.

Former female MP Julia King from the Efate constituency has likely lost her seat.

She made international headlines in 2022 as the first woman elected in Vanuatu in more than a decade and only the sixth woman to serve in Parliament since the nation’s independence in 1980.

Only hope for women
Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

“The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

“There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

“The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

“There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

Gender disappointment
The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

“We will wait for the official results, and if that turns out to be true, it is a sad reality for our country (that) women continue to face significant challenges in entering Parliament,” Naupa told BenarNews.

“We really need to look back at systems we have in place to help facilitate voices of women and vulnerable groups in our society.

“This means the new legislature needs to pull up its socks to listen to all people, at every level of society.”

This election there were seven women among the 217 candidates contesting, matching the number in 2022 but down from 18 in 2020.

Several high profile MPs losing seats
The unofficial results show several high profile MPs are likely to lose their seats, including four-time prime minister Sato Kilman, head of the People’s Progressive Party.

Leaders from seven parties were re-elected including former prime minister Charlot Salwai from the Reunification Movement for Change, former prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau of the Union of Moderate Parties and former foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu of the Graon mo Jastis Pati.

“I am happy to return again and start working very soon — that’s all I have to say for now,” Regenvanu told BenarNews.

Other leaders thanked their voters on social media for their re-election.

Hopes for a generational change in Parliament rest with the few new MPs who look likely to be elected, including Matai Kaltabang in Julia King’s former electorate in Efate.

If elected, the member of the Iauko Group will be the youngest person in the 14th Parliament, at the age of 28 years old, and one of the youngest ever elected.

Parliamentary standing orders require the first sitting of the house be convened within 21 days of the election.

Despite the setbacks in the unofficial results for women, Milne remains optimistic, urging the six other female candidates who participated in the elections to persevere.

“I encourage them to never give up, build on what they have, and continue to make a difference in their communities so that in four years, we can see more women represented in Parliament,” she said.

Leah Lowonbu is a BenarNews contributor. Stefan Armbruster contributed to this report from Brisbane. Copyright BenarNews 2025 and republished with permission.

The lack of women representation in parliaments across the world remains a vexed and contentious issue.

In Fiji, this problem has again surfaced for debate in response to Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica’s call for a quota system to increase women’s representation in Parliament.

Kamikamica was speaking at the “Capacity Building Training for Prospective Women and Youth Candidates in Local Elections” workshop in Suva in November last year.

• READ MORE: Other gender in Pacific politics reports

The workshop was organised by Suva-based civil society organisation, Dialogue Fiji, in collaboration with Emily’s List Australia and funded by Misereor.

Kamikamica noted that women’s representation in Fiji’s Parliament peaked at 20 percent in 2018, only to drop to 14 percent after the 2022 elections.

He highlighted what he saw as an anomaly — 238,389 women voted in the 2022 election, surpassing men’s turnout.

However, women candidates garnered only 37,252 votes, accounting for just 8 percent of the total votes cast. This saw only six out of 54 female candidates elected to Parliament.

Reducing financial barriers
He said implementing supportive policies and initiatives, such as reducing financial barriers to running for office and providing childcare support could address some of the structural challenges faced by aspiring female leaders.

While agreeing with Kamikamica’s supportive remarks, Suva-based lawyer and former journalist Sainiana Radrodro called for urgent and concrete actions to empower aspiring women candidates besides just discussions.

She identified finance, societal norms and more recently, bullying on social media, as major obstacles for women aspiring for political careers. She said measures to address these problems were either insufficient, or non-existent.

Radrodro, who participated in the 2024 Women’s “Mock Parliament”, supports a quota system, but only as a temporary special measure (TSM). TSM is designed to advance gender equality by addressing structural, social, and cultural barriers, correcting past and present discrimination, and compensating for harm and inequalities.

The lawyer said that TSM could be a useful tool if applied in a measured way, noting that countries that rushed into implementing it faced a backlash due to poor advocacy and public understanding.

She recommends TSM based on prior and proper dialogue and awareness to ensure that women elected through such measures are not marginalised or stereotyped as having “ridden on the back of government policies”.

She said with women comprising half of the national population, it was sensible to have proportional representation in Parliament.

Social media attacks
While she agreed with Kamikamica that finance remained a significant obstacle for Fijian women seeking public office, she stated that non-financial barriers, such as attacks on social media, should not be overlooked.

To level the playing field, Radrodro’s suggestions include government subsidies for women candidates, similar to the support provided to farmers and small businesses.

“This would signal a genuine commitment by the government to foster women’s participation in the legislature,” she said.

Radrodro’s views were echoed by the University of the South Pacific postgraduate student in sociology, Lovelyn Laurelle Giva-Tuke.

She advocates a holistic approach encompassing financial assistance, specific legislation to address violence against women in political contexts; capacity-building programs to equip women with leadership, campaigning, and public speaking skills; and measures to ensure fair and equitable media coverage, rather than stereotyped and discriminatory coverage.

Giva-Tuke emphasised that society as a whole stand to benefit from a gender balanced political establishment. This was also highlighted by Kamikamica in his address. He cited research showing that women leaders tended to prioritise healthcare, education, and social welfare.

While there is no disagreement about the problem, and the needs to address it, Giva-Tuke, like Radrodro, believes that discussions and ideas must translate into action.

“As a nation, we can and must do more to create an inclusive political landscape that values women’s contributions at every level,” she said.

Protection another hurdle
For Radrodro, one of the most urgent and unaddressed problems is the targeting of women with harmful social media content, which is rampant and unchecked in Fiji.

“There is a very high level of attacks against women on social media even from women against other women. These raises reservations in potential women candidates who now have another hurdle to cross.”

Radrodro said a lot of women were simply terrified of being abused online and having their lives splashed across social media, which was also harmful for their children and families.

She said it was disheartening to see the lack of consistent support from leaders when women politicians faced personal attacks.

She called for stronger policies and enforcement to curb online harassment, urging national leaders to take a stand against such behavior.

Another female rights campaigner, the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement executive director Nalini Singh, called for stronger and more effective collaboration between stakeholders — communal groups, women’s groups, local government departments, political parties and the Fijian Elections Office.

Singh highlighted the need for a major educational campaign to change the mindsets with gender sensitisation programs targeting communities. She also recommended increased civic education and awareness of government structures and electoral systems.

Temporary law changes
While she supported reserved parliamentary seats for women, Singh said temporary changes in laws or regulations to eliminate systemic barriers and promote gender equality were also needed.

Singh also highlighted the importance of bridging the generational gaps between older women who have worked in local government, and young women with an interest in joining the political space by establishment of mentoring programmes.

She said mandating specific changes or participation levels within a defined timeframe and advocacy and awareness campaigns targeted at changing societal attitudes and promoting the inclusion of underrepresented groups were other options.

“These are just some ways or strategies to help increase representation of women in leadership spaces, especially their participation in politics,” said Singh.

The views of women such as Sainiana Radrodro, Lovelyn Laurelle Giva-Tuke and Nalini Singh indicate not just what needs to be done to address this problem, but also how little has actually been done.

On his part, Kamikamica has said all the right things, demonstrating a good understanding of the weaknesses in the system. What is lacking is the application of these ideas and sentiments in a real and practical sense.

Unless this is done, the ideas will remain just that — ideas.

Monika Singh is a teaching assistant with The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme and the supervising editor of the student newspaper Wansolwara. This article is first published by The Fiji Times and is republished here as part of a collaboration between USP Journalism and Asia Pacific Report.

Fiji MP Lynda Tabuya has been dismissed as the country’s Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said in a statement that in light of the recent events concerning the conduct of Lynda Tabuya, and in consideration of:

• the Oath she has taken as a Minister; and
• standards expected of any Minister

He had decided to exercise the power conferred upon to him by Section 92(3)(b) of the Constitution, to dismiss her as a minister, with immediate effect.

• READ MORE: The boss needs an explanation – PM writes to Lynda Tabuya

She will remain as a Member of Parliament.

Rabuka said this was not a decision he had taken lightly, but one that was “necessary in the best interest of the people that we serve”.

Sashi Kiran will replace Lynda Tabuya as the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, effective from the date of her swearing in by the President, Rabuka said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Media professionals have been urged to undergo gender sensitisation training to produce more inclusive, accurate and ethical representation of women in the news.

Fiji Women’s Rights Movement executive director Nalini Singh emphasised that such training would help avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes and promote diverse perspectives, ensuring media coverage reflects the realities of all genders.

She made these comments during her keynote address at a panel discussion on “Gender and Media in Fiji and the Pacific” at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference at the Suva Holiday Inn in Fiji on July 4-6.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Media Conference reports

In her presentation, Singh highlighted the highest rates of gender violence and other forms of discrimination against women in the region.

She said the Pacific region had, among the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, with ongoing efforts to provide protection mechanisms and work towards prevention.

She highlighted that women in Fiji and the Pacific carried a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work, spending approximately three times as much time on domestic chores and caregiving as men.

This limits their opportunities for income-generating activities and personal development.

Labour participation low
According to Singh, women’s labour force participation remains low — 34 percent in Samoa and 84 percent in the Solomon Islands. The underemployment of women restricts economic growth and perpetuates income inequality, leaving families with single earners, often males with less financial stability.

She highlighted that women were significantly underrepresented in leadership positions as well. In Fiji, women held only 21 percent of board seats, 11 percent of board chairperson roles, and 30 percent of chief executive officer positions.

Despite numerous commitments from the United Nations and other bodies over past decades, including the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Singh pointed out that gender equality remained a distant goal.

The World Economic Forum estimates that closing the overall gender gap will take 131 years, with economic parity taking 169 years and political parity taking 162 years at the current rate of progress.

Singh shared that women were more negatively impacted on by climate change due to limited access to resources and information, adding that media often depicted women as caregivers and community leaders during climate-related disasters, highlighting their increased burdens and risks.

The efforts made by FWRM in addressing sexual harassment in the workplace was also highlighted at the conference, with a major reference to the research and advocacy by the organisation that has contributed to policy changes that include sexual harassment as a cause for disciplinary action under employment regulations.

Singh challenged the conference attendees to prioritise creating safer workplaces for women in media. She urged academics, media organisations, students, and funders to take concrete actions to stop sexual harassment and gender-based violence.

“We must commit to fostering workplaces and online platforms where everyone feels safe and respected.

‘Free from fear’
“Together, we can create environments free from fear and discrimination. Enough is enough,” Singh urged, emphasising the need for collective commitment and action from all stakeholders.

The conference, the first of its kind in 20 years, was organised by The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme in collaboration with the Pacific Islands News Association and the Asia Pacific Media Network.

It was officially opened by chief guest Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji and the Minister for Trade, Co-operatives, Small and Medium Enterprises and Communications Manoa Kamikamica.

Kamikamica said the Fijian government stood firm in its commitment to safeguarding media freedom, as evidenced by recent strides such as the repeal of restrictive media laws and the revitalisation of the Fiji Media Council.

Papua New Guinea Minister for Communication and Information Technology Timothy Masiu was also present at the official dinner of the conference on July 4.

 

He said the conference theme “Navigating Challenges and Shaping Futures in Pacific Media Research and Practice” was appropriate and timely.

“If anything, it reminds us all of the critical role that the media continues to play in shaping public discourse and catalysing action on issues affecting our Pacific.”

Launch of PJR
The official dinner included the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of the Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) and launch of the book Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, which is edited by the Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad and Dr Amit Sarwal, a former senior lecturer and deputy head of school (research) at USP.

The PJR is the only academic journal in the region that publishes research specifically focused on Pacific media.

The conference was sponsored the US Embassy in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu, the International Fund for Public Interest Media, the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, New Zealand Science Media Centre and the Pacific Women Lead – Pacific Community.

With more than 100 attendees from 11 countries, including 50 presenters, the conference provided a platform for discussions on issues and the future.

The core issues that were raised included media freedom, media capacity building through training and financial support, the need for more research in Pacific media, especially in media and gender, and some other core areas, and challenges facing the media sector in the region, especially in the wake of the digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic.

Ivy Mallam is a final-year student journalist at The University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus. Republished in collaboration with Wansolwara.

Fiji’s Women and Children’s Minister Lynda Tabuya says Pacific island countries need to “strengthen our laws” on online harassment.

Tabuya spoke to RNZ Pacific on the sidelines of the Pacific Women in Power forum taking place in Auckland this week.

She said the issue that she was dealing with — which is allegations of a sex and drug scandal between her and former cabinet minister Aseri Radrodro — was currently with the police.

• READ MORE: Other online bullying reports

“[Police] are investigating it,” she said.

“And it just so happens that a person who was causing this harassment online lives in Sydney,” she said.

She said she was able to get the assistance of Australia’s online safety watchdog to issue the notice to the person to take down the content — images — because it is a crime in Australia.

“If you put up content that is or appears to be the person, so then the person [who published it] needs to take the content down otherwise they can face prosecution,” she said.

‘Grateful for swift action’
“That was the process I followed and I’m grateful to the Safety Commissioner of Australia for the swift action.”

However, she said the situation she found herself in was not exclusive to her.

“It’s me today, it could be someone else tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be a minister or public figure.

“But if you have women in Fiji or across the Pacific who are facing this, and they’re being attacked — especially for populations where there are more people outside of the country than in [the] country.

Tabuya said therefore there was a need for strong policies, not just in Fiji, but across the region.

“You get more attacks from people who live overseas. Women MPs need to reach out to those countries where those people are attacking them live because the laws are much stronger.

“But it’s also a lesson for us within to strengthen our laws so that we can stand up against online bullying.

“The world is unfair and being a woman in politics, we face a lot of unfairness and injustices. But I think it also makes us so much more determined to stand up and be heard,” she added.

Meanwhile, Tabuya is currently the subject of an inquiry by her political party following the sex and drug allegation, the outcome of which has yet to be released.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Women’s rights advocates in Papua New Guinea are calling for peace and for the men in Parliament to act against the violence in the country.

The call comes following tribal fighting in Enga Province ended in a mass massacre at the weekend, which has so far claimed more than 60 lives.

Dorothy Tekwie, founder of Papua New Guinea Women in Politics, said she was heartbroken for the women who’ve have lost their children in the brutal killings.

• READ MORE: Other Wapenamanda massacre reports

“Any woman would be emotional…and I am also calling on women throughout Papua New Guinea to stand up. Enough is enough of violence of all forms.

“We are asking for accountability from our members of Parliament. It doesn’t matter whether they are in government or in opposition. This is a national crisis.”

Tekwie said the government needed to return the peace in the Highlands so infrastructure, housing, health and education development could begin.

On Wednesday, the government addressed a motion to take action on tribal conflicts and violence, specifically in Enga province.

Mothers mourning
Another advocate Esmie Sinapa said as gunmen planned their next attack in the Highlands, mothers were mourning the deaths of their children.

Sinapa said violence had been escalating across the nation for some years.

“Imagine 60 mothers, wailing, weeping for their sons. As mothers of this country, women of this country, we are very concerned,” she said.

Cathy Alex, who was kidnapped last year in the Bosavi region and held for ransom, said PNG was on the verge of being a “failed state”.

As a woman who herself had experienced similar violence, Alex said the government must act.

“I don’t know what kind of country we call ourselves,” she said.

“This is a country . . . that if we look at indicators that shows a failed state. We are already it.

‘Individuals stand up’
“What’s holding this country together is individuals like these individuals who stand up for their communities and hold peace.

“What happened [in Enga] is completely unprecendented,” she added.

Tekwie said PNG women want affirmative action taken by government to deal with some of these issues.

“Starting with early education for one. We are mothers and are finding it so hard to get our kids into school,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has hailed the news that Narges Mohammadi — an Iranian journalist RSF has been defending for years — has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran,” her courage and determination.

Persecuted by the Iranian authorities since the late 1990s for her work, and imprisoned again since November 2021, she must be freed at once, RSF declared in a statement.

“Speak to save Iran” is the title of one of the letters published by Mohammadi from Evin prison, near Tehran, where she has been serving a sentence of 10 years and 9 months in prison since 16 November 2021.

• READ MORE: Iran’s jailed rights advocate Narges Mohammadi wins 2023 Nobel Peace Prize
• Other Narges Mohammadi reports

She has also been sentenced to hundreds of lashes. The maker of a documentary entitled White Torture and the author of a book of the same name, Mohammadi has never stopped denouncing the sexual violence inflicted on women prisoners in Iran.

It is this fight against the oppression of women that the Nobel Committee has just saluted by awarding the Peace Prize to this 51-year-old journalist and human rights activist, the former vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, the Iranian human rights organisation that was created by Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was herself awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.

It is because of this fight that Mohammadi has been hounded by the Iranian authorities, who continue to persecute her in prison.

She has been denied visits and telephone calls since 12 April 2022, cutting her off from the world.

New charges
At the same time, the authorities in Evin prison have brought new charges to keep her in detention.

On August 4, her jail term was increased by a year after the publication of another of her letters about violence against fellow women detainees.

White Torture: The infamy of solitary confinement in Iran with Narges Mohammadi.

Mohammadi was awarded the RSF Prize for Courage on 12 December 2023. At the award ceremony in Paris, her two children, whom she has not seen for eight years, read one of the letters she wrote to them from prison.

“In this country, amid all the suffering, all the fears and all the hopes, and when, after years of imprisonment, I am behind bars again and I can no longer even hear the voices of my children, it is with a heart full of passion, hope and vitality, full of confidence in the achievement of freedom and justice in my country that I will spend time in prison,” she wrote.

She ended the letter with a call to keep alive “the hope of victory”.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:

“It is with immense emotion that I learn that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to the journalist and human rights defender Narges Mohammadi.

At Reporters Without Borders (RSF), we have been fighting for her for years, alongside her husband and her two children, and with Shirin Ebadi. The Nobel Peace Prize will obviously be decisive in obtaining her release.”

On June 7, RSF referred the unacceptable conditions in which Mohammadi is being detained to all of the relevant UN human rights bodies.

During an oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on July 5, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed concern over the “continued detention of human rights defenders and lawyers defending the protesters, and at least 17 journalists”.

It is thanks to Mohammadi’s journalistic courage that the world knows what is happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prisons, where 20 journalists are currently detained.

They include three other women: Elaheh Mohammadi, Niloofar Hamedi and Vida Rabbani.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson welcomed a large crowd on Suffrage Day yesterday to celebrate at a memorial to mark 130 years of women in Aotearoa New Zealand having the right to vote.

Speakers included Challen Wilson, a National Council of Women member and great granddaughter of Mere Te Tai Mangakāhia; Isabelle Lloydd, winner of the NCW high school speech competition; and Joanna Maskell of Te Rōpū Wāhine Auckland Council’s Women’s Network.

New Zealand made history on 19 September 1893 by becoming the first self-governing country to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

• READ MORE: Other Suffrage Day reports

This great leap forward for gender equality was a result of decades of tireless activism by suffragettes across the country who fought for the women’s right to vote and shaped the future for women across the motu (country).

In Auckland, influential wāhine such as Kate Sheppard, Mary Ann Müller and Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, among others, led the charge for women’s suffrage.

Auckland Council has encourage people to celebrate the suffragette movement’s enduring legacy with a variety of public art pieces, exhibitions and events that “pay tribute to the fearless advocacy of our suffragettes”, said a statement.

The event took place in Te Hā O Hine Place where the walls are decorated with the iconic Women’s Suffrage Mural by Jan Morrison and Claudia Pond Eyley.

Created in 1993 to mark the centenary of women voting, the mural is made up of 2000 coloured tiles mounted onto the sides of Te Hā O Hine Place stairs as 12 separate mosaic panels in central Auckland.

At Monte Cecelia Park in Hillsborough, is 1001 Spheres, a new piece of public art dedicated to gender equality in New Zealand.

This interactive stainless-steel sculpture references a quote from Kate Sheppard: “We are tired of having a ‘sphere’ doled out to us and of being told that anything outside that sphere is ‘unwomanly’”.

Created by artist Chiara Corbelletto, the sculpture celebrates the contribution of women in all spheres of life and is an expression of infinite possibilities.

The Brown Girl Woke initiative hopes to continue empowering Samoan youth in fighting against the culture of silence over violence.

Founder Maluseu Doris Tulifau says it is essential to support young people in finding their voice and speaking out on these issues.

Tulifau, 29, launched the non-profit feminist organisation in the US in 2014, and used the platform to share her own experience as a survivor of violence. She worked in community development and human rights in California before moving to Samoa.

• READ MORE: Other Wansolwara student journalist reports

“I’m a survivor of sexual abuse and when I started to tell my story in America, I was already an activist promoting Pacific Islanders in higher education,” Tulifau said.

In 2018, she began the second chapter of Brown Girl Woke initiative in Samoa where she uncovered the culture of silence and factors that fueled this.

“There are many reasons a lot of us don’t reach that pedigree because of social issues, economic background and our environment around taboo issues and not speaking  out.

“I wanted to empower young women and men on these taboo issues in the community, especially on domestic violence and sexual abuse,” Tulifau said.

Suffering in silence
The organisation’s humble beginnings motivated her to create an environment of refuge for girls who were suffering in silence.

“I started Brown Girl Woke as a club university for girls to be a part of a support group, with the understanding that they would find solutions, understand patriarchy and why women don’t speak up,” she explained.

Today, Brown Girl Woke is working with primary and secondary schools to educate and create awareness on a range of social issue.

“We now run after school programmes that teach literary, safety kids, climate change, stem and more. We teach about human rights and as a feminist organisation, we also teach about systems that protect gender inequality,” said Tulifau.

“We now have two Brown Girl Woke clubs — at the National University of Samoa and The University of the South Pacific.”

The performing arts has also become a safe space for Brown Girl Woke to raise awareness and provide a voice for young people.

‘Shame or blame’
“We would conduct workshops using songs, dance, spoken word poetry and skits. This is the way to tell their story and feel safe and supported, and unmasking themselves without feeling shame or blame,” she said.

Aside from supporting those affected by violence, Tulifau and her group of activists at BGW have also been helping with a range of issues such as sexual health, youth development, mental health, as well as awareness on the representation of women in Parliament.

The teams have also helped children in intensive care, funding scholarships for undergraduate students and providing monthly groceries for families in need in the  country.

Tulifau acknowledged the many donations and contributions to their cause over the years.

Leitu Fereti of Samoa is a final-year journalism student at USP’s Laucala campus. She is also a reporter for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s flagship student journalist training newspaper and online publication. Asia Pacific Report and Wansolwara collaborate.

French Polynesia’s presidential candidate Moetai Brotherson has named four ministers in his proposed government, and confirmed he will vacate his seat in the French National Assembly.

He named two men and two women as ministers in a 10-member government expected to be made up mainly of women — a day after his pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party won 38 of the new assembly’s 57 seats in the territorial elections.

The assembly is all but certain to make him the president once it meets later this month.

• READ MORE: Historic pro-independence party poll victory in French Polynesia – video
• Tahiti’s pro-independence ‘blue wave’ back at helm with decisive win
• Tahiti’s pro-independence party tops vote — another winning streak?
• Other Tahiti election reports

He said 29-year-old Jordy Chan, who has a top position in the port of Pape’ete, would become the Works Minister and the party’s secretary-general, Vannina Crolas, would be the Public Service Minister.

He said the cost of government would decrease, vowing that nobody would earn US$23,000 a month, which he said was paid to the outgoing chief-of-staff at the presidency.

Brotherson said Mereana Reid Arbelot had confirmed she would succeed him in the French National Assembly.

She was listed as his substitute when he was re-elected last year but after getting a top job in civil aviation, she was initially reluctant to quit for the parliamentary job in Paris.

Temaru hails victory

Tavini Huira’atira founder Oscar Temaru, who topped the Tavini list despite not seeking another term as president, hailed the victory, saying his party would serve everybody.

“The Ma’ohi people today are aware of their right to sovereignty. They’re aware that they have the right of ownership over all the resources of the country. They’ve been cheated for years, but that time is over,” he said.

The Tapura leader and outgoing president Édouard Fritch said that despite the Tavini victory, a majority of French Polynesians favoured autonomy.

“Polynesia would enter into the next five years at a difficult moment,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Gender equity continues to be a significant problem in business globally. We all know the story: the gender pay gap is a persistent issue and female-dominated industries tend to be lower paid.

Female representation in senior leadership and board positions remains low in many countries, particularly in Aotearoa New Zealand. Women comprise only 28.5 percent of director positions across all NZX-listed companies and just 23.7 percent at companies outside of the NZX’s top 50.

Change is slow despite the well-established evidence showing the merits of improving gender equity for businesses — including better firm performance — and excellent initiatives such as Mind The Gap.

• READ MORE: CSW: Advancing women’s rights since 1946
• Do women-focused capital funds actually help women, or are they just ‘pinkwashing?’
• Auditing, matching pay and accountability will close the gender pay gap: study

But there is a way to support companies that have made the change towards greater gender equity — and encourage others to do the same: we can invest with a “gender lens”.

The aim of investing with a gender lens is not only to make a financial return but also to improve the lives of women by providing capital to those companies doing well on gender issues.

Gender lens investing goes beyond counting female representation at board level. It encompasses the number of female managers, leaders and employees as well as the existence of policies or products provided by a company to address the gender pay gap and other inequities faced by their female employees.

It also encourages investing in women-owned enterprises.

In essence, investing with a gender lens means identifying and investing in those companies that are empowering their female employees and embracing diversity.

This might seem simple. But there are no investment portfolios or funds investing in companies that do right by women.

One explanation for this gap is that identifying gender-friendly companies is not easy. And this is where rating agencies have a role to play.

U.N. Chief Says World Is ‘300 Years Away’ From Gender Equity And Women’s Rights Are ‘Vanishing Before Our Eyes’ https://t.co/LggXPPy79k

— Patrick F. Herlihy (@herlihy_f) March 7, 2023

The role and power of rating agencies
Over the past three decades there has been a fundamental shift towards investing for not only financial returns but also for social outcomes — so called Responsible Investing (RI).

The growth in RI has spawned an industry dedicated to defining and measuring a company’s non-financial contributions across a range of areas, specifically across the environmental, social and governance (ESG) pillars.

The rating agencies build scores by collecting data on issues within each of the ESG pillars — for instance, the environmental pillar comprises data on carbon emissions, land use and water, among other measures — and then converts this into an overall score.

Fund managers, especially those managing RI funds, use these scores to inform investment decisions. What, then, are the comparable measures for gender lens investing?

While some rating agencies have created measures to identify companies suitable for a gender lens portfolio — for example, Sustainalytics has a gender equality index — others have very little on gender at all.

Some rating agencies seem to base gender equity performance on the number of women on a company’s board or its in-house policies on diversity and discrimination.

In short, there is little-to-no substantive information available to allow investing with a gender lens. And why is that?

A group of New Zealand businesses, including Skycity, Westpac, DB Breweries, Coca Cola, Xero and Kiwibank, have urged the government to address the gender pay gap.https://t.co/5Qv17tL1T4

— RNZ (@radionz) September 21, 2022

Well, rating agency MSCI states it collects information on “financially relevant ESG risks and opportunities”. Sustainalytics requires an issue to have a “substantial impact on the economic value of a company”. These agencies require an issue to affect financial performance.

Under its “social” pillar, for example, MSCI considers water usage, arguing companies in high-water-use industries face operation disruptions, higher regulation and higher costs for water, which can reduce returns and increase risk.

The absence of data related to gender implies women-friendly policies are not viewed as affecting the performance or risk of companies.

A gender lens to the rescue?
But with a bit of a push, rating agencies can help make gender equity transparent. They have the research capability and access to company data that everyday investors do not. This can help investors make informed decisions about what to invest in.

Pressure from investors can also force companies to address equity issues. When that happens, the public metrics of company performance on gender issues become a lever around which companies can be encouraged to change.

Investors themselves may also find great personal satisfaction in being able to make gender-aware decisions if they could easily apply a gender lens when deciding where to invest.

It is time for potential investors to start demanding data be collected. Once that happens, rating agencies will send a message to companies that gender equity matters. As long as investors stay silent, progress will remain slow.

Dr Ayesha Scott, senior lecturer – finance, Auckland University of Technology; Aaron Gilbert, associate professor in finance, Auckland University of Technology, and Candice Harris, professor of management, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A group of “pink shoes” women in Aotearoa New Zealand campaigning for gender equality in the Catholic Church took their message with a display of well-worn shoes to St Patrick’s Cathedral plaza in Auckland today on International Women’s Day.

It was part of a national and global “Pink Shoes into the Vatican” campaign.

“Women from all over the country have sent their worn out shoes with their stories of service to the Catholic Church, only to find that the doors to full equality in all areas of the ministry and leadership remain firmly closed,” said an explanatory flyer handed out by supporters.

• READ MORE: Pink Shoes into the Vatican installation at Parliament
• ‘Women Talking’ is the Oscar nominee every Catholic needs to see
• International Women’s Day – wrap last year
• CSW: Advancing women’s rights since 1946
• Want to support companies that support women? Look at your investments through a ‘gender lens’

“A vibrant church requires a synodal structure in which all members share full equality by right of their baptism.”

The organisers, Be The Change, say: “We are interested in your story. You are invited to email or write to us telling of your experience with the church. You do not have to be a practising Catholic to participate.”

• Email: Be The Change

‘Pink Shoes into the Vatican’ campaign stories.  Video: Be The Change

Females do 73 percent of the unpaid household work in Fiji, compared with 27 percent by males, says a new research report.

The report titled “Beyond 33 percent: The Economic Empowerment of Fiji Women and Girls”, authored by Professor Wadan Narsey, was launched in Suva last week by the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM).

“The largest share (46 percent) of the unpaid household work was done by the paid labour force (females 25 percent and males 20 percent) with fulltime domestic workers, commonly known as ‘housewives’ doing 39 percent,” the report said.

• READ MORE: The full ‘Beyond 33 percent’ report

“Students did a significant 11 percent of unpaid household work, 7 percent by female students and 4 percent by male students.”

The report also said that for students, the gender gaps began right from the earliest years in primary and the gaps continued to grow through secondary and tertiary ages.

“Females in the labour force generally did more unpaid household work per week (29 hours) than males (12 hours a week).

Labour workload gap
“The gap was 14 hours per week for wage and salary earners and employers, while it was an extremely large 23 hours per week for ‘others’ who are more in the informal sector such as family workers, self-employed and subsistence.

“Employees, employers and self-employed clearly have the highest work burdens with females working on average 64 hours per week or 13 hours per week more than the corresponding males.”

The report added that females were still doing the bulk of the unpaid household work in the labour force.

Women in Fiji comprise just 34 percent of the labour force.

The report solidly based on official data sources such as the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Fiji Revenue and Customs Service and Fiji National Provident Fund to generate evidence on status of women and girls in the Fijian economy and society.

Supported by the Australian government through the We Rise Coalition, the report comprehensively documents the many inequities that women and girls face in the economy in paid work (formal and informal sectors), unpaid household work and in the use of leisure time.

According to the report, females are concentrated in employment status work with extremely low average incomes, such as family work and subsistence.

The report stated females were concentrated more in occupations and industries with low average incomes.

“The female average income in 2015-2016 was $10,880 — 14 percent less than the $12,691 for males,” the report said.

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Fiji’s new Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Lynda Tabuya, plans to use surveys and online platforms as an integral part of her ministry

During her official welcome yesterday along with her assistant minister, Sashi Kiran, Tabuya said that over the years she had made it her life goal to help those less fortunate.

She was happy that she could continue what she loved to do on a national stage in helping all Fijians.

• READ MORE:  Fiji lawyer Imrana Jalal’s warning: ‘No victimisation or targeted prosecutions’
• No time to waste – Fiji’s Rabuka starts work on 100-day plan
• Christmas gift for Fiji: New political era balanced on a knife-edge
• Fiji’s new coalition cabinet ministers and assistant ministers
• Rabuka elected Fiji’s new PM, ending Bainimarama’s 16-year reign
• Other Fiji elections reports

“As an integral part of my ministry, I plan on asking you — the citizens of Fiji — about the best way forward utilising surveys and online platforms,” Tabuya said.

“One of the foundations for building a better Fiji is providing equal opportunities to all Fijians irrespective of age, gender, physical ability or income level.”

To promote inclusivity and development, her ministry would continue to serve all Fijians through:

• The care and protection of children
• Greater policy intervention for older persons and persons with disability
• More innovative and targeted income support to families living or caught in the cycle of poverty; and
• Promoting gender equality and empowering women to reach their full potential.

Tabuya looked forward to strengthening and building on good partnerships with organisations whose activities and outputs support the ministries strategic objectives and those who provide services in the area of child protection and safeguarding, older people, people with disability, gender equality, women’s empowerment and ending violence against women and girls.

“During the turmoil of the last couple of months, the hymn ‘We Shall Overcome’ was often used as a source of inspiration,” she said.

“At this juncture, Fiji faces daunting poverty levels and incidences of domestic violence, but despite all these challenges I believe with God’s help and everyone working together, we shall overcome.

“I’m looking forward to working for the most disadvantaged in our society and together rebuilding Fiji into the way the world should be.”

Talebula Kate is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

The swearing in of Labour list MP Soraya Peke-Mason to Parliament on October 25 will mark a milestone for women in Aotearoa New Zealand.

For the first time in its history, women in New Zealand’s Parliament will have an equal share of seats in the House.

“That’s quite significant,” Peke-Mason said. “It really shows the maturity of Aotearoa in terms of equity from a gender perspective.”

• READ MORE: Reports on the NZ local body elections

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said reaching the milestone was “significant and heartening”.

“Our Parliament will always be better when the diversity of voices in New Zealand are heard in our law making and government.

“The Labour Party in particular has been deeply committed to having equality of representation within our own caucus and we are really excited to welcome Soraya to our team.”

Peke-Mason will also be the first MP sworn in by the new Speaker, her cousin Te Tai Hauāuru MP Adrian Rurawhe, and the first new MP pledging allegiance to the new king, Charles III.

Sworn in with Te Reo
Representing the Rangitīkei electorate and supported by kaumātua and whānau from the river and mountain tribes and Rangitīkei, she will be sworn in at 2pm, in Te Reo Māori, and will give her maiden speech at 5.45pm.

“It is an honour and a privilege to be going to Parliament to represent our rohe,” Peke-Mason said.

“Over the last one or two decades my work has taken me across the Whanganui, the Ruapehu and the Rangitīkei districts.

“I’m excited and proud to be able to represent our rohe, and for Te Awa Tupua, for Rangitīkei, for all of us to have another strong voice at a table that makes really important and hard decisions on behalf of Aotearoa.”

It is two years since Peke-Mason missed out at the 2020 election. Her elevation to Parliament was announced in June after news that Kris Faafoi would leave politics and Trevor Mallard would move on to a diplomatic posting.

Peke-Mason, who lives at Rātana south of Whanganui, was Rangitīkei’s first wahine Māori councillor for 12 years until 2019, when she unsuccessfully ran for Horizons Regional Council.

In 2020, she stood in the general election in Rangitīkei against incumbent Ian McKelvie and was ranked No 60 on the Labour list.

‘You just get on with it’
“After the results of the last election, there was a possibility that I could enter Parliament but you just get on with it. You leave that there to the side and you just get on with your mahi at home.”

She was appointed to the Whanganui District Health Board and to its Hauora ā Iwi Relationship Board. She also helped lead the Whanganui Māori Regional Tourism board, was a member of Rangitīkei District Council’s Te Roopu Ahi Kā and held a number of iwi Māori and Māori trust governance roles.

“I’ve had plenty of time to be able to exit the work that I’ve been doing in the rohe, to tidy up those loose ends, to finish up projects properly, look at replacements, and work with Māori authorities that I’ve done work for to ensure there’s an appropriate exit process so that they’re not left in the lurch,” she said.

“And I’ve also been able to exit some of the boards I’ve been on.

“I’ve been lucky to have the time to do that. Not every MP gets that time.”

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.

Part 2 of a two-part series on the one-year anniversary of the Taliban takeover. Read part 1: The world must not wash its hands of Afghanistan’s misery

The advent of Taliban rule in Afghanistan a year ago this month, after two decades under the more liberal, internationally supported Afghan National Government, threw the Afghan populace backward through a time warp.

The return to Taliban oppression has been most traumatic for women and girls, who suddenly find themselves in the equivalent of the Middle Ages again with respect to their rights and prospects.

Today’s Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans high-school education for girls and restricts females from working, with very limited exceptions. This not only robs girls and women of their futures, but has a much larger impact on Afghan society and the country’s standing in the world.

• READ MORE:  The world must not wash its hands of Afghanistan’s misery
• Other reports on Afghanistan since the Taliban takover

A lot has changed since 2001
Guided by a traditionalist, nativist dogma, the Taliban pursued a similar policy when it previously ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. Since then, however, much has changed for Afghan women, especially in the cities.

Nationwide, female literacy doubled — although granted it is still low — and women were eager for education and new opportunities. Some went into politics and public service.

After the 2019 election, 27 percent of Afghan parliamentarians were women, the same percentage as in the current US Congress. Every ministry and government division had at least one woman at a senior decision-making level — I myself was one of them.

More than 300 female judges, 1000 prosecutors and 1500 defence lawyers worked in the government’s judicial system.

Although women were less well represented in business than in government, there were more than 17,000 women-owned businesses in the country. Women were also prominent in other professions including diplomacy, academia and teaching, journalism, and civil society organisations.

Public opinion polls showed that most Afghan men favoured these new roles for women.

Mixed signals
With the Taliban takeover, girls and women suddenly found themselves disempowered, without work and facing severe hardship.

At first, however, there was some hope that the “new” Taliban would act differently from before. Indeed, when we in the Afghan National Government were negotiating with the Taliban pursuant to the 2020 Doha Agreement calling for reconciliation, the Taliban negotiators indicated a willingness to accept a more liberal female role in society.

However, in contrast to the Afghan government’s mixed-gender negotiating team, our counterparts were all male.

Once in power, the Taliban initially sent some mixed signals. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was closed. By September, schools for boys were reopened, but only elementary schools for girls.

Some women were kept in government offices only to be dismissed when men were trained to replace them.

In December, the Taliban did issue a decree that women could refuse marriage and inherit property, but otherwise nearly all their new measures have been repressive. As a result, the presence of women in Afghan society has been drastically curtailed, and in areas such as political life it is now zero.

The Commission on Human Rights was terminated. A May 7 decree forced women to cover their face in public, with threat of serious penalties.

Another on May 19 banned women from appearing in television plays and movies. Women journalists are required to cover their whole bodies, heads, and faces while reporting.

Deprived of women’s skills
There is no woman in the leadership and administration of the Taliban. None of the female judges, military officers, and women employees in the previous government have been allowed to return to their jobs.

Although a small number of women are allowed to work in the health, education, and journalism sectors, they cannot be effective or free to pursue their ambitions because of the severe restrictions imposed by the Taliban. This also affects aspirations; why should women even seek education if virtually no professional opportunities are available to them?

Although even male members of the mujahedeen have complained about the lack of opportunity for their women, the Taliban so far have privileged the most traditionalist elements of their base—even if they sometimes come up with excuses designed to hold out hope that they will change course later, like blaming the closure of girls’ schools on a supposed lack of female teachers.

The suffering from this is experienced not just at the individual and family level, but also by society as a whole, which is deprived of the skills of half its people.

Ironically, the Taliban also suffers, since it will never be accepted as a legitimate part of the international community if it denies basic rights and opportunities in education, employment, speech, and participation that are almost now universally regarded as fundamental rights of all mankind, including in most of the Islamic world.

It is hard to be optimistic about the future. But at the very least, foreign governments, the United Nations, and civil society organisations should continue to encourage Afghan women in any way possible and deny the Taliban government recognition and support beyond humanitarian assistance so long as it continues its brutal repression of women.

Dr Zakia Adeli was the Deputy Minister of Justice and a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Kabul University before she was forced to leave the country following the Taliban takeover last August.

The new MP for Rai Coast Open in Papua New Guinea’s Madang Province, Kessy Sawang, wants immediate action to curb violence that has been occurring in her district for years.

Sawang was one of two women to win seats in the just finished national election — the first such victories in a decade.

The Rai Coast has been recently marred by violence.

• READ MORE: Other reports on PNG violence

There are reports a gang operating there has killed eight villagers and raped 10 schoolgirls.

Sawang said restoring law and order was a key part of her campaign and this had to start with beefed up police services.

“This has been going on for more than a decade. The thing is that past leaders have just turned a blind eye to that and it’s one of the biggest issues I have,” she said.

“I have only two policemen in my district, there are no police stations — there is no rural lock up, there is no police housing. Address those decade-old issues.”

Committed to local community
Being committed to the local community is the secret of success for newly elected Sawang.

The other woman elected was Rufina Peter, who is now Governor of Central Province.

Sawang said she had been striving to win the seat for seven years, missing out in 2017, but years of community involvement eventually paid off.

“It’s remaining relevant with my people. Like I have been with the people, I have been on the ground, I do water supply projects, I engage in community work,” she said.

“All these kinds of things help me.”

Although only two women were voted into Parliament, 142 contested the election — slightly down on 2017.

Sawang said she used the example of New Zealand, one of the least corrupt countries in the world and led by a female prime minister, in her efforts on the campaign trail to win people over.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Just in: New MP-elect for Rai Coast Open Hon. Kessy Sawang. She joins Governor-elect for Central Province, Ruffina Peter making them only two female MPs in the PNG parliament from a total of 111 MPs. pic.twitter.com/bu2vRtgugu

— Hilda Wayne (@wayne_hilda) August 9, 2022

The results of the 2022 Papua New Guinea elections confirm that women will once again sit in PNG’s Parliament — after a hiatus of five years.

The 2022 elections were therefore not exactly a repeat of the 2017 elections for women candidates, but much more work is needed if significant numbers of women are to be elected.

The two new women MPs are Rufina Peter, who won the governorship of Central Province as an endorsed candidate of the People’s National Congress, and Kessy Sawang, who won the Rai Coast Open seat as an endorsed candidate of the People First Party.

• READ MORE: Hope for women in PNG elections – Peter becomes lone female governor
• Other PNG election reports

There were 10 other women candidates who were placed within the top five for the seats that they contested (see the list at the end of this article).

So, unfortunately for democracy, PNG’s 11th Parliament will again be an overwhelmingly male-dominated legislature.

However, a promising trend evident in the 2022 elections was a significant increase in the number of women candidates endorsed by political parties. Data provided by the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates Commission indicated that, of the 159 women candidates nominated in 2022, 64 (40.3 percent) were endorsed by political parties.

In 2017, there were 167 women candidates, but only 38 (22.8 percent) were endorsed by political parties.

Doubling of proportion
This is an almost doubling of the proportion of women candidates with party endorsement for the 2022 national elections, despite a slight decline in the number of women candidates.

Most parties endorsed between one and four women candidates, but the National Alliance endorsed five, PANGU endorsed seven, and the new People’s Resource Awareness party endorsed a total of nine — a record number for PNG.

But, while the results for women candidates were not an exact repeat of the 2017 elections, the barriers and challenges that women experienced most definitely were.

PNG media reported many problems with the conduct of the 2022 elections by the Electoral Commission.

Several of the PNG Post-Courier editorials have been very critical, claiming that the elections may be the “worst since independence”. PNG election analyst Terence Wood concluded that whether or not it was as bad as 2017, the 2022 elections “have still been much worse than the people of PNG deserve”.

Many thousands of voters could not vote because their names were not on the electoral roll, which had not been updated since 2017. There was also inadequate security at polling and counting centres, and poor logistics and handling of election materials.

As a result, the elections were marred by allegations of fraud, corruption and foul play, which were the catalyst for violence and chaos in parts of the country, including in the capital Port Moresby.

Poor conduct details
The post-election reports from international and domestic election observer teams will document in detail the poor conduct of the 2022 elections.

Violence, bribery, vote rigging, stolen ballot papers, and manipulation of counting at counting centres all disadvantage women. Female candidates publicly condemned the undemocratic nature and practices during polling and counting in Enga and Jiwaka provinces.

They were joined by former member for Eastern Highlands Province Julie Soso, NGOs, and more than 100 women leaders who protested about the way in which their right to vote had been taken away by corruption, violence and intimidation by male candidates and their supporters.

Some women candidates in Port Moresby used their social media platforms to call corrupt electoral officials, candidates and their supporters to account.

The dangerous and unfair electoral environment in certain areas may have also led some capable women to decide not to contest the elections. In the past three elections there was a steady rise in the number of women candidates, but not so in 2022.

At the 2022 elections, the number of women candidates decreased by 5 percent from 167 in 2017 to 159 in 2022.

In light of the results of the 2022 elections, the PNG government should reconsider the role that temporary special measures (TSMs) could play in increasing the number of women elected to Parliament.

Formidable challenge
However, attaining political will at the highest level will be a formidable challenge.

The Special Parliamentary Committee on Gender-Based Violence (SPC-GBV) tabled the second and final Report of the Committee on 21 April 2022, which included recommendations for immediate action by the next government in respect of TSMs and other measures to support the political empowerment of women.

They included support for the 2011 proposal to reserve 22 seats for women, and a party candidate quota, as specified in the amended Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC).

Prime Minister James Marape has already rejected outright the need for reserved seats for women.

Making reference to Rufina Peter’s election to Governor of Central Province, he claimed that “any women can win any election, they do not need special seats in Parliament”.

He maintained that women can win on their merits, but acknowledged the flaws with the electoral process in 2022 that made it much more difficult for women to get elected, and promised to improve the electoral process to make elections free and fair.

However, Marape has yet to comment on the amended OLIPPAC, which was approved by the National Executive Council and tabled in Parliament on 3 January 2020. This legislation includes section 56(4) which states:

“A registered political party shall, from the total number of candidates nominated by the party in a general election, ensure that twenty percent of these candidates are women candidates.”

More candidates needed
While 64 women candidates were endorsed by political parties in 2022, many more such candidates are needed. Political party quotas for women candidates are used successfully by many countries around the world and could, if implemented, significantly increase the number of women candidates in PNG.

This form of TSM still allows voters to decide which candidate, based on their merits, they want to represent them.

Political party quotas would therefore be a positive step, but will not be enough. What is also needed is a holistic reform of the electoral process to make it more accommodating of women as both candidates and voters.

The 10 women who finished between second and fifth were:

Jean Eparo Parkop – an Independent candidate who contested for the second time for Northern (Oro) Regional and came second.

Delilah Gore – a People’s National Congress party candidate who contested for the third time for Sohe Open and came third.

Jennifer Baing – a People’s Movement for Change party candidate who contested for Morobe Regional and came third.

Diane Unagi-Koiam – a United Labour Party candidate who contested for Moresby Northeast Open and came third.

Lynn Ozanne Ronnie – an Independent candidate who contested for Manus Open and came third.

Michelle Hau’ofa – a People’s Party candidate who contested for Moresby South Open and came fourth.

Vikki Mossine – a Future of PNG Party candidate who contested for Rigo Open and came fourth.

Joyce Grant – a National Alliance Party candidate who contested for Kiriwina-Goodenough Open and came fifth.

Jennifer Rudd – a PANGU party candidate who contested for Milne Bay Regional and came fifth.

Rubie Wanaru Kerepa – an Independent candidate who contested for Kavieng Open and came fifth.

All were first-time candidates except for the first two, and eight of the 10 candidates were endorsed by political parties.

Orovu Sepoe is a gender equity and social inclusion specialist. Currently working as a consultant, she was formerly a senior lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea. Dr Lesley Clark served for five terms in the Queensland Parliament in Australia. She has participated in several election observation missions, including the last three in Papua New Guinea. Teddy Winn is a PhD candidate in political science at James Cook University. This article was first published here by the DevPolicy Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

If there is a glimmer of hope in Papua New Guinea’s violence marred national general elections, then it has to be the elevation of a lone woman to the National Parliament.

It took the People’s National Congress (PNC) Governor-elect of Central Province, Rufina Peter, three attempts to wrest power away from Pangu’s Robert Agarobe at the close of counting last week.

The contest went down to the wire and Peter won on the weight of second and third preferential votes from eliminated candidates to unseat Agarobe.

• READ MORE: Shouldering the weight of four million women: PNG elects its first female MP in a decade
• Other PNG elections reports

She becomes the second woman to win the Central regional seat –– the first being vocal Papua Besena MP Dame Josephine Abaijah. And she is the eighth woman to be elected to Parliament, the first in a decade.

In another major development, the people of Madang are on the cusp of sending a second woman to join Peter in Parliament.

Rai Coast hopes up
In the remote district of Rai Coast –– famous for hosting a Russian anthropologist a century ago – jittery voters are keeping their fingers crossed as distribution of preferences was taking place over the weekend.

These are the same preferences that elevated Peter and given Sawang’s strong lead in the first half of the count, the preferences are hoped to push her to  victory.

Last Friday, she was in second place on 5086 votes after the first preferences were completed from defending MP Peter Sapia’s LLG area, pushing Sapia to 7127 votes.

Counting of preferential votes is continuing at a snail’s pace in Rai Coast as the coasties hold their breath.

More than 62,361 people of Central Province cast their vote for Peter, who polled 3444 more votes against incumbent Agarobe.

She surpassed the absolute majority of 60,640 after the 20th exclusion of Nelson Saroa who had 25,551 votes distributed, which pushed Rufina to collect 6779, making her reach the target with 62,361 votes against Agarobe who had 58,917 votes.

She said at her declaration on Friday night that she was aware of the magnitude of politics played out on the floor of Parliament, the tasks ahead of her, the wrestling she would need to do to give her Central Province people what they deserve.

First woman declared
An economist and Goilala’s first female politician, Rufina Peter is now the first woman to be declared in the 2022 national election.

Peter admitted that being elected as the political head of a province came with great responsibility and she was confident she could deliver to her people by working as a team.

PNC leader Peter O’Neill was first to congratulate the party’s “iron lady”, saying her declaration was a proud moment for the party.

“Rufina Peter’s declaration is a proud moment for our Party. She fought hard and stands strongly for those she represents. It is a pity that the ferocity and aggressive nature of this terrible national general election has sidelined a record number of female candidates,” O’Neill said.

In an interview over the weekend, Peter said Central Province had many educated elites who were instrumental in building the nation on the eve of independence.

“In my five years, I will make that happen again while in office, I will carry my people’s plight, I will fight for our women, our children and the underprivileged,” she said.

Dedicated to ‘female empowerment’
Peter assured the people of Central and PNG women that she stood ready to work with all members-elect in Central and the provincial administration to serve her people in five districts.

The new governor also thanked her predecessor, Robert Agarobe, for leading and governing Central Province over the past five years.

She dedicated her victory to God, the women of Central and male champions of women empowerment.

She acknowledged all security forces and electoral officials for delivering the elections in trying circumstances, and also praised the PNC party for believing in and endorsing her to run under its banner.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

A Papua New Guinean economist says the election of women in Parliament will be crucial to advancing gender equality in the country.

Papua New Guineans go to the polls on July 2 with 142 women candidates putting their hands up to contest the 118 seats up for grabs.

University of Papua New Guinea academic Maholopa Laveil said PNG was among the few countries in the world that do not have any women in Parliament.

• READ MORE: PNG: parties need to do more to help women get elected
• Other PNG election reports

Laveil said the number of females contesting the 2022 elections had also dropped compared to the 2017 polls, which had 176.

He said fewer women candidates — just over four percent of the total candidates across more seats — means their likelihood of success had fallen.

“So, it’s a worry. PNG is one of the four countries that doesn’t have women representation in Parliament and if we do not elect them this time around in terms of strengthening gender equality, we’ll go in the opposite direction as a country.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Former National MP and Justice Minister Amy Adams says opposition leader Christopher Luxon is right to rule out restricting abortion laws in Aotearoa New Zealand, calling the alternative “absolutely soul-destroying”.

Speaking to RNZ, Adams also sounded a note of warning to her socially conservative former colleagues that their views are increasingly “out-of-touch” with the public.

Shortly after taking the helm of National, Luxon — who describes himself as “pro-life” — committed not to change abortion laws if elected prime minister next year.

• READ MORE:  Roe v Wade shows why abortion is at the heart of America’s divisions
• Decision on Roe v Wade will not end abortion rights in Hawai’i
• Roe reversal reignites Guam debate over ‘Heartbeat’ bill
• Other abortion rights reports

Following Friday’s Roe v Wade decision, Luxon went further, stating: “These laws will not be relitigated or revisited under a future National government, and these health services will remain fully funded”.

Adams told RNZ anything other than an unequivocal assurance would have put Luxon in a “very bad” position.

She said the vast majority of New Zealanders regarded abortion as a health issue.

“There is no place whatsoever for politicians and lawyers and judges to start determining what health procedures women are entitled to,” Adams said.

Conservative politicians ‘in peril’
“When political parties wade into that space, they put themselves in great peril and they risk getting substantially out of touch with those people they represent.”

Adams said the US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade was “outrageous” and “should scare women all over the world”.

“We can get quite complacent that our progressive movements… are set in stone, but actually it shows us that things can be undone and freedoms we perhaps take for granted… can be taken away from us,” Adams said.

“I felt quite sick… it made me really sad and actually very, very angry.”

Luxon: ‘I serve the common cause’
On Saturday, Luxon directed his Tamaki MP Simon O’Connor to remove a Facebook post showing support for the US Supreme Court ruling.

O’Connor posted “today is a good day” surrounded by love hearts.

Speaking to RNZ on Monday, Luxon said he felt the message was being “misrepresented as the National Party position”.

He said O’Connor was entitled to his own personal views but also believed the message was “insensitive to people on the other side of that debate”.

“It’s a sensitive and distressing issue, and I want to make sure that New Zealanders understand there will be no change under a National government.”

Luxon said all his MPs were united around the commitment not to change abortion law if elected next year.

“I serve the common cause of all New Zealanders,” Luxon said. “I’m not just here for one group or one interest or one topic.”

O’Connor did not return RNZ’s calls.

Questions also for Labour
Speaking at the regular post-Cabinet media conference, Acting Prime Minister Grant Robertson questioned whether Luxon’s assurance could be trusted.

“It’s great news if that is what Christopher Luxon says he’s going to do,” Robertson said.

“But I could also understand why people could be sceptical about that given what he has said in the past [and] given that over half of his caucus actually voted against [abortion reform].”

Robertson was also questioned over Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s tweet calling the Supreme Court ruling “draconian” despite voting against removing abortion from the Crimes Act.

He said Mahuta had dealt with the issue in accordance with her conscience and deferred questions to her.

“The Labour Party continues to support women in New Zealand to be able to access abortion services and to have reproductive rights. We passed the legislation, it was a government bill, and I stand by what we’re doing here.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The 142 women running in the Papua New Guinea election are hoping to prove that the PNG Parliament is no longer a male-dominated world.

They face an almighty struggle given only seven women have ever won seats there before.

But when the three weeks of polling get underway on July 2 these women are determined and hopeful of entering PNG’s Parliament.

• READ MORE: Other PNG general election reports

They are contesting alongside 3357 men for the 118 seats in Parliament.

A number of them are in seats with more than three dozen male rivals.

For years there’s been talk of reserving seats for women, but this has so far come to nothing.

Through it, all the women have remained indomitable — people like Julie Soso, who first stood in the Eastern Highlands regional seat in 1997 and has contested every election since.

She won in 2012 and wants back in to complete unfinished business.

Pushed for hospital upgrade
As the governor of Eastern Highlands, in that period 2012 to 2017, Soso had pushed for a hospital upgrade in Goroka, giving it diagnostic capability.

This went ahead but she said since the change of government in 2017, nothing has happened — the machines paid for by foreign donors lie idle and no staff have been hired to operate them.

Soso wants the machinery in use and helping detect diseases like cancer.

“We need to have specialist doctors to diagnose them and if surgeries need to be done upon them it’s got to be within our own hospital,” she said.

“So there was a dream, there was a vision, and then, after the Eastern Highlands changed government the project stood still.”

Matilda Koma is standing against 37 men in the Goilala Open seat in Central Province.

Koma has stood four times before in the Goilala seat but feels this time she has the support to get her over the line.

Deteriorating infrastructure
If she got elected she has a clear idea of what she wants to do, starting with the rehabilitation of the deteriorating infrastructure in the district.

“Like bridges, roads and even all those building structures at every mission and government station, kind of running down,” Koma said.

“The basic services are also missing. Health and education are suffering because there are hardly any aid posts. The hospitals are not in running condition, and the drugs — supply of medicines — is just not consistent.”

Oro Province in Papua New Guinea has high-quality soils and can produce great organic food but people cannot get it to market because the infrastructure is lacking.

That is the view of Jean Eparo, who is standing in next month’s election for the Oro regional seat.

Eparo, who is married to the governor of PNG’s National Capital District, Powes Parkop, said that if she got the job her immediate focus would be on improving transport infrastructure.

“Not only roads but all the other transportation. Bridges — they’re not very well maintained, and then you have people who travel by small outboard motors, and that is very risky, so we have got to make that safe and a bit less risky for people. And then of course our road connections, they are also very bad,” she said.

Enough backing
As a veteran of two earlier campaigns, Eparo believes she now has enough backing to topple Gary Juffa who has held the seat for 10 years.

Delilah Gore, who is running in the Sohe Open in Oro Province, won the seat in 2012, became a cabinet minister, then lost the seat in 2017.

She said that loss still hurts, “that shouldn’t have happened because I did my best, the very best I could. But right now I can have reactions from people. A lot of people are telling me I have done well in the last five years – the voters still couldn’t believe I lost the seat, so I am having a lot of support right now. I am confident of coming back again.”

Along with another profile candidate we heard from in an earlier programme, Dulciana Somare Brash, the daughter of PNG’s first prime minister, who is standing in the Angoram Open, these women are confident they will do well.

Hopefully, for at least some of them, that will be the case.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

She is brave — no other word can describe this Papua New Guinean woman.

Ruth Undi Siwinu isn’t only challenging the norms and a huge field of male candidates in Southern Highlands, but knows the task ahead and she is prepared to take them head on.

In a province where leadership is regarded as “men’s business”, Siwinu takes on everyone –– including the sitting MP and Pangu strongman William Powi.

• READ MORE: Other PNG elections reports

“Let’s make history and vote a woman candidate into Parliament,” Siwini told hundreds of supporters at her rally in Mendi, Southern Highlands Province.

An independent candidate, Siwinu told the huge group that poverty was real in this province  and a country that were blessed with vast resources that were bringing in billions of kina every year.

“I have travelled to the length and breadth of this province. I have been to all the five districts in the province and I saw that my people are still struggling to live,” she said.

“Why are my people struggling when Southern Highlands is blessed with all resources and the country is sitting on the resources Southern Highlands produce.

‘A mistake somewhere’
“There is a mistake somewhere and we have to find out. We want a women leader to lead the province, we have given enough time to the men to lead the province but they have failed us big time,” she said.

Siwinu said male leaders in the province were not providing services that the people deserved.

“They are playing too much politics and did not serve the people for many years. We have to stop this,” she added.

She said that the national election has provided the opportunity for the people to change the leadership and vote in a women leader to drive Southern Highlands forward into the future.

She urged all mothers, girls, aunties and youths to vote in a women candidate in this election to effect change in the province. She called on all women to rally behind her for a better Southern Highlands.

‘Representing the marginalised’
“I am standing here representing you women, the marginalised. Women are the people who suffer most in this province and I want you all women to make a strong stand and make your vote count in Ruth Undi,” she said.

She said she had spent K1 million (NZ$446,000) investing in Southern Highlands, helping women through her Mama Helpim Mama Charity organisation.

“I have Mama Helpim Mama charity organisation, though this organisation I spent K1 million helping Southern Highlands mothers.

“I have seen the real struggle in the villages, I serve the people already, I am only need the political power to continue what I am doing,” she said.

Eighty six of the 2351 candidates registered for next month’s general election are women.

Kolopu Waima is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s first cabinet is Australia’s most diverse ever. Not only do women comprise ten of 23 cabinet ministers (or about 43 percent), many have diverse race, ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The broader ministry boasts many firsts, including Penny Wong as Australia’s first foreign minister with an Asian background, Linda Burney, the first female Indigenous cabinet minister, and Anne Aly, the first female minister with a Muslim background.

A photo of the incoming Minister for Aged Care and for Sport Anika Wells walking through Parliament House with her three young children seems emblematic of the changes brought by the election.

• READ MORE: View from The Hill: Record 10 women in Albanese cabinet, and surprise move for Plibersek to environment
• Australia’s new Parliament will have record numbers of women – will this finally make it a safe place to work?

While falling short of 50/50 representations, this is a cabinet that better represents the country it serves. It is widely welcomed and long overdue.

Australia has been lagging behind
For many years, Australia has lagged behind the rest of the world in gender equality in both Parliament and cabinet.

In January 2022, 33 percent of Scott Morrison’s cabinet were female. In 2021, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranked Australia 73rd of 193 countries for gender parity in the national Parliament. This was up from 90th in 2019 but significantly down from 29th under Kevin Rudd in 2008.

With the incoming Albanese government, we have almost caught up to those countries we like to compare ourselves with. In 2021, women held 50 percent or more of ministerial positions in seven OECD countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Spain, and Sweden, while New Zealand’s cabinet had 40 percent.

Merit and the ministry
For decades, Australia stuck to the mantra that ministerial recruitment should be made on “merit” rather than gender.

This thinking belongs to an outdated political culture, where women can only access positions of political power with the approval of their male colleagues. But it still exists.

New deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, when talking about the need to attract more women to the party, has flagged the “issue of merit”.

If the 2022 federal election has taught us anything, it is that Australians had run out of patience with the status quo, and the electorate is now demanding politicians look like the country they serve — whether in traditional parties or as independents.

However, people are taking note that we are not at gender parity yet. The first media question for Albanese after announcing his ministry on Tuesday night was:

What will it take to get 50/50 representation of women in cabinet, in the ministry? Would you like to see the factional caucuses put forward 50/50 for your consideration in the future? How far away is Australia from that level of representation?

The importance of leadership
Claire Annesley’s book with Karen Beckwith, and Susan Franceschet, Cabinets, Ministers and Gender, shows significant changes in women’s representation often result from pre-election pledges made by a leader. For example, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged a parity cabinet ahead of his election in 2015 and achieved this goal.

The pledge is a powerful tool because many leaders are fully empowered to make their ministerial selections.

Look out Government House #auspol pic.twitter.com/X1HUqQzl6j

— Anika Wells MP (@AnikaWells) May 31, 2022

Albanese is on record as saying “Australia should be leading the world in equality between women and men”.

While he did not make a pledge for gender equality in cabinet during the campaign, the ALP Constitution does have affirmative action rules which set out an objective “to have 50 percent women at all levels in the Party organisation, and in public office positions the Party holds” with a minimum percentage requirement of 45 percent from 2022 and 50 percent from 2025.

However, Labor leaders have traditionally relied on the party factions to nominate ministers that are then agreed to by caucus. As the late Labor minister Susan Ryan has noted, factional politics have been a significant barrier to women gaining access to senior positions.

Even with quotas, the factional “king makers” have shaped Albanese’s cabinet. This was not without “a kerfuffle” according to political journalist Katharine Murphy, who reported “the right faction was in danger of not complying with Labor’s affirmative action rules”.

This resulted in some surprise last-minute ministerial appointments.

Look at the lineup
An important feature of Albanese’s cabinet is not just the diverse range of women who now sit at the table, but the prestigious portfolios which they hold.

The appointment of Wong to foreign affairs, Clare O’Neil to home affairs and Gallagher to finance place women at the centre of government power.

Women are also leading ministries with large spending responsibilities, including Amanda Rishworth who has been appointed Minister for Social Services. In contrast, some have been disappointed by Tanya Plibersek’s surprise shift from education to environment.

The test of the new cabinet is to see what difference diversity makes. To what extent will the experiences of these ministers bring new priorities, innovative solutions and accountability to Australian government?

Two areas hold promise. The allocation of the women’s portfolio to Gallagher is important, given she jointly holds the finance portfolio and has oversight over key budget decisions.

At the very least, we should expect as a priority a renewed whole-of-government women’s budget statement, led from a key central agency.

The second area of promise is Burney’s appointment as minister for Indigenous Australians. As an expert in Indigenous affairs, and someone with a strong commitment to the implementation of the Uluru Statement of the Heart, Burney may well oversee the signature reform of this government: a constitutionally enshrined First Nation’s Voice to Parliament.

The incoming cabinet also has a new and potentially game-changing resource in the new Parliament. The lower house has the highest number of female MPs ever, at 38 percent. The crossbench — the largest of any Parliament — also includes many women independent members who want to see action on integrity, climate change and women’s rights.

There is an enormous opportunity now for the government to draw on the expertise of this crossbench to drive important changes through parliament and recast the gender status quo of Australian politics.

Dr Louise Chappell, Scientia Professor, UNSW Sydney and Claire Annesley, Dean, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

It is the duty of men to uplift women and not undermine them or stand in their way, says Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

“Women are leaders. They are Fiji and it is our duty as men to uplift them, not undermine them or stand in their way,” Bainimarama said at an International Women’s Day celebration.

“Women are mothers, sisters, and wives, and they are CEOs, entrepreneurs, and managers.

• READ MORE: International Women’s Day around the world

“They are daughters, granddaughters, and nieces, and they are Olympic medal winners, civil servants, and ministers.

“We have always believed that women’s empowerment is the key to building a better country.”

Bainimarama said free education had put more girls in Fiji’s classrooms and that open-merit recruitment had put more women in leadership within the country’s civil service.

“Social support — like vouchers for rural pregnant women and free sanitary pads for students — has put security in women’s lives.

“And our laws punishing domestic violence have put offenders who abuse women behind bars.

Celebrating progress
“Today, on Women’s Day, we celebrate that progress knowing we have much more work to do to break gender biases and level the playing field in our society.

“So, as we acknowledge the achievements women in Fiji have made and are making, we recognise that true equality is a never-ending pursuit.

he also thanked the swomen who made up half of the staff of the Prime Minister’s Office for the effort in seeking to “modernise Fiji, empower all Fijians, and leave no one behind”.

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

Women’s participation in decision-making is fundamental to improving gender equality but despite making up half of Fiji’s population, representation at all levels of leadership for women is severely lacking, says an opposition political leader.

The leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), Viliame Gavoka, said this in his statement as the international community commemorates International Women’s Day today.

Gavoka said this year’s theme reminded Fijians that bias made it difficult for women to move ahead.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific gender reports

He said knowing that bias existed was not enough, action was needed to level the playing field.

Gavoka said that for far too long, Fiji had continued to “shamelessly lag behind” in protecting and promoting women’s rights and their peace-building expertise.

“A study carried out by the Fiji Women Right’s Movement reveals that 42 percent of Fiji boards or executive committees of for-profit or non-profit organisations or government agencies have no women at all and 26 percent have less than one-third female participation,” Gavoka said.

“The research on gender diversity and equality on boards looked at 192 board members across 38 government-controlled organisations and state-owned enterprises,” he said.

“The purpose of the research was to determine the level of women’s representation in the boards of the 38 entities.”

Lack of diversity
He said the research also identified challenges that limited the participation of women in Fiji’s leadership, such as lack of diversity and opportunity for women elected to preside as board chair.

“According to the research, women hold only 18 percent of board chair positions and sometimes it is the same women appointed as chair of boards in multiple organisations,” he said.

“In many cases, the same people are on multiple boards. This curtails the opportunities for others to join, contribute and gain board experience.

“Ensuring that women are better represented on boards is important to dismantle patriarchal ideals that are heavily entrenched into our society and limit women’s participation in decision-making.

“There is strong evidence that a gender-equal and diverse governance board improves accountability and diversifies the expertise, knowledge and skills available.”

Gavoka said that when SODELPA would be voted into government, they would ensure to “break barriers and accelerate progress”, including:

• setting specific targets and timelines to achieve gender balance in all branches of government and at all levels through temporary special measures such as quotas and appointments; and
• encouraging political parties to nominate equal numbers of women and men as candidates and implement policies and programmes promoting women’s leadership.

“On this year’s International Women’s Day, we should also pause and reflect on the sacrifices of our women in all facets of society despite the challenges they’ve endured to bring change and progress.”

Republished with permission.

“The world”, declares Laurie Penny on the first page of their new book, “is in the middle of a sexual revolution.” And unlike earlier sexual revolutions, this one is for real — provided we eradicate capitalism, fascism and the patriarchy.

With this call, it’s business as usual for British writer and activist Penny, who has never sugar-coated their feminist and radical politics.

Penny — who is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns — first came to public attention in the 2000s with the blog Penny Red and regular columns in left-leaning outlets like The Guardian and New Statesman.

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A steady stream of books followed, with arresting titles like Unspeakable Things (2014) and Bitch Doctrine (2017), in which Penny dared to call out the sexism of the radical-left circles in which they moved.

Anticipating the first-person feminism of Australia’s Clementine Ford, among others — and updating the 1970s mantra “the personal is political” for a new generation — Penny has often shared difficult and intimate personal experiences, from anorexia to masturbation to sexual assault. And while they have been what would now be described as “extremely online”, they have also gone in person to where the action is, whether taking part in the Occupy movement or travelling to Greece to observe the financial crisis up close.

Given all that Penny has been writing and protesting about for well over a decade, it was inevitable that they would write what could broadly be described as a #MeToo book — indeed, most of their six previous books have been #MeToo books of a kind.

Penny deserves recognition for writing about sex and power in unapologetically feminist terms when mainstream feminism was widely considered to be in the doldrums, passé, and/or no longer necessary.

Still, it’s no longer 2007 — which, as well as being the year Penny started blogging, was also the year that African American activist and survivor Tarana Burke launched the #MeToo movement, her hashtag raising awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault.

Since 2017, when #MeToo went viral and then global, countless words have been written about it by feminists, including Burke, whose memoir Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement (2021) is essential reading. Penny is entering a crowded field, inviting the question of what is new and distinctive about the grandiosely titled Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback.

At their best, Penny offers a rousing and enticing prediction for what sits on the other side of the #MeToo era. For Penny, the present moment is one in which “sex and gender are in crisis”. #MeToo is part of a “Great Reckoning” that almost nobody saw coming, because “when it came, it came from women”.

We are now “living through a profound and permanent alteration in what gender means, what sex means, and whose bodies matter”.

Everywhere “women, men and LGBTQ people … are walking quietly away from the expectations posed on them by thousands of years of patriarchy”. The changes underway promise “ways of life that are not based on competition, coercion and dominance but on consent, community and pleasure”.

Yet rather than telling us more about the “paradigm shift” that is remaking “our civilisation”, Penny’s book mostly explains the present moment by covering similar terrain to their earlier titles, with some new piecemeal research and updated terminology.

Frequently, Penny’s declarative mode undercuts rather than generates analysis. The abrupt pivots throughout suggest a book written in some haste. Anecdotal evidence and personal experience drive the narrative and analysis, so much so that Penny’s own journalism is alluded to rather than showcased.

For instance, Penny tells the reader that they have spent years “researching and attempting to understand the mindset behind the incel and ‘men’s rights’ and ‘seduction’ communities” and that the “problem is getting worse”. But rather than properly extrapolate, Penny references a few random studies and concludes with an ode to the heroes of the global pandemic – “not fighters or soldiers”, but “doctors, nurses, care workers and community leaders”.

The flashpoints of sexual and gender politics
There’s no doubting Penny’s ambition. Across 14 chapters, most with an arresting if formulaic opening (“Pain is political, and so is pleasure”; “Heterosexuality is in trouble”; “Sooner or later, every revolution comes down to who does the dishes”), Penny covers the flashpoints of contemporary sexual and gender politics, including #MeToo and the backlash against it.

Much of what is argued is easy to agree with: capitalism exploits some people and bodies more than others; women continue to carry the weight of domestic and caring labour; economic and sexual exploitation are not separate issues, but are intimately linked.

In the chapter focussed on work, Penny refreshingly moves #MeToo beyond the realm of celebrity to other industries, such as hospitality, agriculture and domestic work. They devote the most attention to sex work as paradigmatic of all labour under capitalism.

Yet Penny cuts short rather than enhances another promising thread by focusing on arguments that have been made more powerfully by others. These include sex workers themselves, as showcased in the anthology We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival (2021).

The organising themes of sexual revolution, modern fascism and feminist fightback provide some cohesion, but not in an especially sustained or persuasive fashion.

In Penny’s telling, “modern fascism” is a catch-all term that includes “neo-masculinist” strongmen like Putin, Bolsonaro, Trump and Johnson, the “overwhelmingly White men” who voted for them (a claim in need of some qualifications), incels, the far right, and any man experiencing a crisis or threat to his masculinity.

It is a “brutal political backlash” provoked by “changes in the balance of power between men and women”.

Now, it is clear that authoritarian governments everywhere are much more likely to take away women’s rights than extend them, as Penny covers in a chapter on reproduction that focuses mostly on the US. But to make the case that “modern fascism” is best understood as a backlash against feminism requires more work than Penny is willing to do.

Other feminist thinkers have offered far more probing and genuinely disturbing accounts of contemporary misogyny, including another British journalist Laura Bates, in her book Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pick-up Artists (2020).

The genealogies of #MeToo
Like “modern fascism”, the “feminist fightback” is taken as a given, rather than something to be accounted for or documented. Penny prefers sweeping statements about “the greatest challenge to the social order in this century” coming from

women, girls and queer people, particularly women, girls and queer people of colour, finally coming together to talk about sexual violence and structural abuse of power.

Furthermore, the “feminism” most often referenced is not the left, black or trans feminisms Penny seems most aligned with. It is the “choice”, neoliberal, mainstream feminism she criticises (as have many other feminists in far more encompassing fashion). For a self-proclaimed feminist book, Sexual Revolution is sparsely populated with actual feminists and largely bereft of feminist history. It is as though #MeToo came from nowhere.

Genealogies have been identified and scrutinised by Tania Serisier in her important book Speaking Out: Feminism, Rape and Sexual Politics (2018), among many others, including Tarana Burke. Yet in place of proper details about “feminist fightback”, we get Penny’s intervention: sexual revolution.

Cognisant that the concept of “sexual revolution” comes with hefty historical and cultural baggage (though not to the extent that they engage with relevant critiques), Penny attempts to rehabilitate it anyway. This sexual revolution, writes Penny, will deal “not just with sexual licence but with sexual liberation” — as though they are the first rather than umpteenth person to make this argument. This “new sexual revolution is a feminist one”.

The idea of sexual revolution as unfinished business is decades old. So are expressions of what a “feminist” sexual revolution might entail. Penny’s update is to advocate for consent as the fundamental basis of the new sexual and economic order. Of course! But if we are at the midpoint of a sexual revolution, as Penny suggests, there is very little sense of positive developments in the sexual sphere.

Instead, Penny’s focus is overwhelmingly on how dire heterosexual relations are and how abhorrent the sexually desiring woman continues to be.

Sexual Revolution is a bulldozer of a book in which Penny opts for full-throttled polemic instead of nuanced analysis at almost every turn. There has always been a place for such books in the feminist canon, and Penny brings flair and spirit to the task. But beyond its potential value as a primer for contemporary feminism, it is difficult to discern who Sexual Revolution is written for.

I suspect most readers are already familiar with “patriarchy”, “rape culture”, “toxic masculinity”, “intersectionality”, and other key terms.

From the rote to the muddled

Though Penny was once a welcome feminist voice at a time of “post-feminism”, Sexual Revolution reads as outdated, or not up to its proclaimed task, despite its contemporary focus. It suffers from comparison with other books which have tackled similar material with more depth and insight.

The major titles of the #MeToo era have involved forensic investigative reporting. She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Started a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, and Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, both released in 2019, focussed on the case of film producer Harvey Weinstein and the women he targeted.

Penny promises a more wide-ranging and grassroots approach to sex and power, but only really skims the surface. In contrast to the polyphonic format of numerous anthologies, including the edited collection #MeToo: Stories from the Australian Movement (2019), Penny’s voice eclipses the voices of people she knows have often been marginalised, including Indigenous women, women of colour, and trans, queer and non-binary people.

Penny is attentive to the racial and racist dynamics of both the far right and mainstream (or White or carceral) feminism. But these discussions are too condensed to take root and sometimes read as rote. “Quite apart from being ethnically suspect,” Penny states, “any movement to end exploitation that fails to centre race is intellectually useless.”

In terms of connecting the dots between White feminism and political Whiteness, a more illuminating book is Alison Phipps’ Me Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism (2020). Phipps carefully and powerfully draws out the racist logic of what has come to be known as “carceral feminism” — an approach that advocates for increased policing, prosecution and imprisonment as key strategies for combating violence against women — evident in some parts of the #MeToo movement.

Penny’s book is muddled by comparison in the solutions it offers for dealing with perpetrators of sexual violence. As for the victims, Penny is sensitive to how and why they are often dismissed as “mad” or unreliable, but Sara Ahmed’s recent book Complaint! (2021) takes the subject much further and in new directions.

Proper comprehension of what consent entails is at the heart of Penny’s sexual revolution. Given that it was only last year that NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller thought a consent phone app was a good idea, Penny’s promotion of “real, continuous, enthusiastic sexual consent” is welcome.

Yet as Kathleen Angel persuasively argues in Tomorrow Sex Will be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent (2021), the contemporary fixation on consent as the solution to the pervasive problem of sexual violence can place additional burdens on women, including the need to know emphatically what they want sexually.

In making this argument, Angel hardly disavows the “bare minimum” of consent as central to contemporary sexual ethics. But she’s also sceptical about the very notion of “sexual revolution” that Penny so heartily advocates. Her book’s title is a reference to philosopher Michel Foucault’s highly influential critique of what he saw as one of the delusions of the earlier so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s — that tomorrow sex will be good again.

As Penny recognises, #MeToo is not a stand-alone event or movement, but an expression of wider social patterns. It is a tipping point in understanding the ubiquity of sexual and gendered violence. It has galvanised feminism, and redirected and refocused contemporary discourses around gender and sex.

But its effects are too varied, diffuse and contradictory for the sledgehammer treatment Penny favours. Other feminist thinkers, such as British academics Amia Srinivasan and Jacqueline Rose, have pursued far more generative approaches. Srinivasan has productively revisted the feminist “sex wars” in The Right To Sex (2021), while Rose has consistently turned to psychoanalysis, most recently in On Violence and Violence Against Women (2021).

A reckoning
Penny is more successful in capturing the affective dimensions of the #MeToo era. On this front, Sexual Revolution is a worthy successor or companion to Soraya Chemaly’s Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger (2018) and Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (2018), two early responses to #MeToo and the Trump presidency. These books are clearly part of the same zeitgeist, as their almost identical subtitles indicate.

While Penny clearly shares their faith in the political potential of rage (not all feminists do), Sexual Revolution is more useful is in its reflections, right at the end of the book in an extended endnote, on “trauma politics”.

Penny writes that “pain is not supposed to be part of the political conversation”. But it has become so, and the connections or continuities between intimate and structural forms of violence have become much more explicit.

Where Penny leaves us is where Australian journalist Amy Remeikis begins in On Reckoning (2022), her recently released and already bestselling monograph: the moment at which the complicity of modern politics in gendered violence is made starkly and painfully apparent.

For Remeikis, this was the day after former parliamentary staffer Brittany Higgins went public on 15 February 2021 with the allegation that she had been raped by a male colleague in Parliament House in March 2019. Some 24 hours later, Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the nation.

At the prompting of his wife Jenny, Morrison declared that “he’d been reminded to think of the situation as a father”.

A parliamentary reporter, Remeikis was at work, typing out the Prime Minister’s words. She was first traumatised, then enraged by them: “Somebody else’s daughter. We always have to be somebody else’s daughter.”

Soon after, Remeikis shared her own experience of sexual violence in The Guardian, becoming a spokesperson for survivors in the process. On Reckoning powerfully reiterates and extends her key point that being “thought of as someone else’s daughter is not empathy”.

It obliterates the experiences of real, rather than imagined victims. It sets limits on whose pain can even be conceived. Is it any wonder then, writes Remeikis, that “First Nations women, women of colour, trans and culturally and religiously diverse women have found it so hard to be heard?”

In the #MeToo era, the word “reckoning” has been used so often it can slip into meaninglessness. But Remiekis — like another Australian journalist Jess Hill, in another recently released essay with an almost identical title The Reckoning: How #MeToo is Changing Australia (2021) — imbues it with fresh force.

As records of Australia at a moment of profound cultural change, they offer vital local and personal perspectives of a global phenomenon that has — among its many effects — reinvigorated feminist writing for the mainstream, mostly for the better.

Dr Zora Simic is a senior lecturer, School of Humanities, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

• Review: Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback, by Laurie Penny (Bloomsbury)

The People’s Party has made an unprecedented announcement to endorse four women candidates for all four National Capital District (NCD) seats in the Papua New Guinea national election this year.

Making the announcement at Parliament House, People’s Party founder and Enga Governor, Sir Peter Ipatas introduced the four candidates — Tania Bale (Nugent) for Moresby Northeast, Anna Kavana Bais for Moresby Northwest, Michelle Hau’ofa for Moresby South and Sylvia Pascoe for NCD regional.

The four women rallied behind Sir Peter as he made the revelation, where he said: “These are women with integrity — if people of this city decide to put a women team to lead them then I think they can make a big difference.

• READ MORE: Other PNG general election reports

“People’s Party has a history and culture of integrity and we are supporting candidates that reflect this — both men and women. We believe these four candidates we are endorsing for the NCD seats hold the People’s Party values and principles.”

Party leader and Jiwaka Governor William Tongamp said: “People’s Party supports women leaders and believes the way to get more women into Parliament is to increase the number of women standing in seats around the country.

“That is why we are proud to support and endorse these four women and that is why People’s Party has a policy to legislate for political parties to amend their constitutions to have 50 percent of their endorsed candidates to be women.”

All four candidates have illustrious careers spanning from business, media, public service, charitable work and advocacy.

Bais took part in last year’s Moresby Northwest byelection under the same party, and said she was looking forward to assisting her sister candidates with her experiences.

She added that she looked forward to standing alongside her party of women candidates for the elections in NCD, and assisting each other in their campaign.

Sir Peter also challenged other political parties to “walk the talk” and endorse women candidates in this coming election.

Thierry Lepani is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Afghan women are accusing the Taliban of using a pregnant New Zealand journalist as a publicity tool to show the world they can offer women rights.

Charlotte Bellis wrote an open letter on Sunday saying she had been rejected by New Zealand’s strict hotel quarantine system and was living in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had offered her “safe haven”.

Bellis was working in Qatar, where extramarital sex is illegal, when she discovered she was pregnant with her partner and realised she had to leave.

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When she was unable to go home to New Zealand, she briefly moved to her partner’s native Belgium, but could not stay long because she was not a resident.

She said the only other place the couple had visas to live was Afghanistan.

“When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – safe haven, you know your situation is messed up,” she wrote.

It made international headlines, but the news prompted scepticism in online groups of Afghan women, Kabul resident Sodaba Noorai said.

‘Surprised’ by Taliban comments
Noorai said Afghan women “were surprised” when they heard the news that senior Taliban contacts had told the journalist she would be fine if she returned to Afghanistan.

The Fox News interview on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the New Zealand government offered Bellis a place in managed isolation and quarantine, four days after her article was published and a spate of media reports followed.

“[Afghan women] were surprised the Taliban can treat women in a good manner and know how to respect them,” Noorai said.

“The Taliban is trying to convey the message that they know about human rights, especially women’s rights.

“But in reality their treatment of Afghan women is different to their support and respect for this New Zealand woman.”

Noorai said pregnant Afghan women had been killed by the Taliban for not being married.

Witnesses claim pregnant former Afghan policewoman Banu Negar was shot dead by Taliban militants in September, but the regime has denied the incident.

‘Double standard’ over white, Western woman
“This is a double standard where they treat a white, Western woman in a way to show the world that they are behaving like a civilised government,” Pittsburgh University Afghan researcher Dr Omar Sadr said.

“But with respect to the people of Afghanistan and the women of Afghanistan, the Taliban behave totally differently.

“At the moment, Afghan women are degraded as second-class citizens, deprived of fundamental human rights where their protesting is brutally suppressed.

“They are killed, tortured, and in some cases even raped.”

It has been almost six months since the militant group took over Afghanistan, and its treatment of women has become a central point of concern for the international community.

Women live in fear under Taliban rule
Women say they live in fear, while others have been killed after protesting against the country’s new rulers.

Afghan activist Rahimi, whose last name has been withheld for security reasons, said she had gone into hiding with her sisters because she was worried she would be arrested and tortured by the Taliban for attending protests over human rights.

“I no longer have a job so I’m in a bad economic situation, I attended many demonstrations for achieving our rights and my life is in danger by the Taliban,” she said.

“We’re afraid of their violence, their rape, their killing and murder, so we’re scared in our house.

“I have a request for the international community — don’t ignore the actions of the Taliban because of this case of this New Zealand journalist.”

Taliban negotiators travelled to Oslo, Norway last week, the regime’s first official overseas delegation since returning to power in August.

Humanitarian aid offered
US and European diplomats reportedly offered humanitarian aid in exchange for an improvement in human rights.

The Taliban is calling for almost $10 billion in assets frozen by the US and other Western countries to be released, as more than half of Afghans are now facing extreme levels of hunger.

“It is fundamental that we hold the Taliban accountable by their policies and actions on the ground rather than what they do in exceptional cases like Charlotte’s,” Dr Sadr said.

But women like Noorai have urged the international community to stand firm until all women in Afghanistan, not just foreigners, are given basic rights.

“Our message is to not recognise the Taliban until they really change themselves and treat us properly.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Made up of present and retired police officers, former school teachers, village headmen, community leaders and representatives from the District Council of Social Services (DCOSS), 25 male advocates in Fiji have made a commitment to change themselves and their perception of women and honour their roles in society.

This was the outcome of a one-day Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) dialogue with male advocates from the Western Division in Lautoka on Monday.

The advocates who were part of a dialogue on engaging men to end violence against women and girls have committed themselves to be agents of change in their communities.

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At the conclusion of the dialogue, the advocates made commitments to be agents of change and work towards ending violence against women and girls in their respective communities.

“When we leave this room and return to our communities, we will ensure that we get our house in order first before calling for change in the communities,” the male advocates declared.

“In our own homes, we need to bring up our boys in a manner that they learn to respect their own sisters, mothers, and other women in the community.

“We should teach our sons to respect women and girls and live with high moral standards.”

Rohit Deo is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

The Australian government has announced an A$170 million (F$267 million) programme for the Pacific region to strengthen gender equality initiatives over the next five years.

The commitment was revealed by Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Women Marise Payne during the high-level ministerial session at the 14th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women hosted by French Polynesia this week.

Payne said the programme reflected the importance of strengthening women’s leadership and would complement the work they were already engaged in with bilateral partners on gender and development.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific women summit reports

“We’ll work in partnership with regional organisations and Pacific women’s funds and organisations. It’s a flexible programme designed to respond directly to partners’ needs,” she said.

“We want to build on our successes and learn from our experience. We’ll also focus on women’s rights, on safety, economic empowerment, on women’s health, including sexual and reproductive health.”

The challenges ahead for the Blue Continent included tackling the current pandemic and ensuring a sustainable future for the Pacific region, according to Payne.

“Addressing global challenges such as climate change requires us to use all of our resources and potential – that’s 100 percent of our populations,” she said.

Ensuring women’s safety
“If we ensure women’s economic security, we ensure their safety. We promote their health and wellbeing that’s not only of benefit to women and girls but to their entire communities.

“That’s one of the reasons Australia pivoted our development partnerships to better respond to the unique challenges posed by covid-19 through our partnerships for recovery strategy.”

She said they were working with Pacific partners to strengthen the region’s economic recovery, its health security and stability.

Australia has also partnered with regional stakeholders to deliver safe and effective vaccines as well as vaccine delivery.

These objectives, she said, could not be accomplished without first addressing the structural and cultural barriers that exclude and discriminate against women.

Fiji’s Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Mereseini Vuniwaqa said the triennial conference and subsequent 7th Women’s Ministerial Meeting opening on Tuesday was an opportunity to be inspired, learn and recommit efforts towards accelerating and progress the goal of achieving gender equality through the endorsement of a bold, action-oriented, inclusive and transformative outcomes document.

“This is about reaffirming leadership, commitment along with concrete actions to prevent male violence against all women and girls before it starts,” she said.

Building back better
“It is acknowledging that, our work and efforts must address urgently the intersections between, women’s economic empowerment, unpaid care, safety, leadership, social protection and climate crisis preparedness and resilience.”

Vuniwaqa said recognising that building back better from covid-19 needed all women and girls at the centre, leading, making decisions that served the planet, addressed inequalities, and achieved equal power-sharing.

“It is also about recognising that data and statistics that adequately reflect the lived realities of all women and girls of the Pacific — gender statistics for short — are critical and indispensable tools for developing evidence-based policies, legislation and solutions to achieve gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls,” she said.

More than 1000 people participated in the conference, which ends tomorrow and delivered via a blended approach of in-person and virtual interaction given that travel restrictions are still being observed across the region due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The event was organised by the Pacific Community (SPC) with funding support provided by the Australian government and the Spotlight Initiative.

Josefa Babitu is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He is also the current student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. He a participant in the Reporting on Women’s Economic Empowerment workshop organised by the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) in collaboration with the Pacific Community (SPC).

A French Polynesian territorial government cabinet minister says the pandemic and climate justice have provided an opportunity to think about the progress made about action for women’s empowerment in the Pacific.

Minister for Family, Solidarity and Equal Opportunities Isabelle Sachet has told the three-day 14th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women it was a time to reflect on the implementation of the revised version of the Pacific Platform for Action on Gender Equality.

“Together, we will work towards the total fulfilment of women’s rights, climate justice and women’s empowerment throughout the Pacific Islands region,” she said.

• READ MORE: More about the conference

Fiji’s Minister for Women Mereseini Vuniwaqa echoed the sentiments, saying the covid-19 coronavirus crisis had revealed and intensified the “precarious situation” of women and girls.

“A year since the World Health Organisation declared covid-19 a pandemic, life as we knew it has been on pause, changed and transformed while the inequalities we lived with before the pandemic have carried over to the new normal, left unchecked and sadly increased,” she said.

“This is especially in terms of their economic security, physical safety, health and access to decision-making spaces. I firmly believe that we cannot waver.”

Pacific Island countries have made strong commitments towards achieving gender equality and empowerment of women and girls during the conference.

Sustaining the momentum
Organised by the Pacific Community (SPC) and hosted by French Polynesia, the conference is aimed at sustaining the momentum towards gender equality in the Pacific.

The conference has brought together stakeholders from all sectors for high-level discussions and consultations on achievable targets and an action plan to progress gender equality in the region.

Fiji’s Vuniwaqa said the crises, while devastating, could open up opportunities for transformation and bold actions.

She said the conference was for women and girls who faced or were at risk of gender-based violence.

“This work is for all women and girls in the Pacific. Those who carry most of the responsibility for holding our societies together during the pandemic, be it at home, in health care, at school, markets and across all fields,” she said.

Palau’s Vice-President and Minister of State Jerrlyn Sengebau Sr spoke for the Micronesian group comprising Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau.

“Our Micronesian sub-region has made concerted efforts to advance our collective gender equality agenda,” she said.

‘Agents of change’
“We also acknowledge the significant role of women as active agents of change and their partnership is critical to our work.”

With the theme of the conference Our Ocean, Our Heritage, Our Future – Empowering All Women in the Blue Pacific Continent, Sengebau said their efforts to date reflected the importance of developing their expertise in gender and women’s human rights as well as building capacity to mainstream and integrate gender across government and multisectoral responses to gender issues.

“It is also a key strategy for facilitating gender responsive budgeting through the collective resourcing of our gender equality agenda by all of government – that is the key to realizing political will and commitment at the highest level.”

Funding support for the event was provided by the government of Australia and the Spotlight Initiative.

Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women Marise Payne said the past year had been difficult for the region and those challenges were not diminishing.

“The pandemic has forced us to confront an acute global health threat, border closures, economic insecurities and chronic supply chain interruptions,” she said.

“Every single one of us has been impacted one way or another by COVID-19. Globally, we have seen the industries that traditionally employ women – retail, tourism, the informal market economy – decline.

Disturbing violence increase
“That has distressingly coincided with an increase in both women’s unpaid work care responsibilities and very disturbingly increase in gender-based violence.”

Payne said the pandemic had compromised the accessibility and quality of sexual reproductive health services.

In some ways, she said the pandemic provided an opportunity to move ahead on a different course.

“Even before the pandemic, there were deep gender inequities between women and men so this moment of inflection and reflection gives us an opportunity to ensure that issues affecting women are addressed and that women play a critical role in decision-making and leading our economic recovery efforts,” she said.

More than 1000 people have participated in the conference, which was delivered via a blended approach of in-person and virtual interaction given that travel restrictions are still being observed across the region due to the pandemic.

The conference will be followed by the 7th Women’s Ministerial Meeting from May 4.

Josefa Babitu is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He is also the current student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. He a participant in the Reporting on Women’s Economic Empowerment workshop organised by the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) in collaboration with the Pacific Community (SPC).

It feels like every day brings more harrowing claims of harassment, bullying and abuse of women in Australia’s community.

In the space of just two months, we have seen Brittany Higgins’ claims she was raped at parliament, historical rape allegations against Christian Porter (which he denies), staffers performing sex acts on the desks of female MPs, MP Andrew Laming’s harassment of women and Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “bullying” of Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate.

Last week, senior Indigenous academics authored an open letter, decrying the lack of public concern and national planning about the violence against First Nations women. Indigenous people are 32 times more likely to be hospitalised for family violence than a non-Indigenous adult.

• READ MORE: No public outrage, no vigils: Australia’s silence at violence against Indigenous women
  

And as Australia marks 30 years since the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, the massive over-representation of Indigenous women in the prison population remains a “national shame”.

There is hope
Many women are understandably feeling traumatised, triggered, overwhelmed and exhausted. And it would be easy to think it is all bad news and nothing is changing.

But there is hope. As a result of what has emerged, we have seen an outpouring of rage from people around Australia who are fed up with the way we treat women and victim-survivors.

As an organiser of the recent March 4 Justice rally in Canberra, I saw firsthand the collective anger and frustration directed at federal parliament and wider society and the thirst for change.

I’m also taking heart from the many Australians — some household names, some less well-known — who are fighting for change and making a difference to gender equality. Here are just nine.

1. Grace Tame
Grace Tame is the 2021 Australian of the Year for her advocacy for survivors of sexual assault. She is a prime example of how one person can make concrete change.

As a teenager, Tame was groomed and sexually abused by her school teacher. But despite his conviction and jailing, she was unable to publicly share her story because of Tasmania’s sexual assault victim gag laws.

Almost a decade later, her experience was a catalyst for the creation of the #LetHerSpeak campaign , which reformed these laws.

Tame is now redefining what it means to be a survivor of abuse. Her focus is on empowering survivors and using education as the primary method of prevention. As she says,

Change is happening and it’s happening right now.

2. Brittany Higgins
Brittany Higgins can arguably be credited as prompting Australia’s second #MeToo wave.

A former Liberal staffer, Higgins came forward in February with allegations she was raped in parliament house by a male colleague. In part, she was inspired by Tame’s call to arms a month earlier.

Higgins’ claims have rocked Australian politics, sparking a fresh focus into its toxic culture. In the weeks since, more allegations of sexism and assault in politics have emerged, with an independent inquiry into parliament house culture now underway.

But Higgins has also ignited the anger of many around Australia, resulting in nationwide protests against sexism and gendered violence. In her speech at the March 4 Justice rally in Canberra, she said,

I came forward with my story to hopefully protect other women.

3. Latoya Aroha Rule
Aroha Rule, a Wiradjuri and Māori Takatāpui person, is an activist and writer.

After their brother Wayne Fella Morrison died in custody, Aroha Rule created the #JusticeforFella campaign and helped organise nationwide protests calling for justice for the hundreds of Aboriginal people who have died in custody.

Around the recent March 4 Justice rallies, Aroha Rule played a pivotal role, drawing attention to the experiences of First Nations women.

As they wrote in The Guardian:

Women’s liberation marches have been growing since the 1960s in Australia, just as the incarceration rates and deaths of Aboriginal women in custody have steadily increased.

They also point out the complexity of experiences and perspectives when it comes to equality, race, gender and sexuality.

4. Stella Donnelly
Stella Donnelly is a singer-songwriter who writes music that critiques rape culture, the patriarchy and Australian politics.

Her first song, “Boys Will Be Boys”, was written about a friend’s sexual assault and released in 2017 during the “first wave” of the #MeToo movement in Australia. It was quickly adopted as an anthem by victim-survivors.

Why was she all alone

Wearing her shirt that low

They said, ‘boys will be boys’

Deaf to the word no

Through a “reel-‘em-in, knock-’em-out” comedic style of lyrics and indie-pop tunes, Donnelly sparks awareness of issues like sexism and sexual assault for a wide audience.

5. Amy McQuire
Amy McQuire, a Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman from Rockhampton, is a journalist, writer and PhD candidate, researching media representations of violence against Aboriginal women.

She is one of a number of younger Indigenous voices who are helping to put First Nations women at the centre of conversations about violence against women and equality.

McQuire has written extensively on Aboriginal deaths in custody and the erasure of Aboriginal women from the mainstream feminist movement and discussions about domestic violence.

If you think Aboriginal women have been silent, it’s only because you haven’t heard us, our voices now hoarse after decades of screaming into the abyss of Australia’s apathy.

She also writes about the racism inherent in violence against Indigenous women.

In Australia, violence was not just used as a tool of patriarchy – it was and is used as a tool of colonialism.

When we talk about eliminating violence against Aboriginal women, we aren’t just talking about individual acts, or solely interpersonal violence. Sexual violence was and is used as a strategy to mark our bodies as acceptable for violation, not just by individuals, but by the forces of the state.

6. Saxon Mullins
In a 2018 Four Corners episode, Mullins told the story of her 2013 sexual assault and the widely publicised trials and appeals that followed.

This generated debate about sexual consent laws and how they differ around the country. The NSW Law Reform Commission then reviewed the section of the Crimes Act that deals with sexual assault and consent (the final report was a disappointment to those wanting comprehensive reforms).

Mullins recently founded the Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy Centre. It aims to prevent sexual violence through reforming consent laws and raising public understanding of consent, healthy relationships and sex education.

As she recently told the ABC’s 7.30 programme:

I have moved into an advocacy position […] this feels like my resolution. This feels like me being able to finish this story how I think it should be finished with real change.

7. Yasmin Poole
Yasmin Poole is a speaker, writer and youth advocate who champions the inclusion of young women, particularly women of colour, in political conversations.

In 2019, she was listed in both the 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian Australians and the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence. She was also named The Martin Luther King Jr Center’s 2021 Youth Influencer of the Year.

After the March 4 Justice, Poole criticised Morrison’s comments about the rally — he said protesters in other countries are often “met with bullets” — and the inadequate handling of Higgins’ allegations by the government.

I’m not thankful for not being shot. I’m furious. I am angry that any young woman that desires or aspires to go into politics now will have to think twice.

Poole clearly demonstrates that young women need not wait to speak up about political issues and create societal change. They aren’t simply “future leaders” but, like Poole, are already leading the way.

8. Nicole Lee
Nicole Lee is a family violence and disability activist. As a woman with disability and a survivor of family violence, Lee fights for the rights of survivors who are often excluded from this conversation altogether.

As a member of Victoria’s Victims Survivors Advisory Council, Lee has helped shaped the state’s response to family violence.

We can’t get away from the fact that women with disabilities are vulnerable. Society is slowly changing, but as much as people hate hearing it women are already on the back foot and then you add a disability […] we’re so much further behind.

9. Caitlin Figueiredo
Caitlin Figueiredo is an Anglo-Indian woman, internationally recognised activist and social entrepreneur.

She is the founder and CEO of Jasiri Australia, a youth-led movement that encourages girls to be leaders in their communities, and fights for the increased representation of women in politics through leading the Girls Takeover Parliament program.

As Figueiredo said in 2017:

I want to accelerate change.

Dr Blair Williams, a research fellow, Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL), Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

SPECIAL REPORT: By a Pacnews correspondent

Catherine Mori began her career in the tax domain in 1990.

She started as an auditor with the Revenue and Tax Division, but she held the position of a Revenue Officer III. And in that capacity alone, she was required to perform various tax-related functions.

As a Revenue Officer III, Mori had had to assist customers with their tax returns, input tax roll, and also input income tax, and transmit these to the headquarters in Pohnpei.

• READ MORE: Other reports in the OCO/Pacnews Pacific Women in Customs series

She was also tasked to assist customers with their import transactions, and carry out daily bank deposits, amid other duties. In December this year, Mori will have completed 31 years of service with the organisation.

“I am the oldest female on this job and maybe also in the Department of FSM Finance,” she says.

The merge
At the time Catherine Mori joined the Revenue and Tax Division, the institution operated separately from the Customs Division. And in 1998, the two institutions merged to form the Customs and Tax Administration under the Department of FSM Finance. During that transition, employees of both institutions had to undergo cross trainings in areas of tax revenue and customs.

“That year was a big adjustment for me,” Mori recalls.

The merge meant that aside from her already-hectic work schedule, she also had to carry out an additional role of a Customs official at the island nation’s port of entries.

Underpinned by the lack of manpower, Mori had had to leave her office work aside and attend to inspection and clearance duties, involving cargoes at the airport, the dock and or at the post office.

And to ensure efficiency in productivity, she says she has had to be patient in all areas of her responsibilities.

The leader
Seventeen years of service and commitment with the Customs and Tax Administration paid off for Catherine Mori. In 2007, she was promoted to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary in the administration’s field office in Chuuk State, Micronesia.

Chuuk State is the most populous of the four States in the FSM – including Pohnpei, Yap and Kosrae – which according to the April census of 2010 had 48,654 inhabitants.

As the Deputy Assistant Secretary, Mori now plays a more managerial role. She oversees the overall operation of her unit that includes human resources, revenue and customs collection.

“My duties now include overseeing the work of my employees, making sure the post office, the airport as well as the ship port are attained well and cleared,” she says.

“I do monthly reports on all areas of both customs and revenue collections, monthly reports on PC Trade and awareness in the field office.”

She also has to ensure that deposits of collections are maintained and sent to the central office in Pohnpei daily.

Embracing cultural challenges
Mori openly declares her love for what she does and her positive approach to the challenges she faces. But she notes the challenge of conscience between the matter of gender in the workplace and her present cultural landscape.

“I have enjoyed my job all my life, learning to get along with others, learning how to communicate, and experiencing new ideas.

“But overall, my challenge on the job is being the only woman in the position.

“In Chuuk, Micronesia, males are mostly the heads in all departments.

“It was hard for me to speak up, and it was not because I was scared but it is because of our respect for men.”

And it is because of their culture in Micronesia, especially for Chuuk State, that they are still adjusting to the modern way of life.

“Nowadays, because people go out of FSM to the United States or Hawai’i, they have come a long way to understand that women do not only have a place at home but they also have a place in departments and offices.

“Today, I am very happy with my job. I feel free working among many males on the job and getting acquainted with my colleagues.

“I gain more experience working with the male on the job. It helps me to gain more experience in the work I do.”

She adds this has also helped her family understand and support her in her work.

The covid-19 pandemic
This pandemic has adversely impacted the world in many ways, largely on human lives lost and global economic collapses.

Again, Catherine Mori capitalises on her natural ability to take a positive approach and look on the bright side.

Her work schedule has changed significantly, in particular with limited flights and cargo ships.

“For me, this means I have more time to rest and more time to spend with the family. It has helped me to relax and enjoy life.”

This article is part of the OCO/Pacnews Pacific Women in Customs series to celebrate the achievements of women customs officers in the Oceania region.

Australian university leaders are nearly three times more likely to be a man than a woman.

Of 37 public university chancellors, just 10 are women (27 percent) and 27 (73 percent) are men. It’s exactly the same for vice-chancellors: 10 are women and 27 are men.

Together, this means men hold 54 of the 74 top jobs in Australian higher education.

• READ MORE: Most of Australia’s university leaders are white, male and grey. This lack of diversity could be a handicap
  

Last year presented a big opportunity for progress towards gender equity among university leaders. During 2020, vice-chancellors at 15 of Australia’s 37 public universities either announced their departure from the role, or actually left.

This move of 41 percent of the vice-chancellors in a single year provided the best opportunity for improving gender equity in living memory.

Unfortunately, Australian university councils, which appoint vice-chancellors, did not take up the opportunity. The gender ratio didn’t change at all.

To date, women have been appointed in just four of the 15 (27 percent) interim or ongoing replacements made. Two of these four women moved from one vice-chancellor position to another. In 11 of the 15 announced vice-chancellor replacements – 73 percent of cases – a man won the role.

Men also dominate the upper levels of Australian academia. The latest available figures (from 2019) show:

• 86 percent more men than women at associate professor and professor levels D and E (10,363 men, 5,562 women)
• 11 percent more men than women at senior lecturer level C (6,355 men, 5,724 women)
• 25 percent more women than men at lecturer level B (7,428 men, 9,253 women)
• 15 percent more women than men at associate lecturer level A (4,426 men and 5,093 women).

Overall, the numbers of men and women employed as academics aren’t very different. In 2019, Australian universities employed 54,204 full-time and fractional full-time academics: 28,572 men (53 percent) and 25,632 (47 percent) women. It’s the seniority of the positions they hold that differs starkly.

These figures do not include casual staff.

Isn’t the gender balance improving?
Optimists often assure me leadership gender equity is improving. Granted, the percentage of female chancellors in Australian has increased in the past five years. In 2016, WomenCount reported 15 percent of Australian university chancellors were women.

While the increase is positive, it remains disappointing that women occupy only about one-quarter of these increasingly powerful and important roles.

The shift in senior academic ranks has also been slow. In 2009, 73.5 percent of professors were men. Between 2009 and 2019, the proportion of female professors has risen from 26.5 percent to 35 percent. That’s an improvement of less than one percentage point per year on average.

At this rate, it will be the late 2030s before women make up half of the professoriate in Australia.

Why does gender inequity persist?
The most common reason put forward for gender inequity is related to women’s role in childbearing. But the fact that only women can grow, birth and breastfeed babies does not, on its own, explain why there are 86 percent more male associate professors and professors than women in these roles, nor why there are nearly three times more male than female vice-chancellors and chancellors.

After all, these womanly activities take a relatively short amount of time and most women I know can skilfully multi-task while pregnant and breastfeeding.

However, the fact that women take on the bulk of child-raising duties might help explain the inequities. Of course, people of every gender can equally well raise children. But they don’t – it’s mostly left to the women.

For women, the results of this unequal sharing of responsibility include:

• less time and energy for academic pursuits
• more teaching (often) and less time for research and publishing
• lower academic and leadership profiles (usually)
• fewer opportunities to engage in activities that count for promotion and for senior leadership roles.

Of course, not all women have children. And those that do find that they grow up, learn to feed, dress and eventually support themselves and move out of home.

Is it also possible that Australian university culture and practices privilege men’s careers and hold back women’s advancement?

University decision-makers, including promotion committees, might well favour men because of:

• relatively uninterrupted and neat career trajectories
• relatively greater freedom to engage in research and publishing without the disadvantages of part-time employment, never mind the mid-afternoon school run
• more easily quantified outputs
• more frequent opportunities to lead
• the cumulative achievements, profile and trajectory that come with all of the above.

Let’s shake up the status quo
Most universities try to redress gender inequity. Committees, agenda items, plans, targets and mentoring programmes abound. But evidently these efforts aren’t working.

After many years in executive and governance leadership, I continue to observe decision-makers often thinking of men first, or only of men, when searching for suitable leadership candidates.

On the rarer occasions that women are offered leadership opportunities, they have to adopt the “right” style and carefully balance gravitas and humility. They must learn how to perform gender judo and ensure they don’t fall into the success versus likeability conundrum that Facebook chief operating officer and author Sheryl Sandberg made famous.

In short, to become academic leaders, women must skilfully navigate the unconscious bias and sexism that permeate universities.

While shifts are occurring, they are painfully slow, as the gender data over the past decade and predicted trajectories show.

Might it be time for women (and enlightened men) to take matters into their own hands to begin to undermine the status quo? I think so – so I’ve written a book that proposes techniques to adopt to these ends.

What will you do to contribute to greater gender equity?

Dr Marcia Devlin is an adjunct professor, Victoria University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Key findings from the 2016 to 2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey reveals that 56 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in PNG have experienced physical violence around the age of 15.

And 28 percent have experienced sexual violence.

Also 18 percent of women who have been pregnant have experienced violence during their pregnancy.

READ MORE: Background and reports on gender-based violence in PNG

Researcher and leading anti-violence campaigner Dr Fiona Hukula said that according to the survey this revealed the higher a woman’s education was, the more likely she would face violence.

“That is very scary in this country where we are trying to advocate for women’s lives and for better empowerment,” she said.

The death of 19-year-old mother Jenelyn Kennedy almost two weeks ago and a spate of protests over gender-based violence has focused national attention on the issue.

According to the survey, in terms of spousal violence, about 63 percent of ever-married women have experienced spousal physical, sexual, or emotional violence.

“The most common type of spousal violence is physical violence where 54 percent have experienced it, followed by emotional violence with 51 per cent.

Periodic demographic, health update
“Twenty-nine per cent of women have experienced spousal sexual violence, including injuries due to cuts, bruises, or aches.

In terms of seeking help, about 35 percent of women who have ever experienced physical or sexual violence have sought help, while 13 percent have never sought help but have told someone about the violence.

Thirty-nine percent of women who have experienced any type of physical or sexual violence have not sought help or told anyone about the violence.

The PNG Demographic and Health Survey is a nationally representative survey conducted as a periodic update of the demographic and health situation in Papua New Guinea.

The 2016-18 findings was the first DHS report conducted in PNG in collaboration with the worldwide Demographic and Health Surveys Programme, which is a global initiative coordinated by ICF, based in Rockville, Maryland, USA.

The survey was implemented by the PNG National Statistical Office.

The 2016-18 PNG DHS final report provides information on basic indicators of fertility, fertility preferences, family planning practices, childhood mortality, maternal and child health, knowledge and awareness of HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, and other related health issues.

Grace Auka-Salmang is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

Hundreds walked the Sir John Guise drive on Thursday calling for justice for the brutal death of 19-year-old mother-of-two – Jenelyn Kennedy last week.

Jenelyn’s battered lifeless body was taken into the Port Moresby General Hospital last Tuesday by four men (one believed to be the father of her two children).

Dr Sam Yockopua, the country’s chief of emergency, took to social media his outburst on what he described as “an inhumane act and work of the devil” after seeing her body.

READ MORE: Background and reports on gender-based violence in PNG

The media went to town with her story the next day and the Friday photograph of her battered body by The National (with permission from her family), we believe is the turning point of enough is enough.

We defied media ethics by publishing that photograph but it had to be done to drive home the message of violence is rampant in our society.

Her story needed to be told.

Though she is not around to tell it, her voice needed to be heard and that picture was used to ensure her voice was loud and clear and to also awaken the authorities and the country to the realities of gender-based violence (GBV).

Due to feelings of isolation, fear, and intimidation, many people do not speak up if they are being abused at home.

They live in fear, and therefore do not get the help that they need to get out of their current situation.

The brutality of her death has shaken the country and has not put authorities on the spot with their lack of pro-activeness in getting the GBV system working efficiently. Her story, we believe, will give victims some hope of reaching out for help and one day to speak about it.

It was a wakeup call for citizens to realise the horrific realities of GBV so they can check on their daughters, sisters or friends and help them get out before it’s too late, and so much more.

The march yesterday, with the many who wore black around the country and the evening vigil is a sign of togetherness to denounce violence against woman and to shine the light on the help system for victims.

A banner portrait showed Jenelyn’s smiling face.

Placards bearing her name and other victims, and slogans to ending violence were displayed.

Far too often, GBV cases covered by the media gradually gets swept away.

Domestic violence does not discriminate. It exists in households of every socio-economic status, and every ethnic and cultural background.

It is often used as a weapon of control and intimidation by a partner, spouse or ex-spouse.

Her death sparked public outcry – justice for her and all victims and to put an end to violence. It shone a light on the failing GBV help system. Institutions are now responding.

Strengths and gaps within the current system are now being identified and we hope those responsible will do what is needed to improve and correct it as we move forward.

All concerned stakeholders have the responsibility now holding each other accountable so we are on the right track.

The PNG National Strategy to Prevent and Response to Gender Based Violence 2016-2025 is there. Let us move forward on a strong course of action that protects and supports victims of domestic violence.

The bottom line is we want to put a stop to domestic violence – before it ever begins.
Everyone – government, police, lawyers, social services, health-care professionals and other community partners – has a role here.

It is our collective responsibility to stop the violence.

This National editorial was published in the weekend edition, 3-5 July 2020, under the original title of “Let’s play our part to end violence”.

By EMTV News

Many wore black yesterday in rallies against gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea in a day chosen to remember the young mother Jenelyn Kennedy – and for her death not to be in vain.

As demands grow for justice to be served and for stronger laws to be introduced, the national athletics team was among those who joined the “Walk for Jenelyn” yesterday afternoon from Parliament to the Sir John Guise Stadium, followed by a “shine the light” vigil.

The “Black Day for Jenelyn” call following Jenelyn Kennedy’s death has gained momentum, thanks to social media as word spread quickly and many working class people turned up to support the march.

READ MORE: Dame Meg Taylor’s message to PNG and other gender-based violence reports

The march was also livestreamed on social media by EMTV News.

Photos posted on social media came from different parts of the country, from Mendi in the Southern Highlands to Kiunga in the Western Province.

The march was an initiative by the PNG Men Up, a group comprising like-minded elite PNG men who want an end to violence by working alongside existing groups to drive this change.

The family of 19-year-old mother of two Jenelyn Kennedy, who died last week after allegedly being beaten for more than five days, also joined the walk.

Forum on better laws
Police commissioner David Manning earlier this week revealed plans to call for a forum after investigations are completed to looks at ways to strengthen existing laws, ensure police are more responsive and to push for the state to provide long term support systems for victims of family and sexual violence.

The NGO Development Council called for justice and an end to violence and also highlighted system failures that lead to breeding of family and sexual violence.

It condemned a system that allowed underage marriage and failures in the law, justice and health sectors to recognise the risks.

NDC has called on the police, health sector agencies, medical profession and other law and justice system partners to work together to change these deadly system failures.

‘Fake news’ claim
The office of the police minister released a statement dismissing a post on Facebook page PNG Daily claiming the minister as author of a misleading statement as “fake news”.

PNG Daily published a story using Police Minister Bryan Kramer’s name as the author and headlined it “Kaiwi just returned from overseas, must be quarantined for 14 days”.

Kaiwi has been charged with wilful murder over the murder of his partner Jenelyn Kennedy.

Kramer said he had taken note of a number of posts on social media questioning why Bhosip Kaiwi was not remanded at Bomana on Tuesday, reports EMTV News.

“When tagged on the question, I commented that I can only assume it’s because he has to go through a 14-day quarantine before being admitted into the general population,” Kramer said.

“I also explained that had he contracted covid-19 and enters the prison system and it spreads infecting the prisoners, then the government would be forced to start releasing prisoners, which is exactly what happened overseas.

“Right now, we don’t know who has covid-19 and who doesn’t. Some people have symptoms and get tested, and some don’t show any symptoms.”

Kramer said he had been advised by National Capital District (NCD) metropolitan superintendent Perou N’Dranou that Kaiwi was not transferred to Bomana on Tuesday because the remand warrant was received late and that prisoners cannot be transferred after 4pm.

The minister added that his comments were made based on recorded covid-19 cases overseas in countries like USA, UK and Brazil where governments were releasing prisoners to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

Accused Kaiwi moved to Bomana
The National reports that Kaiwi was moved to the isolation centre at Bomana prison on Wednesday where he would be remanded.

Rebecca Kuku reports that Police Commissioner David Manning said the Correctional Services department had strict covid-19 quarantine protocols for new admissions such as Kaiwi.

“I am advised by Correction Service (CS) Commissioner Stephen Pokanis that detainees admitted to the Bomana prison will be isolated at its designated isolation centre for 14 days, prior to being released to the general prison facility,” he said.

He said the risk [of covid-19] was high in prison and warders were working with police and health officials to manage it as any spread in prison would be disastrous.

The Pacific Media Centre has a partnership with EMTV News.

• Port Moresby’s “shine the light” vigil

Host Sherry Zhang interviewed the director of the Pacific Media Centre, Professor David Robie, about the tragic life and death of Jenelyn Kennedy from gender violence in Papua New Guinea today on the Southern Cross segment of Radio 95bFM.

Professor Robie discussed the rather horrific image of her lifeless body on the front page of The National newspaper and the ethical dilemma about publishing this photo to bring into focus gender-based violence.

The image was defended by senior journalist Rebecca Kuku who was criticised in social media for taking the stance.

LISTEN: More Southern Cross radio clips on Soundcloud

However, while Professor Robie supported publication of the photo and also published it on the PMC’s Asia Pacific Report, he said the newspaper should have also had a front-page editorial explaining why they ran the picture.

“Jenelyn’s story needed to be told – as a reporter, a woman, a mother, a sister, I failed to be her voice when she was alive and I’d be damned if I would fail her now in her death,” wrote Rebecca Kuku.

“Her voice needs to be heard and that picture was used to ensure her voice was loud and clear and to also awaken the authorities who seem to be sleeping, to open their eyes to the realities of gender-based violence (GBV).”

Jenelyn who eloped with Bosip Kaiwi when she was just 15, bore him two children and was killed at 19.

Then contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch Sri Krishnamurthi discussed the Cook Islands where members of Parliament (MPs) want to go to extraordinary lengths to ban a senior Cook Islands News journalist.

Rashneel Kumar who reported on MPs seeking travel perks was this week awaiting the decision of the Speaker of the House, Niki Rattle, while media groups have protested over the parliamentary move.

A school workbook containing “harmful” messages is being circulated in Fiji’s schools, says a local activist.

Roshika Deo said her attention was drawn to the Year 8 Healthy Living Pupil’s Workbook when she was helping prepare her niece for the school year.

Deo said she was shocked at the “community expectations” that were contained in the book.

READ MORE: Top 10 facts about girls’ education in Fiji

The book said women played a “secondary role” with no decision-making power and should be “passive” to men while not being too outspoken.

It also stated girls should be “interested in [their] looks” and at 15, be married “soon”. There was an onus to take care of domestic duties and stay at home.

Deo said young children were being taught that women were sub-standard and sub-human in Fiji schools.

The human rights and feminist activist, who has done work across the region, including for Amnesty International, pointed out that research showed a prominent cause of violence against women was gender inequality and unbalanced power relations.

Harmful stereotypes
Deo said the curriculum promoted harmful stereotypes.

“It’s perpetuating and intensifying the gender inequality and this is what leads to violence against women. This is what leads to the rape culture. This is what leads to victim blaming and such things that result in women being killed.”

Boys were being told they were superior to girls.

“It leads to male entitlement. Telling boys that they are better than girls, that women and girls have to listen to them, have to adhere to them and if they don’t, you have authority to do what you need to do,” she said.

Deo has notified the Minister for Women and Children on social media about her concerns.

RNZ Pacific has sought comment from the Ministry of Education and from the Minister for Women and Children, Mereseini Vuniwaqa, but has yet to receive a response.

Earlier this month, Vuniwaqa launched a National Plan to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls describing the country as being in a national crisis.

10 women died
Last year, 10 women in Fiji died due to domestic violence.

The minister told local media the prevalence of violence against women and girls in the country was among the highest in the world.

Deo welcomed a number initiatives the government had launched to address the issue but was surprised that this material had become part of the curriculum.

“It’s get a bit perplexing that if you are going to launch this and you already understand the basic tenets of crime prevention, and if that is the case why are you not already working with the Ministry of Education in terms of reviewing this curriculum because the longer we leave it in there school system, the more harm we are causing.”

Deo said it did not matter if millions of dollars of development and government funds were spent on preventing violence against women if young, impressionable minds were given the current material.

Koro Vaka’uta hosts RNZ Pacific’s Dateline Pacific. This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Hundreds of women’s rights activists commemorating International Women’s Day yesterday gathered near the Horse Statue monument before holding a long march to the Aspiration Park in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta.

IWD is commemorated globally on March 8 to commemorate the gains won by women working in economic, political and social fields.

About 65 different social organisations took part in the long march with rally organisers estimating that thousands of people took part in the rally.

READ MORE: International Women’s Day

The protesters, who wore various kinds of head bands, arm bands and purple banners, were not just made up of women, but men who also took part calling for women’s equality.

Taking up the momentum of the 2019 presidential and legislative elections, the theme taken up IWD 2019 was “An Independent Political Platform for Women”.

This year’s peaceful action focused on the movement to awaken women’s consciousness and demand political space for women which is democratic, equal and free from violence.

“We know that the state has failed to provide security and protection for us, women, because we are still seen as objects, we are seen as dead objects which have a voice but our voices are never listened to, our voices have been lost from the Indonesian political stage”, said IWD committee member Dian Septi in a speech.

‘Child marriage, no!’
The peaceful action was also aimed at calling for women’s rights and other demands such the exploitation of women, sexual violence, decent wages, polygamy, child marriage and for the ratification of the Draft Law on the Elimination of Sexual Violence (RUU PKS).

“Polygamy, no; child marriage, no; RUU PKS? Yes!,” shouted the protesters.

Following the action, representatives from IWD 2019 planned to meet with the Minister for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection in order to convey eight types of problems being faced by women:

• women and labour;
• women and education;
• women and sexual violence;
• women and health;
• women, identity and expression;
• living space and agrarian rights;
• women, policy and legal protection; and
• women, media and technology

Translated by James Balowski of Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Peringati Hari Perempuan Internasional, Aktivis Long March ke Istana”.

Seventeen women journalists from the Asia-Pacific region gathered in the Victorian capital of Melbourne this week to work on an empowerment strategy for reporting on gender-based violence against women.

Organised by the Canadian-based Centre for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), the workshop on gender-based violence against women (GBVAW) at Monash University was a key step toward ensuring better collaboration with the media.

The media plays a vital role in influencing the attitudes toward gender-based violence, especially in environments where the development of women and girls is overlooked.

Within the Asia-Pacific region, a common thread is the vulnerability of women and girls in the face of gender inequality and sociocultural norms identified by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).

From Papua New Guinea to the Philippines, putting gender-based violence into context remains a challenge in terms of recognising women’s rights as human rights.

The Rutgers University-based centre has been instrumental in raising awareness of the issue through its 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign.

It has recognised the need for journalists in different spaces to be well informed and equipped on covering the issue.

Support needed
The centre says journalists need support when it comes to reporting challenges such as data, resources and logistics, newsroom culture, and state accountability.

Throughout the two-day workshop, journalists shared their experiences in reporting gender-based violence against women and highlighted the gaps that could be filled in their countries.

News framing of survivors was stressed as essential toward changing a culture of victim-blaming.

Women journalists themselves are vulnerable when covering stories on gender-based violence.

Although strategies on improving gender-based violence coverage are still a work in progress, the centre’s workshop provided a needed forum for Asia-Pacific journalists.

Papua New Guinean television journalist Quintina Naime found suggestions in the workshop about improving reporting on gender-based violence especially helpful.

Passionate reporting
“Coming from a country with diverse cultures and where domestic violence has become a norm, I’m privileged to have met other influential female journalists who are passionate about reporting on gender-based violence issues affecting the most vulnerable in society,” she says.

“I’m encouraged that my contribution will contribute to the professional development and networking opportunities of journalists reporting on the issues. I’m privileged to have represented Papua New Guinea and PNGTV.”

Other countries represented in the consultation were Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, New Zealand, Philippines and Samoa.

The centre will continue to convene with journalists from other regions to improve reporting of gender-based violence against women and to hopefully change attitudes.

The centre has already hosted workshops in the South Asia and Middle East regions.

It is hoped that the dialogue emerging from all these workshops will help develop a tool or guideline that will assist journalists in tackling the issues.

Pauline Mago-King is a masters student at Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre researching gender-based violence issues in Papua New Guinea. She was a participant in the gender-based violence against women workshop.

Violence against women is an issue that has troubled Pacific communities for many years both in the islands and in New Zealand.

The United Nations has highlighted the issue of women experiencing violence in the Asia-Pacific region and has tried to improve the quality of life for women in troubled communities.

An estimated 68 percent of girls and women in the Asia-Pacific region are victims of violence, according to figures released by the UN.

READ MORE: Family violence: 525,000 New Zealanders harmed every year

The enormity of the situation in the region has led the UN to start initiatives in Asian and Pacific countries to combat violence against women and in New Zealand the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill is hoped to “break the pattern”.

Ending Violence Against Women Programme (EVAWG) is an initiative that “aims to help women and girls live a life free from violence”. EVAWG is being implemented in nations regarded as high risk in the region with the hope of reducing the numbers of women being harmed.

New Zealand, a developed First World country, has had issues with domestic violence throughout its history, and the government has been raising awareness and providing assistance to NGO groups to help support victims of domestic violence.

Figures show New Zealand has a major problem with girls and women experiencing violence in all age groups.

‘OK to ask for help’
In 2016, between 33 to 39 percent of females experienced some form of violence in their life growing up in New Zealand. Also an estimated 79 percent of harmed women do not report their experience of violence.

The campaign “it is ok to ask for help” has provided a lifeline to victims who are seeking support for their love ones seeking help.

The most common form of violence in New Zealand is physical and sexual violence – women are more likely to be assaulted by an intimate partner than a random stranger, according Associate Professor Janet Fanslow of the University of Auckland as cited by the Women’s Refuge.

It has disappointed advocates in the frontline of the fight against violence aimed towards women that the most likely offender is someone intimately close to the victim.

The impact of domestic violence in New Zealand has a negative impact on society such as physical harm of young girls and women, mental health risks on victims and negative economic impact on the economy.

Hun, a social worker based in South Auckland, believes the issue of domestic violence has reduced slightly over the past few years, and this is thanks to the raising of awareness in the community in South Auckland and through television campaigns.

Some low social economic areas in New Zealand are considered high risk for domestic violence.

Tackling a myth
Māori and Pacific communities in New Zealand are the most likely to suffer and become victims of domestic violence in their homes.

However, it is a myth to believe that violence against girls, women and domestic violence in general is a problem exclusively in low social economic areas, says Hun.

“It is occurring in every level of society in New Zealand.”

The devastation that domestic violence towards women has led to campaigns in New Zealand to reach out to both the victims of violence and the offender.

More financial resources are needed to fully engage the most affected communities in the country, New Zealand ranked in the top 5 in domestic violence in developing countries.

“More work needs to be done to drive the message home,” says Hun.

Promising improvement
Communities that have been targeted with campaigns over the years have shown promising improvement with less and less incidences of domestic violence being an issue.

“Preventing is better than fixing,” says Hun.

The most effective way to deal with domestic violence against women is to teach, inform and raise awareness in young people at an early age that violent behaviour is not acceptable in New Zealand society.

The current Labour-led Coalition government is prioritising family violence and addressing the issue with new legislation. It is at the top of the agenda for the government in the hope of reducing the problem.

Mike Maatulimanu Mohr is a student journalist on the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies (Journalism) reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

125 years ago today Aotearoa New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant all women the right to vote.

The event was part of an ongoing international movement for women to exit from an inferior position in society and to enjoy equal rights with men.

But why did this global first happen in a small and isolated corner of the South Pacific?

READ MORE: Women’s votes: six amazing facts from around the world

In the late 19th century, Aotearoa/New Zealand was a volatile and rapidly changing contact zone where British settlers confidently introduced systematic colonisation, often at the expense of the indigenous Māori population. Settlers were keen to create a new world society that adapted the best of Britain and left behind behind the negative aspects of the industrial revolution – Britain’s dark satanic mills.

Many supported universal male suffrage and a less rigid class structure, enlightened race relations and humanitarianism that also extended to improving women’s lives. These liberal aspirations towards societal equality contributed to the 1893 women’s suffrage victory.

At the end of the 19th century, feminists in New Zealand had a long list of demands. It included equal pay, prevention of violence against women, economic independence for women, old age pensions and reform of marriage, divorce, health and education – and peace and justice for all.

Widespread support
The women’s suffrage cause captured widespread support and emerged as the uniting right for women’s equality in society. As suffragist Christina Henderson later summed up, 1893 captured “the mental and spiritual uplift” women experienced upon release “from their age-long inferiority complex”.

Two other factors assisted New Zealand’s global first for women: a relatively small size and population and the lack of an entrenched conservative tradition. In Britain, John Stuart Mill presented a first petition for women’s suffrage to the British Parliament in 1866, but it took until wartime 1918 for limited women’s suffrage there.

As a “colonial frontier”, New Zealand had a surplus of men, especially in resource towns. Pragmatically, this placed a premium on women for their part as wives, mothers and moral compasses.

There was a fear of a chaotic frontier full of marauding single men. This colonial context saw conservative men who supported family values supporting suffrage. During the 1880s, depression and its accompanying poverty, sexual licence and drunken disorder further enhanced women’s value as settling maternal figures. Women voters promised a stabilising effect on society.

New Zealand gained much strength from an international feminist movement. Women were riding a first feminist wave that, most often grounded in their biological difference as life givers and carers, cast them as moral citizens.

Local feminists eagerly drew upon and circulated the best knowledge from Britain, America and Europe. When Mary Leavitt, the leader of the US-based Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) visited New Zealand in 1885, her goal was to set up local branches.

This had a direct impact, leading to the country’s first national women’s organisation and providing a platform for women to secure the vote in order to affect their colonial feminist concerns.

Shared egalitarian beliefs
Other places early to grant women’s suffrage shared the presence of liberal and egalitarian beliefs, a surplus of men over women, and less entrenched conservatism.

The four frontier US western mountain states led the way with Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1895). South Australia (1894) and Western Australia (1899) made the 19th century and, before the first world war, were joined by other western US states, Australia, Finland and Scandinavia.

New Zealand was fortunate to have many effective women leaders. Most prominent among them was Kate Sheppard. In 1887, Sheppard became head of the WCTU’s Christchurch branch and led the campaign for the vote.

The campaign leaders were well organised and hard working. Their tactics were petitions, pamphlets, letters, public talks and lobbying politicians – this was a peaceful era before the suffragette militancy during the early 20th century elsewhere.

The women were persistent and overcame setbacks. It took multiple attempts in parliament before the Electoral Act 1893 was passed. Importantly, the suffragists got public opinion behind the cause. Mass support was demonstrated through petitions between 1891 and 1893, in total garnering 31,872 signatures, amounting to a quarter of Aotearoa’s adult women.

Pragmatically, the women worked in allegiance with men in parliament who could introduce the bills. In particular, veteran conservative Sir John Hall viewed women’s suffrage as a way to a more moral and civil society.

The Suffrage 125 celebratory slogan “whakatū wāhine – women stand up!” captures the intention of continuing progressive and egalitarian traditions. Recognising diverse cultural backgrounds is now important. With hindsight, the feminist movement can be implicated as an agent of colonisation, but it did support votes for Māori women. Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia presented a motion to the newly formed Māori parliament to allow women to vote and sit in it.

New Zealand remains a small country that can experience rapid social and economic change. Evoking its colonial past, however, it retains both a reputation as a tough and masculine place of beer-swilling, rugby-playing blokes and a tradition of staunch, tea drinking, domesticated women.

Dr Katie Pickles is professor of history at the University of Canterbury and current Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow, University of Canterbury. This article is republished under a Creative Commons licence from The Conversation.