SPECIAL REPORT: By Netani Rika in Majuro

On a hastily-erected wall in the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre hang the names of dead women, victims of gender-based violence (GBV).

At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet there are but 14 names on the board after four days of a Triennial Conference.

So where are the remaining names?

• READ MORE: Other articles in the Pacific Women series

Have these women died in obscurity, their deaths confined to the dust heap somewhere in the region’s collective memory?

Does the memory of their deaths invoke such pain or, perhaps, guilt, that it is impossible for delegates to pick up a pen and put names to paper?

Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports log the death of yet another woman.

Or have the deaths of women due to gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend, father or brother?

Falling victim to violence
It has been a conference attended largely by women — ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grassroots representatives. Each day there have been more than 200 women at the event.

The 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women addressed at its core the need to improve the health of women and children. That includes the need for better access to services and treatment of women who fall victim to violence.

Gender-based violence is also a key focus of the talks. It is that violence — past, present and future – which results in death.

Yet three times a day for three days, on their way to grab a quick coffee or indulge in lunch, friendly conversations or bilateral dialogue, delegates have walked past the wall paying scant attention to the names of their dead Pacific sisters.

No names have been added to the wall since the initial appeal on Day One for attendees to remember the dead, to memorialise women whose lives were cut short in actions which were largely avoidable.

In Fiji, 60 percent of women and girls endure violence in their lifetime. Two of every three experience physical or sexual abuse from intimate partners and one in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace.

The trend is common throughout the region with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands recording the highest incidence of crimes against women.

Not one asked for silence
Delegates know these figures. The statistics are, sadly, nothing new.

On the third day, delegates quibbled over the nuances of language and the appropriate terms with which to populate a report on their deliberations. Yet not one asked for a moment of silence to remember the people whose names hung accusingly on a wall outside the meeting chamber.

When delegates left the convention centre on Friday afternoon, it is unlikely they would have remembered even one of the names on the wall.

Those names and the memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners, strangers, who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame in the sand of Majuro Atoll.

Netani Rika is an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.

Standing silently, the 8-year-old girl in Papua New Guinea could only watch as her mother was stripped and tortured until she succumbed to her injuries, catching her last breath in front of her daughter last Wednesday.

The woman, identified as Lorna Nico, 39, from Kira LLG in the Sohe district, was married to a man from Mumeng and moved to Bulolo to be with the husband and start a family.

Lorna Nico died after being tortured in front of her daughter after a so-called “prayer warrior” accused her of having satanic powers and being a witch, bringing bad luck into the community.

• READ MORE: PNG Post-Courier: ‘Laughing stock’ sorcery issue way out of control – Editorial
• Other sorgery allegation killings

She was tortured so badly that salt was used to pour into her wounds causing her more pain while her daughter watched her die.

The bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Reverend Jack Urame, condemned the actions of the community in Mumeng, saying that the mixing of religion and sorcery was “not what the Bible taught”.

He said there was “a shift in people using Christianity to identify suspected sorcerers which was now being used to destroy families and commit murders”.

“Using Christianity as a means to enact killings against those accused of sorcery is an idea condemned by the churches. I as the head of the Lutheran Church do not promote such
acts and I condemn the actions taken against the innocent family,” Reverend Urame said.

‘Prayer warrior’ accused
Morobe Rural police commander Superintendent David Warap said that the use of the “prayer warrior” pushed the community to commit the torture and the killing.

“The prayer warrior, using the name of the Lord, started performing a prayer ritual and was describing and naming people in the village who she claimed had satanic powers and were killing and causing people to get sick, have bad luck and struggle in finding education, finding jobs and doing business,” Superintendent Warap said.

“Upon the woman’s announcement, youths and villagers agreed to kill Lorna and when the village councillors and mediation group tried to stop them, they threatened the group,” he added.

Lorna Nico saw the group coming and told her family to run.

“She had with her, her 8-year-old who she was trying to drag and run,” Superintendent Warap said.

“She looked ahead to her older children and told them to run for their lives. The group of men quickly surrounded Lorna, dragged her and her daughter back to the village and proceeded with the torture.”

Children fled in fear
After Lorna Nico died, the group of men left her out in the sun and then they dug a hole and threw her in, covering her body with a canvas.

The children, in fear of their lives, left the village and walked with several other villagers to the nearest police station.

Police got to the scene and removed the body and took the body to Angau Hospital morgue in Lae where the corpse will be examined.

The family have now petitioned the Bulolo MP Sam Basil Jr to ensure the police investigate the case and arrests are made.

The petition also states that the woman who was brought in as a “prayer warrior” should be identified and dealt with by police for falsely accusing their mother.

They have also demanded that the rule of law must prevail and they would not accept any form of compensation for their loss.

Police are continuing their investigation.

Sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV) in Papua New Guinea is a growing social crisis.

Republished with permission.

About 100 people have marched in the New Caledonian capital of Noumea to protest against what they see as government inaction to curb violence against women.

The rally was called by the group Women in Anger just days after the latest killing of a woman at the hands of her partner.

The marchers went from the seat of government to Congress and to the French High Commission to deliver a letter calling on support for their cause from France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron.

• READ MORE: Valentine Holle : ‘On a l’impression que dans ce pays, les femmes sont là pour se faire tuer’ – Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes
• Other reports on Pacific domestic violence

March organiser Valentine Holle told La Premiere television she wanted the government to come up with a feasible plan of action.

“We need to change the tribal laws and traditional rules and we need the French state to acknowledge these issues. We also need the French state to seat themselves around the table with civil society and discuss a viable solution,” Holle said.

The weekend march was the second such protest in Noumea in less than a month and follows another rally earlier this year.

In mid-July, a 35-year-old woman was killed in Noumea.

Seven times higher than France
Crime figures released for New Caledonia show that last year the incidence of domestic violence was seven times higher than in mainland France.

The statistics released by the French High Commission show the number of reported incidents had grown by 13 percent from 2020.

Reports of sexual violence had increased by more than 30 percent.

The report shows that abuse of alcohol and drugs is frequently linked to violent offending.

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

A Papua New Guinean primary school teacher has been arrested for allegedly torturing a woman with a hot knife in sorcery-related violence in Southern Highlands’ Kagua Erave last year.

Southern Highlands commander Chief Inspector Daniel Yangen said the 35-year-old teacher, from Aiya’s Pawayamo village, was arrested on Monday.

He said the teacher was sighted in Mendi town by an informant who alerted the Mendi Criminal Investigation Department.

• READ MORE: Other PNG sorcery-related reports

The teacher is charged with three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and five counts of kidnapping.

Chief Inspector Yangen said the three women who died from the sorcery-torture had been identified as Yondopame Kama, Nancy Gibson and Bale Mana. The two survivors are Magdah Michael and Maria Cedric.

He said the five women were accused of killing a man through sorcery and were held captive on December 4 in Pawayamo village.

Three died from injuries suffered in the ordeal and the two survivors are now under police protection.

Video went viral
Chief Inspector Yangen said the teacher was believed to have pressed a hot knife onto the body of Mana who was crying in the middle of video a that went viral on social media. Mana died.

“The teacher was clearly identified in the last part of the video wearing a black round neck shirt, long trousers carrying a bilum bag,” Chief Inspector Yangen said.

“He is armed with a bush knife with his left hand which he used in the middle of the video with a piece of cloth as mask covering his face to protect his identity and [sunglasses] on his head.

“A well-educated man is supposed to educate and refrain people from humiliating innocent mothers and women in public. We will hunt down his accomplices,” Chief Inspector Yangen said.

“The first arrest in the murders was a ward councillor charged under the Summary Offences Act for obstruction of police duties. He is now out on K500 court bail.

“Our next target is the Usa ward councillor. He was the one who assured Deputy Commissioner (Operations) Anton Billie that he would work with the police to identify the suspects, but has gone into hiding.

‘More arrests soon’
“We will continue with investigations and more arrests will be made soon. We will not rest until the uncivilised perpetrators are arrested.”

He said police needed help from the local government presidents, councillors, village court magistrates, women leaders and church groups to provide information to arrest the suspects.

The video of the torture of the women posted on social media prompted urgent police investigations.

The United Nations condemned the recent sorcery accusation-related violence and called for the immediate prosecution of those responsible.

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.

• READ MORE: ‘A betrayal’: Coverage of pregnant reporter ‘helped by Taliban’ is called out
• Pregnant NZ journalist Charlotte Bellis offered a place in MIQ
• Charlotte Bellis talks to Fox News about the pregnancy and the Taliban
• I’m appalled at the way the Charlotte Bellis situation has played out – John MacDonald
• How long will the stench of MIQ hang over NZ? Foreign media seized on Charlotte Bellis saga, but harm to NZ’s reputation will fade – Damien Venuto
• Muzhgan Samarqandi: MIQ debate trivialises the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan
• The Reporter Without Borders: In a war zone and a pandemic, who gets to pull strings? – Rafia Zakaria
• Charlotte Bellis’ open letter on MIQ to New Zealand – New Zealand Herald

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.

WARNING: This article contains graphic content that some readers may find disturbing.

Unexplained deaths spark sorcery claims, torture and murder, as fears build of a Covid-19 ‘time bomb’ in Papua New Guinea.

When a young boy died suddenly in Tatape Village in Papua New Guinea’s highlands, his relatives said dark forces were at work.

Four women were accused of using sanguma — a local term for sorcery or witchcraft — to kill the child.

• READ MORE: Other articles about Papua New Guinea and sorcery
• Jo Chandler: Gender, human rights and power investigations in Papua New Guinea — Pacific Journalism Review

Sergeant Daniel Olabe from the Hela Police Command alleges the boy’s father and others led their tribesmen to where the women were selling baked flour in a local market.

“Eventually they got one of the ladies… and tortured her,” he said.

“They hung her up, tied her arms and legs, beat her and started cutting her really badly.

“They did it until 10pm and she died eventually.”

Her dismembered body was left beside a road some kilometres away.

A video of the torture and murder shows a crowd of people watching on.

There have so far been no arrests in relation to the murder, with police saying suspects have fled into nearby bush and mountains, and fighting between groups in the aftermath has made it difficult to go into the area.

The case is one of a string of sorcery-accusation killings across PNG in recent months.

While many parts of the country have a long history of belief in sorcery, what concerns authorities is that many recent killings have occurred in regions where there isn’t a tradition of witchcraft.

“This torturing and killing is very serious to us, it’s like a first of its kind to us,” sergeant Olabe said.

In another case in the same month, a man was killed by a mob in Daru after being accused of using sorcery.

“Sorcery-related killing is unheard of in Daru Town,” Daru Police Commander Inspector Soiwa Ricker told local daily newspaper The National.

How traditional beliefs turned into murder
Accusations of sorcery usually follow a sudden or unexplained death, with a grieving village becoming convinced someone among them is to blame.

An accusation can swiftly end in torture, reprisals and lynchings.

But Ruth Kissam, an advocate and expert in the field who works with local NGO the Tribal Foundation, said the violence did not have a cultural background, even in areas where belief in sorcery was traditional.

“Sorcery-accusation-related violence picked up about 10 to 15 years ago,” she said.

“Culturally, there is a deep belief in sorcery in many parts of Papua New Guinea, but it was never violent.

“The belief system was sorcery against sorcery, and mostly it was believed that the village sorcerer was a man.”

Kissam said now the people generally accused were women, often those who were already marginalised or vulnerable and were “easily targeted”.

“Now the dynamics have changed, it’s become more about power plays,” she said.

Con artists’ claim they can identify ‘witches’
Kissam said the horrific violence being seen had “absolutely nothing to do with culture” and instead was “a law and order problem that is arising from a broken health system”.

She believed disenfranchisement among people who were unable to get adequate healthcare and left school with no jobs to go to was contributing to the problem.

And increased connectivity in PNG, through new roads and easier travel, has also been attributed with spreading sorcery beliefs into regions where it isn’t traditional.

Another major concern has been the rise of people called glassmen, or glassmeri for women, who claim to be able to identify a witch.

The Tribal Foundation warned a recent parliamentary inquiry into gender-based violence in PNG they were partly responsible for spreading sorcery into new areas.

“We have people who are glassman and glassmeri who will go into the community and they are profiteering off their [claimed] special ability to say who in the community is the sanguma [or witch],” Tribal Foundation director Gary Bustin said.

“These are just con artists profiting from torture.”

It had become a profitable business model for the glassmen, who asked for payment from a community to identify a “witch”.

Coronavirus could be a sorcery ‘time bomb’
There are also concerns that deaths related to covid-19 could lead to an increase in sorcery accusations — and one such case has already been recorded.

A community health worker in the town of Goroka contracted Covid-19 and died at home earlier this year.

“The family in his tribe said the wife used sorcery to kill her husband, so the community got hold of the lady, stripped her naked and tortured her with hot irons,” local MP Aiya Tambua said.

Someone alerted the police to the lynching as it was in progress. Before officers arrived, the woman was thrown off a bridge.

She survived but Tambua said while the woman was in hospital, her daughter was also attacked and needed to be rescued by police.

“[The hospital] found that the mother is covid positive and the child is covid positive and the father died from covid-19,” he said.

Kissam said covid-19 was a potential “time bomb” for sorcery-related violence.

“Covid poses a very critical risk right now,” she said.

There are reports of “countless” accusations of sorcery following suspected covid-19 deaths, but the case in Goroka is the only confirmed act of violence so far.

Kissam warned that an accusation was still a mark against someone and that a “build-up” of accusations could see people attacked later, especially when covid-19 was out of the headlines.

She said the PNG government needed to run an aggressive education campaign explaining the science of the pandemic.

Why won’t police intervene?
In the wake of the horrific murder of the woman in Hela, PNG’s Parliament is asking questions.

A newly formed special parliamentary committee on gender-based violence has written to the country’s Police Commissioner, asking for information about the investigation and potential arrests.

The letter, written by the committee’s chairman Charles Abel also highlights concerns that the police response to sorcery-accusation violence is “often insufficient”.

He said the committee had been told “police [were] not attending cases in a timely manner and little or no action [was] being taken to investigate or arrest alleged perpetrators”.

A shortage of police in PNG can make investigating the cases difficult, especially as officers are often met with armed and violent community members. PNG’s police-to-civilian ratio is about one officer per 2000 people.

“Most of the police are in urban centres and some of them are guarding the mines, they’re attached to the resource sector,” Kissam said.

“The police could be one [officer] in a catchment of area of 20,000 to 30,000 people.”

Amid the focus on better enforcing existing laws, there are also calls to introduce new legislation specifically targeting glassmen and glassmeri.

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

Prime Minister James Marape says Papua New Guineans who continue to commit crimes under the pretext of “sorcery” must be arrested and charged by police.

Marape was responding to questions asked by The National in relation to the death of Mary Kopari who was killed by an angry mob over allegations of sorcery in Margarima, Hela.

“People shouldn’t be killing women or girls over sorcery, as far as Papua New Guinea is concerned,” he said.

• READ MORE: Protect women accused of ‘sorcery’ and punish attackers, watchdog tells PNG
• ‘It gives us nightmares,’ says PNG police officer dealing with domestic violence

“Killing someone accused of sorcery is illegal, so police should be doing their job.

“We discourage anyone from killing another over sorcery, if you feel that someone has caused an offence, there are appropriate charges to be laid against that person”

The special Parliamentary Committee on Gender-Based Violence chairman, Charles Abel, has written a letter to Police Commissioner David Manning requesting for information on actions taken over:

• sorcery accusations related killing in Hela; and
• the systematic police response to sorcery accusation-related violence.

Information needed by Monday
Abel said the information must be provided to the committee secretariat no later than Monday.

Hela police have told The National that eight suspects were identified in the horror torture and killing.

Officer-in-charge of Hela CID Sergeant Daniel Olabe said after the killing that there had been a confrontation between the woman’s family and the husband’s family.

“From the video, we have identified eight men who tortured the woman.”

However, no charges have yet been made.

Republished with permission.