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Papua New Guinea, Where Violence Can Seem Like the Norm for Women

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  • Papua New Guinea, Where Violence Can Seem Like the Norm for Women

    Blame Australia.

    Papua New Guinea, Where Violence Can Seem Like the Norm for Women

    By THE NEW YORK TIMESJAN. 17, 2014
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/wo...omen.html?_r=0
    Carey Wagner for The New York Times
    A Culture of Violence

    In the South Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea, one of the world’s most violent places, nearly every woman has experienced some form of domestic abuse.

    Papua New Guinea, a developing country of seven million people with a growing market in the mining of natural resources, is one of the most violent places in the world for women, according to the United Nations. In the country’s remote Highlands, the Australian government found that nearly every woman has experienced some form of physical violence, including sexual violence. After decades of abuse from her husband, Agnes, who is now living in a safe house said: “I thought that that was normal for a woman to be beaten by her husband. I never thought it wasn’t right.”

    The photographer Carey Wagner spent several weeks in this South Pacific island country documenting how a complex blend of traditional beliefs and lopsided gender dynamics have created a culture of violence in which women are particularly vulnerable.

    “Men are being taught that this is the way that you should treat your wife, your sister or even your mother,” said Paulina Castillo, a psychologist affiliated with a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Tari that treats women suffering from bush knife wounds or sexual abuse. Doctors and nurses at this remote clinic say they have never seen such regularly occurring violence outside of conflict zones.

    While violent customs are hard to overcome, the country is taking small steps to bring gender violence under control. In September, Parliament passed a bill that makes all forms of domestic violence a crime punishable with fines and jail time. “In our culture, men think that they are the bosses and they have the right to control the woman,” said Lydia, who recently filed an order for protection against her husband. “I want women to know we have our own rights.”
    Girls in PNG given away in compensation

    From THE NATIONAL/PACNEWS

    News
    Fri 17 Jan 2014
    http://www.islandsbusiness.com/news/...-compensation/

    PORT MORESBY, PNG --- Papua New Guinea Police in Jiwaka have been alerted about the giving away of two young girls as part of compensation payments.

    And a human rights lawyer has condemned the decision by Menginpol villagers to hand over the girls, aged 13 and 15, to people at neighbouring Kui, as compensation over the death of a teacher.

    The two groups live together in the Kol local level government in Jimi district, Jiwaka. Pigs and K9,000 (US$3, 582) were paid as part of the same compensation package.

    Assistant police commissioner in the highlands region Teddy Tei said he had instructed police in Banz, Jiwaka, to investigate the matter immediately.

    Mt Hagen-based human rights lawyer Danny Gonol said the two girls’ dignity and rights should have been protected.

    He called on Jiwaka police to investigate the matter and arrest those who made the decision to give away the two girls as compensation.

    “This is a breach of human rights at its worst,” he said.

    “I condemn the community leaders from Kol who made the decision to give away two innocent girls to settle a dispute.”

    Gonol said compensation in the highlanders’ context comprised material goods and money only.

    He said the two girls were given away to the relatives of the deceased teacher for marriage.

    But this was against their consent and worse, they were still under-aged.

    “This is totally wrong. No one in his or her right mind will make such a decision to give away two girls.”

    Gonol said human beings were born superior than the animals and therefore, cannot be treated like an animal.

    “This is like a human trade and this practice must stop now, it’s a new thing in the province and rest of the highlands region,” he said.

    He said police must immediately step in and return the two girls to their parents.
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

  • #2
    Well, we are the nearest white folk, so I guess it is.

    PNG is messed up in so many ways that it boggles the mind. Friend of mine worked there a few years back. He said that you would get stuck with a bigger compensation bill for running over a pig than a child - you can just make another child, pigs are expensive.

    'Failed state' does not begin to describe this place.
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    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
      'Failed state' does not begin to describe this place.
      Might be overly generous to give it state status to allow for such a failure. They come from a way of human life that quite literally was lived everywhere on the planet along time ago and vestiges of that life are still present in PNG resulting in treatment of women that is simply appalling under modern standards. I posted this up recently, but I wanted to post it again, as it is actually more relevent in this thread, given that PNG is one of the tested countries.

      Following on from the op,
      We interviewed 10 178 men in our study (815—1812 per site). The prevalence of non-partner single perpetrator rape varied between 2·5% (28/1131; rural Bangladesh) and 26·6% (225/846; Bougainville, Papua New Guinea), multiple perpetrator rape between 1·4% (18/1246; urban Bangladesh) and 14·1% (119/846; Bougainville, Papua New Guinea), and male rape between 1·5% (13/880; Jayapura, Indonesia) and 7·7% (65/850; Bougainville, Papua New Guinea).
      Prevalence of and factors associated with non-partner rape perpetration: findings from the UN Multi-country Cross-sectional Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific : The Lancet Global Health
      PNG fares the worst of all the countries across the board by a considerable margin. The problem is heavily rooted in culture and the status of women.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by tantalus View Post
        Might be overly generous to give it state status to allow for such a failure. They come from a way of human life that quite literally was lived everywhere on the planet along time ago and vestiges of that life are still present in PNG
        I very nearly said the same thing. I'm not sure how you can really build a nation in a place with over 300 languages that are mostly mutually unintelligible & belong to indigenous people who often live in inaccessible places that are barely integrated into any larger entity. The place is dysfunctional on a good day.
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        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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        • #5
          Originally posted by tantalus View Post
          Might be overly generous to give it state status to allow for such a failure. They come from a way of human life that quite literally was lived everywhere on the planet along time ago and vestiges of that life are still present in PNG resulting in treatment of women that is simply appalling under modern standards. I posted this up recently, but I wanted to post it again, as it is actually more relevent in this thread, given that PNG is one of the tested countries.

          Following on from the op,


          Prevalence of and factors associated with non-partner rape perpetration: findings from the UN Multi-country Cross-sectional Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific : The Lancet Global Health
          PNG fares the worst of all the countries across the board by a considerable margin. The problem is heavily rooted in culture and the status of women.
          PNG rape is not the result of the hunter-gatherer presence there. It's the result of the brutal modernization process along with, of course, alcohol.

          The same could be said of the arctic peoples.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Solastalgia View Post
            PNG rape is not the result of the hunter-gatherer presence there. It's the result of the brutal modernization process along with, of course, alcohol.

            The same could be said of the arctic peoples.
            Bullshit.
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            Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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