Islands tell the world what’s being done

Lisa Williams Lahari





Slowly but surely. Those three words could effectively sum up 15 years of Pacific progress towards better lives for Pacific women and girls.
  In some areas a little less slow and in others a little less sure, the road from a promise of equality in Beijing to the regions of the world has been riddled with potholes and damaged bridges. Development agencies and key donors have been leading the pit stops and roading repairs while cheering on stragglers and stars. They will all be meeting this month in New York, during a global UN report-card meeting dubbed the Beijing+15.
  Named after the Beijing Platform for Action which came out of the UN 4th World Conference on Women in China in 1995, political and civil society leaders from the region take the world stage March 1-12 to tell the world what’s been done so far to close the gaps on quality of life for Pacific men and women, and to see how the rest of the world has been doing.
  Every annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting stirs up the usual flow of empowerment rhetoric from the political leaders of the region that do make it their priority to attend. This year, things are different.
  Numbers of official delegations from the Pacific don’t match the attendance nor the force of the commitments made 15 years ago; and only six Pacific national reports feature on a UN web link. Whatever the reasons, the lacklustre effort will speak volumes. The UN is in for some serious discussions on one of its most important acronyms yet—GEAR. The Gender Equality Architectural Reform project will streamline and renew the UN approach to its work on the human rights of women.
  Advisers from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and PIFS (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat) will be supporting the Pacific briefings as the usual tumble of CSW rhetoric is rolled out to remind and commend. Words like commitment, equality, sustainable development, culture and traditions, challenges, progress, national development or action plans for women will centre around the Pacific progress on the region’s own gender action document, the Pacific Platform for Action (PPA).
  The PPA is coming up for its own report card review later this year, making the New York focus timely. Pacific successes on the big global acronyms are likely to pop up in the Pacific triennial event for women which will present outcomes to a ministerial meeting.
  Thanks to a mixed basket of renewed agency commitments via the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs and simplified reporting on key indicators for progress,  leaders have their evidence of their own statistics to show them actions, not more talk, are proof of progress. More than their own national documents, reporting templates like the MDGs and CEDAW have been a huge success in helping Pacific people see the scale and shape of the gender agenda.
   With a comprehensive regional report being prepared for briefings in New York, looking for answers 15 years out from Beijing’s promise of a new equality, and its actions for getting there depends on who you talk to.
  What’s clear is the order and priority differ slightly between countries in the developing Pacific, but essentially they remain the same critical concerns they were in 1995, and for the Noumea Declaration, revised in 2005.  
  Epidemic levels of violence across the Pacific, at its worst in Melanesia where reports in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea show two out of three women have experienced violence. An HIV/AIDS epidemic in Papua New Guinea proving why gender identities are so connected to power and control.
  Taboos around sexuality in all Pacific nations that ensure emotions run so high they drown out efforts to pinpoint the problems facing young women, child prostitution, and sex workers.
  Land rights, migrant labour, the divides between rural and urban in Pacific communities. The profile of civilian leadership and women using information technologies to be a force for peace and empowerment, via FemLINKpacific; or taking the global arena, such as the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation—both set up by former journalists.
  At the national level, countries will have a positive spin and its dark side to report. In the Cook Islands, the Police Force has set up a domestic violence coordinator desk which is helping to keep tabs and raise awareness on the no-drop policy.
  Draft labour laws also specifically include sexual harassment clauses, and requirements for women needing their husband’s permission to have a tubal ligation have been changed. Now they can both decide.
  But the Cooks shares two issues with all Pacific nations: the strong negative attitudes to gender work and scarce resources to satisfy the demand for statistics split by sex to pinpoint areas where attention is needed.
  In Nauru, it’s all about networking—a women in business group, the set up for the first time of a Nauru young women’s national council, and the launch of a safe house for those escaping violence are rounded out by a new Nauru Well Women clinic to help women connect with the commitments.
  Samoa leads the pack this reporting round with the most comprehensive and detailed report of the Pacific developing nations. A national policy for women to 2017 has a plan of action linked to national budget planning to help ministries join the efforts and implementation of the national plan.
  Draft labour laws which look at maternity protection for female workers and a draft Domestic Violence Bill are part of the Samoa updates, with education figures showing a shift of girls away from home economics topics towards science, technology and income-generating activities. 
  The good news is that, mostly due to the influence of work around the MDGs, there is a stronger statistical basis to the anecdotal situation of Pacific women and girls.
  While they don’t paint a pretty picture, especially for Melanesia where cultural and gender identities continue to mask violence against Pacific women and children on an ‘epidemic’ scale, they are an effective wake-up call.
  The regional agencies now have a gender working group to share approaches, ‘audit’ their gender policies, and share work programmes.
  Lead agency SPC has replaced the former Pacific Women’s Bureau with a Gender Adviser merged into a Human Development Programme covering Women, Youth and Culture.
  Since Beijing, Samoa and the Solomon Islands governments endorsed national studies from a global WHO template on VAW.
  More countries want to host the comprehensive studies, but the downside is hearing the truth.
  A report on violence against women and girls in the Solomon Islands has spent months with the cabinet waiting for its official release. The key findings—that two out of every three women in the nation is a survivor of violence.
  Pacific CEDAW and its optional protocol have seen a wave of ratification since Beijing and now links all but a handful of Pacific nations since Fiji was the first country to report to the committee in 2001.
  On the flip side, raising awareness and public dialogue continues in anti-CEDAW strongholds like Tonga, where the political leadership defies the evidence before it and continues the view that CEDAW is not needed because women in Tonga are already protected within Tongan culture.
  Leadership
  Pacific women continue to miss out in Pacific politics with one of the lowest political representation rates in the world although Papua New Guinea is moving closer to temporary special measures to boost the numbers of women.
  In the Cook Islands, a growing voice is aiming to do the same.
  Taking development agencies and their funds out of the equation throws the Pacific women’s movement, and the activism of volunteers into stark relief. But it also raises concerns on what Pacific leaders have really put into the commitments they made. Where are the budget lines and resources that need to follow all the talk?
  The common postcard across the Pacific countries is that budget allocations from the public purse for women’s divisions are painfully meagre, and there is an expectation that donors will rally to plump out the bottom lines. 
  “This is the Pacific. Really, it’s the donors who have made the big difference in what NGOs and governments are doing for women.
  “I’ve never seen a women’s department on a high priority list in the budget,” says one Pacific planner.
  “As a rule of thumb, the minister is going to make sure he and his team are taken care of. Then his portfolios are taken care of.
  “So it’s up to the minister in charge for women, or gender, to push for the money and of course the argument is how to make the budget cover all the urgent needs.
  “On top of that, gender budgeting. I don’t think the ones who need to understand it the most are using it.”
  The white elephant for the Pacific this time round will be Fiji, where the good news on some proactive legislation for women’s rights has the shine taken off it by the worsening freedom of expression situation for human rights defenders and civil society there.
  New decrees now criminalise any critical comment of the regime made in or outside of Fiji who will be at CSW54 and also have a CEDAW reporting appointment later this year.
  “Beijing +15 is a good opportunity for all of us to take stock of where we are,” says one advocate. Another good aspect of that stock take is its timing.
  Having to deal with a wake-up call so early into the year can help Pacific leaders inject a new energy towards the 9th Commonwealth Ministerial on women (WAMM) coming up mid-year, as well as the Pacific meeting and ministerial after that.
  It could be well be time for leaders to add another key skill to the basket of commitments showing they have the talking skills.
  Making their women feel heard will mean tuning into one of their most challenging skills yet: the ability to listen.