WHEN the national elections were the topic of the day and the newspapers were full of comments from citizens great and small, the role of women in our country once again surfaced.
Leaders and authorities from the church, from Parliament, from private enterprise and from virtually every other sector of the community stressed how desirable it was that women should be elected in strength to the new Parliament.
Many persuasive reasons were advanced to support this concept.
Among them was the sharply increasing number of educated women in our communities and the need to tackle attitudes that led to domestic violence.
Women’s contributions to the community were placed under a rare spotlight.
Yet the sum total of all of those initiatives, hopes and dreams came to nought.
Instead, women are being savaged in our country as never before.
Women are being gang-raped and murdered on a weekly basis.
Young girls have been savagely abused, their lives ruined by those whom they most trusted.
Elderly women in increasing numbers are meeting grisly deaths at the hands of young village and settlement hoods, accused of “sorcery.”
They have been drowned, tortured with white hot metal rods and burned to ashes in their homes.
There will be those readers who, at this point cry “stop.”
They don’t want to hear any more.
But the time has come when these situations must be confronted head-on.
Where are the men who are prepared to stand up and openly fight against domestic violence, the abuse of children and the continuing and indeed increasing level of displayed contempt for PNG women.
These thoughts came to mind yesterday when we heard an FM100 radio interview with the head of the department of communication arts at Divine Word University.
Br Michael McManus has made domestic violence and in particular its influence upon students at DWU, the basis for some intensive research.
One aspect of that process that should have horrified listeners throughout PNG was two brief excerpts from material written by DWU women undergraduates.
The topic was domestic violence and abuse; Br Michael was shocked to find that a distressingly significant proportion of his students wrote about their own experiences.
One extract read yesterday described the fear and anguish of a young woman whose mother had recently died.
One night she was asked by her father whether her dead mother had made her “aware of her duties,” to which she confidently responded that she had.
The father then spent the balance of the evening – and subsequently many other evenings – raping his daughter.
These incidents are intolerable in our society.
The added tragedy is that young women are unwilling to report these atrocities to the authorities; afraid of revenge from the offending person and afraid too of the attitude of the members of the police force.
Even family members may not provide any relief for these victims, often refusing to believe the story told and instead turning against the victim.
One young woman who tried to get help from her mother was abused and told she was a “slut” and a “prostitute”.
It is now painfully apparent that all last year’s fulsome praise from political parties about the role of women and their importance in our society was once again nothing but mauswara.
All the old attitudes remain as apparent as they have been for decades.
If a woman is raped, many men will say “she asked for it”.
If a married woman is seen to be disobedient in her husband’s eyes, then she will be bashed until she obeys.
The incestuous abuse of daughters, step-daughters and nieces by males within the family circle is, we believe, far more widespread than is publicly reported.
If young female students at DWU, many of whom have highly educated parents and financially comfortable backgrounds, can mutely suffer this level of barbaric treatment from within their own families, it is well-nigh impossible to imagine the levels of such abuse throughout the country.
We plead with the Government, with women’s organisations, with intelligent and responsible men and with the whole PNG community to work together as one unit to rid our country of these monstrous social ills.