Address domestic violence

ACCORDING to a report by Pardee Initiative for Global Human Progress, two thirds of women in Papua New Guinea suffer from domestic abuse.
The report was authored by Mahlet Woldetsadik, an assistant policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
Woldetsadik said global goals aimed to achieve gender equality but in a country where 67 per cent of women suffer from domestic abuse, men should be part of the solution.
When the UN introduced the millennium development goals (MDGs) in 2000, its third pledge – to promote gender equality and empower women – promised to herald worldwide reform.
But 15 years later, progress in PNG is far slower than hoped.
According to Human Rights Watch, family violence in PNG is an emergency.
It found that women nationwide were enduring brutal attacks from their partners, as often officials neglect survivors’ needs for safety, services and justice.
Civil society groups are providing life-saving assistance and the government has taken initial steps to combat this violence.
But far more needs to be done.
Yesterday, UN resident coordinator to PNG Gianlucca Rampolla announced that PNG was ranked second among the worst 30 country in the world for domestic violence.
PNG is second to Nigeria and this is something that we should be ashamed of.
And because of that, United Nations is providing US$25 million (about K80mil) to address domestic violence in PNG.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that 137 women across the globe were killed every day by intimate partners or relatives last year.
According to the 2018 report, about 87,000 were killed worldwide in 2017, 58 per cent of them victims of domestic or family violence, with many of the deaths preventable.
The UN defines violence against women as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life’.
In PNG, statistics from studies conducted has shown that two in three women are victims of domestic violence.
Domestic violence is one of the most complex and dangerous crimes in our society.
Regrettably, in PNG, the economic cost of domestic violence has not been documented to know how much is spent in a year.
We acknowledge the support from our overseas donor partners especially with the technical help in setting up the process.
The challenge now is in on the government to provide reliable and steady funding so the technical plans come into effect.
Domestic violence for that matter will continue to be an issue unless the Government works in partnership with concerned stakeholders and partners.
Despite legislations, rules and process on matters relating to gender based violence being amended to be user friendly in terms of taking matters to courts, there is still a lot of awareness has also been done with this avenue.
Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.
Domestic and family violence is endemic worldwide and should be addressed firstly through the government with funding which is a major challenge.
There has to be a holistic approach.