LIFE

Beauty queen-cum-lawyer

By CLARISSA MOI
THERE is no straight path to achieving dreams, former Miss PNG, now lawyer Genevieve Roberts says.
Roberts, 39, from a mixed parentage of Savaia village in Suau, Milne Bay and Gogobe village in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville had always wanted to be a lawyer but she entered other professions before becoming a lawyer.
“My first degree is in education.
“I got an education degree at the University of Goroka in 2006 and I worked as a teacher for about three years. While being a teacher, I contested the Miss PNG Quest and won the quest.
I came to Port Moresby in 2014 where I worked as a judge’s secretary. When I was the judge’s secretary, I applied to the law school.
“It’s been a very long journey, working and studying at the same time so it took me an extra year to complete law school.
I enrolled in 2016 and by 2020, I completed the course. It’s tough being a mother, working, and going to school.”
She says most of the time, she does everything that needs to be done, and by midnight, she gets to do her assignments. “Sometimes I don’t sleep like two days in a row, just sit up and study. It has been a tough journey but the rewards are good.
“Last year we went into LTI, we started very late because of Covid-19 and other issues so we started in June.
“All the courses that we were supposed to take in nine months were all crapped up into six months. We have assignments due one after another.”
Roberts is married with two daughters (11 and seven years old). Her dad had passed on and her mother is still around.

“ I had a dream, I worked hard towards it and achieved it. Age doesn’t matter. Always try to be the better version of yourself each day, don’t try to compete with other people. Compete with yourself and try to be better than what you were yesterday.”

“Family support is very important. My mother and sister were very supportive. They would wake up in the morning, prepare my children’s breakfast and lunch.
They were the ones who stood behind me and I was able to come this far.”
Roberts plans to work for the State in policy and legislation.
“I would like to work for the State. I believe that I will contribute more to the development of this country through policy and legislation. I’m not really interested in going to courts because I want to work in policy and legislation.
“I’ve applied to the State Solicitor’s office and I’m hoping they get me to work with them.
“A few years back, you could say that it’s a really big thing or rare seeing women getting more than one degree, getting masters, honors or doctorate.
“I see so many Papua New Guinea women who are earning first degree, second, third, masters and I just feel privileged to be part of that group of women.”
Roberts was admitted as a lawyer of the national and supreme courts last month
During the Legal Training Institute graduation last month, Roberts got three awards: commercial law (general), commercial law taxation and commercial law Queensland Bar.
“My encouragement to other female is that education doesn’t end. If you have a dream, pursue it.
“Believe in yourself and it’s also good to have a support system and your partner that will help you to go a long way.
“I had a dream, I worked hard towards it and achieved it. Age doesn’t matter. Always try to be the better version of yourself each day, don’t try to compete with other people. Compete with yourself and try to be better than what you were yesterday.”
Roberts started her primary school education inn1991 at Sacred Heart Community School in Hohola, before transferring to Rabe Community School in Alotau where she did grades two and three.
She later transferred to Savaia Primary School in Suau where she continued her education from grades 5 to 8. She was accepted to continue grade 9 and 10 at Wesley High School in Salamo, Fergusson Island where she completed her high school there.
In 2000, she did grades 11 and 12 at Cameron Secondary in Alotau.
She was accepted to the University of Goroka in 2002 where she started her pre-service bachelor in education programme. She graduated in March 2006.
She taught at the Goroka Grammar School from 2006 to 2007. While teaching, she entered the Miss PNG Red Cross Charity Quest where she won.
She worked in various roles such as festival administrator for the PNG Coffee Festival in 2008, reservations supervisor at Masurina Lodge in Alotau from 2011 to 2012, judge’s private secretary from 2013- to 2016 and as a judge’s associate from 2016-2019, went into law school and is now a lawyer.

I still don’t love him

By REBECCA KUKU

I SHARE with you a story from a woman whose dream was shattered when she 15-years-old.

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ABOUT 25 years ago, when I was 15-years-old, I was raped by my teacher and forced to marry him.
My children do not know and I don’t want them to know. My mother told me that with time, I would learn to love him and I did try but even after all these years I haven’t forgiven him for spoiling my childhood, my education and my dreams.
It was in 1997, our village was on the other side of a big river, not many teachers came to teach at our community school so the few who did were highly respected and well taken care of.
I had just turned 15, and was doing my grade 4, in those days we went to school a bit later, like when we are 10 or 11 years old.
I was a bright student and in the four years always came first in my class.
I could also speak English well as my mum was the laundry women for the local French catholic priest and at an early age I would follow her to the priest’s house who taught me how to read and speak English so I also would help teachers translate instructions to the other students in our language, sometimes.
Most of my teachers loved me, would complement me, encourage me, so when the new male teacher paid attention to me I didn’t think much of it.
A few months went by and one day he asked me to help him carry the bilum (bag) of garden food that a student’s mother had brought for him to his house and I did. But he locked the door just as I put the bilum down in his kitchen, pulled me into the living room and raped me.
I fought for as long as I could but I was small and powerless, eventually I just laid there and accepted it. And I guess that’s why I still hate myself. I hate myself for not fighting harder. I hate myself for not screaming harder. And even after so many years I still feel dirty.
Anyways, after that he let me go and told me not to tell anyone. I went home and I continued living my life. But a few months later my stomach started to grow, I was pregnant!
My mum and her older sister brought me into the little haus kuk (kitchen) one day and asked me if I was with child. I remember that day clearly as it was the day my whole world crashed.
I was confused so they asked me if I had slept with a man, I stupidly told them I slept alone in my room, finally they asked me if a man had touched my body and that was when I understood them and told them what had happened.
My mother and aunty were furious. Mum went out and called out to all our relatives she wanted to tell them that the teacher had raped me. But my father stopped her. And told her he would take care of it.
Two days later, I was married off to the teacher, just like that.
Just like that, I became a wife. I had always dreamed of becoming a nurse- a midwife as a lot of women including my father’s sister had died from giving birth and I wanted to finish school, study and become a nurse so I could go back and serve in my village. But all those dreams were gone, just like that.
I became a housewife, when it was near my time to give birth, he took me to town. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who I love so much.
Over the years, I’ve given birth to four other children. But none of them was conceived in love. I hated him and still hate him.
I watched as my class mates completed their Grade 6 and went on to high school in town, I heard their stories of how they were studying in University and at colleges and it would kill me inside.
And when they started working and came back home for holidays, I would stay locked up in my house as I didn’t want to see them.
I knew it would hurt.
Sometimes I would wonder why my father did what he did. Why he never fought for me. Why he just gave me away to be married to the men who hurt me. And I would cry myself to sleep. Only the village priest stood up for me.
He wanted to report what had happened but my father accepted the bride price or compensation or whatever it was and gave me away in marriage.
It wasn’t until my father was on his dying bed that I finally had the courage to ask him why he gave me away in marriage to a man who raped me and his words broke my heart.
“The village needed a teacher and I needed a father for the baby that was carrying.”
Over the years, I learned to accept my fate. The village priest has been kind enough to continue lending me books to read and even taught me how to bake and cook various dishes.
I now do catering for church events and other big events in my village and neighboring village and do my own accounts.
And I am very proud of that as a Grade 4 drop out.
A few years ago my husband brought home another one of his students to be his second wife. No one talks about it as they respect him.
The young woman is only 19 years old but already has two children. It was sometime later, that I found out that she too, was forced to marry him as well as she was pregnant after been raped.
Most times we tend to turn a blind eye on such cases out of respect for the tittle that the perpetrators hold forgetting that our daughters need to be protected too.
And while I am grateful for the teachers who choose to teach in rural areas and appreciate their hard work in educating our children. There are a few that take advantage on this to prey on their young female students.
My time is over, I will never get justice for what happened to me but I hope that by coming out with my story it can highlight this issue to save other young women because classrooms are supposed to be a safe place where dreams are born not killed.
There must be laws to govern the conduct of teachers and those who engage in sexual intercourse with their students must be black listed from teaching in classrooms again.
My husband is not the only one. I know a few male teachers who have also married their students in similar conditions. I’ve met many over the years. And my heart breaks for those women who, just like me never got to live their life fully or achieve their dreams.