MP: Attitude of people a concern

THE Government can do so much for gender-based violence (GBV) but it is hampered by the attitudes of individuals towards GBV, domestic violence and sorcery accusation in the country, a Member of Parliament says.
Alotau MP and chairman of the Special Parliamentary Committee on GBV, Charles Abel, said the attitude of the initial reaction of people in relation to sorcery accusation allowed such crimes to be committed.
“That is where a lot of the terrible crimes are coming from,” he said.
Abel said domestic violence was so common these days and the Government was doing what it could but there were thousands of victims and the problem was, again, the poor attitudes to women and the weak and vulnerable in society.
“We must break the cycle of violence,” he said.
“I keep appealing to men to please break the cycle in our own homes, we have to reduce the temptation to strike our wives we have to pray to do the right thing.
“There is too much violence in our community, not just GBV, but violence in general.”
Abel said it was like a cancer eating away at PNG society.
He said Papua New Guineans needed to follow the Gospel which teaches love, compassion and peace.
Abel said until people started to live by their Christian principles and change their attitude towards GBV, changing the Constitution to declare PNG a Christian country was pointless.
“You want to talk about the unity pillar and all this, my response is let’s act like Christians first before we make declarations,” he said.
“It is about action and it’s not about words so we can only start ourselves, lead by example as leaders and advocate and spread the word.”