New law to focus on gender violence victims

A NEW law requiring employers to give leave to career women to attend court as victims of gender violence is being drafted.
Department of Personal Management (DPM) acting manager for Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (Gesi) policy Emmanuel Ginis said the bill was aimed at protecting the rights of women.
Ginis said this in reply to questions raised by magistrates at the Magisterial Biennial Conference in Port Moresby on Friday.
Now gender-based violence (GBV) victims or women are being marked as absent from work by their employers when they attend court on GBV cases.
Chief Magistrate Nerrie Eliakim said the new bill would ensure that all women affected by GBV would be given opportunity to seek justice.
“As one of our magistrates mentioned, some of these women had to sacrifice their own time to attend court to deal with their issues. Domestic violence does not just affect families, the work of GBV victims are also on the line,” she said.
“As a result, we have women staying away from work, or her attendance from work is disrupted,” she added.
She said: “Gesi policy had been around for some time.
“For us magistrates at the headquarters, we have already gone through our own workshop on this.
“But for other magistrates it’s the first time now for the DPM to do a presentation on this policy.
“For us, the district courts, one of our jurisdictions is to deal with the family protection act, in which Interim Protection Orders and Permanent Protection Orders are given GBV victims.”