Palme: Culture remains a barrier in people believing in women’s capabilities

By YVONNE HAIP
CULTURAL barriers remain as strong as ever, forcing “narrow minded” people to have very little belief in women, a women’s leader in Jiwaka says.
Jiwaka Women in Politics president Elizabeth Palme said such groups of people must appreciate the country needed to change.
She said an example was the negative criticisms and the little support from the public over the creation of the 22 reserved seats for women in parliament.
Palme said recent media reports said the reserved seats were a waste of people’s money as well as a shallow way of getting into parliament by women.
She said the reserved seats were the opposite of those views.
She said because of cultural barriers, people were narrow-minded when it came to handing leadership roles to women.
Palme said it was time people changed their “1960s way” of thinking and lives in the present time.
She said allocating the reserved seats would be timely because PNG had signed a treaty in China stating that by 2015, women representation in parliament would be 30%.
“Whether this will become a reality depends on the reserved seats because if the seats are not created, Papua New Guinea will be in breach of an international law it signed,” she said.
Palme said women were not competing against men nor were they trying to enter parliament the easy way, but they were helping to reach the country’s development goals and address social issues.
She said women were better managers and could neutralise the political infighting – as was happening now – and help resolve some of the nation’s problems.
Palme urged MPs to appreciate women as their voters and vote for the reserved seats during the final reading.