Women ‘faced intimidation’ during election: Candidate

A female candidate in the recent national election said women faced a lot of challenges throughout the election period.
“We faced intimidation,” Kessy Sawang who contested the Raicoast open seat in Madang said.
She said this during the presentation of recommendations for the 10th Parliament on Monday.
“There was violence against women and we also encountered electoral frauds that made the platform unfair and uneven for us women candidates to participate,” Sawang said. She said this was a challenge to how the election was administered.
“That is one of our recommendations,” she said. Sawang called on the government to commission a review into the general elections
“We want the government to commission an independent review of the 2017 national elections in order to identify gaps and areas for improvement in supporting women candidates and voters to participate fully, fairly and safely,” Sawang said.
“As Parliament convenes for its first meeting, I would like to call upon the 111 members to remember that there are no women in there.
“I want them to become advocates for us so come 2022, at least we can have one woman in Parliament.”
She said another recommendation was for the government to work with local stakeholders and development partners to revisit the findings and recommendations from the 2007 and 2012 diagnostic assessments of women candidates’ participation.
She said action plans must be put in place so that organisations were supported in preparing for women to be Parliament in 2022.
Sawang said that Papua New Guinea should formulate a gender policy.
“Priority should be given to looking into a gender policy and also into the Medium Term Development Plan 3 (MTDP 3) which is currently being formulated.”