Women's Rights in Papua New Guinea: An Analysis Through the Lens of Galtung's Triangle

Introduction

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean consisting of over 600 islands and is known for its enormous cultural and linguistic diversity. For instance, there are over 800 known languages spoken throughout the islands (IDWA, 2023). PNG also contains one of the highest concentrations of uncontacted tribes. This means that the total population is disputed; the county's official 2019 census cites a population of 9.4 million, while a December 2022 United Nations study estimates a population of nearly 17 million (Lagan, 2022). Amidst this confusion, one thing is clear: PNG has a long-demonstrated history of domestic and sexual violence against women. Human Rights Watch reported in 2021 that “a woman is beaten every 30 s in Papua New Guinea, and more than 1.5 million people experience gender-based violence in the country each year” (McLennan, 2021). This makes the island nation one of the most unsafe places in the world for women.

Violence against women is sustained for many reasons. These reasons can be organized and understood best through the lens of Johan Galtung's pioneering theories on violence, where he asserted that violence exists in three dimensions: direct, structural, and cultural (Galtung, 1990, p. 291). Contextualized in PNG, structural violence implies any “state-induced” violence, such as laws that permit or sustain harm, while cultural violence is “the ways in which violence is culturally legitimised and justified” (Brewer et al., 2012, pp. 49, 68). Direct violence, such as abuse, is the most visible and recognizable. Each of these forms of violence reinforces and feeds off one another. Thus, to fully grasp the state of women's rights in PNG and create a sustainable, peaceful way forward, direct gender-based violence must be understood at a cultural level and addressed at a structural level.

Cultural and Direct Violence

Culturally, common misogynistic beliefs about women justify violence against them. These beliefs are embedded into everyday practices and ideas. Brewer et al. (2012), citing Johan Galtung, assert that in PNG,

Girls and boys are, from an early age, socialised not only to expect but to accept violence, and especially that violence which accompanies hierarchies of power, of adults over children and of men over women. Origin myths relate how men violently stole sacra and spiritual power from women; women have persisting fears of rape and murder if they transgress men's sacred spaces. The patriarchal authority of ancestral religion and charismatic Catholicism here combine to legitimate gender violence, “to make violence look, even feel right.” (p. 3)

Language is used to further legitimize these claims, contributing to an overall climate of prejudice, intolerance, and hatred towards women. According to Eves and Kelly-Hanku (2014), “witch-hunts are referred to as ‘operations’ and are justified by taking the view that ‘rubbish’ (pipia), ‘weeds’ (gras no gut), or ‘dangerous snakes’ (snek no gut) must be removed from the community.” Colloquial terms such as this explicitly labels women as both dangerous and disposable and are used to maintain that violence against women is both natural and justifiable. This supports the earlier assertion that misogyny is a form of cultural violence built into and passed along through local narratives in PNG.

Structural Violence

These cultural beliefs in and traditions of violence not only contribute to the lack of women's rights in PNG, but also are representative of the larger structural violence plaguing the nation, such as a lack of education, healthcare, and legal protections for women. Misogynistic cultural beliefs have combined with underdeveloped systems, making women scapegoats for larger issues such as a sudden death or previously unknown illness like HIV and diabetes. As a result, people turn to local superstitions for answers. Gary Bustin (as cited in Campbell, 2019), director of the Tribal Foundation in PNG, shared, “There are people who go to different communities and say, ‘If you pay me 1,000 kina [$300], I’ll tell you who is a sorcerer.’” As if this blaming is not enough, the direct violence it spurs is compounded and further justified, albeit indirectly, by PNG's gender-based educational and healthcare disparities, as well as their ill-equipped justice system.

In the case of healthcare, the government is unable to find funding and coordinated support in response to violence towards women and children. For example, “in 2020, 15,444 cases of domestic violence were reported but only 250 people were prosecuted, and fewer than 100 people were convicted” (McLennan, 2021). Police officials have attributed this inability to a lack of resources. This is a clear example of structural violence, as a failure to follow up on reports of abuse enables it to continue. Furthermore, it sustains and encourages the cultural beliefs and practices that already breed violence, inequality, and injustice. As has been established, when women are not defended and protected against direct violence, a message is sent that women are not worth protecting, or that, in fact, they even deserve the abuse.

These harmful beliefs are, unfortunately, never unlearned by most of the women and girls they harm most, as the next major structural violence—an overwhelming lack of female education in PNG—prevents them from empowering themselves academically. Across the nation, school enrollment and attendance are not mandatory. As a result, only 56% of citizens attend school, and even fewer complete programs once enrolled. However, for girls especially, these statistics are worse. Only around 19% of girls make it to secondary school (National Statistical Office, 2011). Young girls are discouraged or even denied access to self-empowerment through education based solely on their gender. This form of educational inequality is upheld by culturally violent beliefs about the roles and abilities of women. Such obvious gender disparities in the educational system further legitimize violence of all forms against women and prevent the acceleration of women's rights in PNG.

Lastly, the lack of legal protections for women in PNG acts as a structural violence that enables direct violence. The passage of the Family Protection Act (FPA) in 2013 finally made family violence a crime. However, alongside its 2022 amendment, the act has yet to be fully implemented. There are many structural reasons for this failure to uphold current legislation and create further legal protections for women, the most obvious being the absence of female representation in national government bodies: Only ten women have ever been elected to PNG's Parliament since independence in 1975 (Kora, 2023; Sauer, 2023). Women are not seen and heard by, nor do they have any strong advocates among those who hold the most legal power in the nation. This lack of representation allows women's issues to be swept under the rug, as is demonstrated by the status quo which currently allows the FPA to go unenforced.

A Way Forward

Cultural violence, structural violence, and direct violence all support and sustain one another in PNG. Attitudes about women's abilities and worthiness impact their access to education, legal protections, and healthcare. They are also used to justify direct violence against women and girls in the form of domestic and sexual violence, as well as witch hunts. With so many inextricable contributing factors at play, the only effective solutions consider the situation holistically.

Simply defying cultural norms has the potential to refute and repair the foundational attitudes and ideas that justify violence, fuel corruption, and inform policy. The women of Bougainville, an autonomous region of PNG, serve as a brilliant example of this. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the island was engulfed in a violent conflict between indigenous workers and a mining company that “transformed into an armed rebellion calling for Bougainville's independence from PNG” (Garasu, 2002). Ceasefires and peace treaties were failing. At its height, an estimated 15,000 civilians had died and 70,000 people were displaced. In an unprecedented move, women got involved on both the local and government levels, and that is when the violence significantly subsided. This significantly changed the trajectory of the island, and “while post-conflict political representation remains low, women have maintained an instrumental role in development and peacebuilding activities and seek long-term changes for further empowerment and peace” (Garasu, 2002). Having seen this great success at the hands of women and understanding how to ensure its longevity, Ruby Miringka, founder of Bougainville Community Integrated Development Assistance, asserted that a structural change must take place. “Girls must be given opportunities in formal education. Women need to be educated on the rights of women!” (Garasu, 2002). Thus, to continue addressing cultural ills, increasing access to mandatory education is essential.

Understood through the lens of feminist political theory, addressing gender imbalances via the education and political empowerment of women are the best ways to increase women's rights. They allow women to empower themselves and create their own way forward, as was demonstrated possible in PNG by the women of Bougainville. With representation in government dealings, the women in PNG would have a real chance at creating a legislature that fills current gaps, thus reducing the direct, structural, and cultural violence inflicted upon them.

The next solution would address both structural and direct violence by calling on the government in PNG to reform their justice system. Holding perpetrators accountable would not only set a precedent that violence is unacceptable culturally but would also protect victims from violent offenders. As was previously mentioned, the FPA of 2013 and 2022 intend to spur this reform by holding abusers accountable by making violence “a crime, punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a fine of nearly US$2,000. The law also aims to make it easier for victims of family violence to get protection orders and services” (Human Rights Watch, 2016). The partial enactment of this reform has been one step in the right direction on both a direct and cultural level. A 2021 study shows that since its implementation, 81.3% of women who have issued a protection order under the FPA have felt safer. This reveals that structural provisions have the power to mitigate direct violence. The authors also asserted that “FPOs [family protection orders] are a central feature of the FPA that are becoming more well known and demonstrate that the state, at least symbolically, supports DFV survivors and the cessation of abuse and violence” (Putt & Kanan, 2021, p. 16). PNG's government has further demonstrated concern for women's rights as members of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). Most notably, in 2023, they joined in signing the revitalized PIF Leaders Declaration on Achieving Gender Equality (PIF, 2023). Such commitments and legislation signal a vital shift in how women's rights are viewed in the nation. If enacted as promised, they have the potential to refute harmful norms. While both are hopeful and demonstrate that an improvement in women's rights is possible, they also exist alongside the facts that “the system needs further funding and resources to respond to demand” and “police have a critical role to play but do not always fulfill their role effectively” (Putt & Kanan, 2021, p. 16). However, legal protections alone cannot make all the difference in PNG. Their positive impact is impeded by a pervasive cultural violence that excuses the lack of law enforcement, female representation in government, and access to essential services for women.

Conclusion

Overall, cultural, structural, and direct violence have been seen to intersect and fuel the alarming rates of gender-based domestic and sexual violence in PNG. Analyzing the direct, cultural, and structural foundations of violence using Galtung's theories of violence informs the creation of local and sustainable solutions. These include ensuring access to education for all, increasing female participation in government, and reforming the justice system to become fully capable of enforcing the FPA. Case studies from Bougainville, for instance, demonstrate that these locally based solutions have the potential to create a structural change that allows women to control their own rights, reduce direct violence, and correct harmful cultural norms. The solutions explored in this analysis may generate an alternative way forward for the country wherein no women have to survive under gender-based abuse and inequality.