Papua New Guinea's only female MP says the country is not doing nearly enough to fulfill its human rights obligations.
Thirty MPs from 11 Pacific Island countries are in Auckland to attend a 5 day regional discussion of the integration of international human rights standards into national policy.
The Minister for Community Development, Women, Religion and Sports in Papua New Guinea, Dame Carol Kidu, says on the ground, there are abuses that are not being addressed.
And she says from a legislative parliamentary approach, PNG has a poor record on implementing human rights.
"There is a really marked lack of technical capacity to do these things. There is to a degree a lack of commitment, but I think that commitment is perhaps even through ignorance. Many members would not even be very aware of various conventions and treaties that government sign off on because there's not enough debate of them on the floor."
Dame Carol Kidu says she's working on putting together a submission in Parliament to address PNG's poor record of women in politics.
