Calls for more decision making opportunities for Pacific women

Transcript

A women's advocacy group says the Pacific needs to do more to give women the opportunity to participate in politics.

Women's representation in parliaments across the Pacific sits at around five percent.

During last month's election in Solomon Islands, only one of the 50 successful candidates was a woman and none of the 16 women who stood in Tonga's election were successful.

The executive director of Femlink Pacific, Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, told Koro Vaka'uta women need to be involved at all levels.

SHARON BHAGWAN ROLLS: Parliaments are important but so are sub-national or local government government structures, whether it's municipal councils, district councils, the tikina o village councils or the provincial councils, every single structure must have gender equality. They must have equal representation of women. For women to participate in elections or decision making, they also must be supported by the political structures so there's a great onus also on political parties in the Pacific to still look at themselves and say 'how are we supporting women'? How is it that in the Solomon Islands in the most recent election only one woman got elected? What have we done as political parties to support women. Tonga's election.  What have political parties been doing to actually actively engage women in their party process? There are different strategies that are needed but most certainly I think the more women are involved in political level decision making, whether within a political structure or as civil society, it's go to be both, it can't be just one.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  We recently spoke to the Bougainville Women's Federation and they talked about a survey they had done with women, trying to see how they could become more interested in not just politics but in leadership as well. They said there was a lack of interest. Is there the interest across the Pacific for women to be involved and participants?

SBR: You've got to remember in the context of Bougainville where they had an overt armed civilian war and they're still recovering so I think that the focus on Bougainville, the message there is: There needs to be capacity building of a generation that have gone without education that have faced the real impact of their conflict and their roles as mothers, as wives, as daughters even, to even think about what does it mean to get involved in politics. In post-conflict situations like we have in Bougainville, like we have in Solomon Islands, there needs to be different strategies. There can never be a one size fits all. In Fiji, we mobilised as a coalition as the Fiji Women's Forum in the lead-up to constitution making process, our most recent elections in September. We recognise that we must work in coalitions in order to strategise connectively on how do we address women's political participation. How do we make that change for gender equality in those spaces? So strategies need to be home-grown. Samoa has made a commitment to temporary special measures. Vanuatu has done the same for women in local government. We need to look at what are the needs for the countries and the communities and for the women's movement as well in each of these countries.