Transcript
MULIAGA TELI SILINIU LINA CHANG: It has been taken like it's a culture problem but now that people are coming forward and people have been educated through a lot of awareness that has been going around inside the villages, now it's understandable, now everybody's working in harmony and coming together. The problem is that once you're married inside the family, it's been taken that you're married to the whole family and where the domestic violence comes from is between you, your aunties, your husband's aunties, aunties-in-laws, the mother-in-laws, the sister-in-laws. It's always things like that and that's where the beating comes from, the verbal abuse comes from, things like that. It was seen that they were always the ones out there doing the work, making sure that everything is done properly inside the family, helping out and the last ones to sleep.
SALLY ROUND: So this is something that's always gone on but you say it's a growing problem?
LC: From this office itself, that's how we managed to apply for this funding so it enables us to carry this work forward. We've gone through a lot of programmes to finally realise that this is something bigger because this is what we identified in our own database.
SR: And what sort of numbers are we talking about?
LC: In comparison with people coming forward, because a lot of people do come forward every day on domestic violence matters, this has always been the escalated one, the problem ... that is the domestic violence with the nofo tanes.
SR: What numbers are you seeing coming forward? Is it possible to put a number on it?
LC: Well probably over 50 percent of the people coming in, all different complaints, is through domestic violence, from the nofo tane.
SR: So you've got this funding. It lasts for two years?
LC: Yes, we started from July this year because it's a week to work with a constituency. The thing that we're doing at the moment is we're training our own village reps to be our voices in there, to lobby, to have changes in there, inside the villages. The good thing about nofo tane as well is that you serve inside the family but then when we went up there a lot of the nofo tane are the ones who are sitting right on the top because that person is married to the high chief of the village or being a matai. A lot of the villages now, with the experience that we've been doing during our awareness and training programmes, a lot of the nofo tanes are looking after the village now. They are the ones who are able to ... the leaders. They are the ones leading the churches, leading the choirs, leading the youth.
