PNG Govt takes the lead to tackle gender-based violence

Transcript

The government in Papua New Guinea says it is taking the lead to eliminate what it calls gender-based violence.

Government agencies, including the Department for Community Development and Religion, are working together to revise the country's strategy to tackling violence.

The executive director for the Ministry's Development of Women, Gayle Tatsi, says a national council will also be established.

She told Amelia Langford the new strategy will take a more inclusive approach.

GAYLE TATSI: The first sort of strategy looked at family sexual violence but with the strategy we are working on it is gender-based violence.

AMELIA LANGFORD: I see.

GT: Because violence too is directed at men and young boys and everybody in the community so to be inclusive we have to go with gender-based violence so we include everybody, women, as well as marginalised populations, like people with disability, sex workers, men who have sex with men, these are the people who are actually more marginalised and you can expect there will be a lot of direct violence on this group of people. So it is our responsibility to ensure that all these people are included in this strategy.

AL: So what is the action plan from here in?

GT: It's actually looking at several things. I mean, what we need to do now is - there have been several strategies in the past - our own government recognised violence against women in the mid-80s and that is when they had the first research but we have realised we have had some strategies in the past but they have not really helped us greatly so we are looking at a multi-sectoral approach with the current gender based violence because we have had a strategy before but they were more or less looking at, if I may say it, a piece meal approach to addressing the problem. For this one, we want an inclusive strategy which will bring the whole of society together, government, civil society, private sector, and anybody else who is interested in assisting.

AL: So the first thing now is that there is a working committee and that will review the strategy?

GT: Yes, we have a working committee in place and we are actually looking at establishing a GBV council  - that is to be responsible for this so it is given prominence because at the moment civil society [groups] are doing their own thing, they are marginalised, so we want through government involvement to establish a GBV council, if it is approved by our government, because I think violence is our number one priority at the moment.

Gayle Tatsi says the government's aim is to achieve the PNG Vision 2050 target of zero tolerance towards gender-based violence.