Head of regional body says gender violence a cancer in Pacific

Transcript

As the Pacific comes together to raise awareness about gender violence in the 16 Days of Action, the director general of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community says it is a cancer in Pacific society.

Dr Colin Tukuitonga told a White Ribbon Day event at the SPC headquarters in Noumea that gender violence eats away at families but in a hidden, quiet way, like a cancer.

COLIN  TUKUITONGA: Maybe I am being a bit dramatic but that is the nature of domestic violence, generally people say that one in three women have been subjected to violence at some stage.

DON WISEMAN: And the figures are even higher than that.

CT: Absolutely and to me that is probably a conservative estimate it is a huge problem in this region and its one that there is just not enough awareness and often the people in leadership positions are the worst perpetrators of some of this and that's why we have picked up on the white ribbon day opportunity and some of the general work to reduce violence against women and girls. I am not sure if you are aware but we had a staff member earlier this year who was in fact died as a result of violence from her partner so its not a theoretical discussion even in a small community such as the SPC staff we have had one death and at least one other violent incident that we know off.

DW: When you look at say the sorcery attacks that happened in Papua New Guinea and other places. And the way this appears to be escalating do you have a sense that gender violence is getting worse becoming more pervasive in the Pacific?

CT: It probably has always been present and pervasive but hidden and people don't talk about it, people don't want to talk about it and its hidden. But with the increasing awareness and white ribbon day being one of those days and the general work of women's groups there is more awareness. So I don't have recent figures but I suspect it's always been there it is just that we are more aware of it now and it remains a huge problem in the Pacific region.

DW: As a major regional body what are you doing to help change mindsets of people around the region?

CT: Well firstly internally we discussed yesterday an updated draft of our policy within SPC about our staff what they need to do, what we can do in terms of creating more awareness and reducing the incidence of violence. But that is just within SPC but broadly we have a programme led by the gender youth and culture people on various ways to create awareness. We have what you call a regional rights team these are people that work with the police the judiciary the politicians on getting them to take better leadership on speaking out against violence against women and then of course the day to day work we do with women's groups about informing them about different ways of creating more awareness and reducing violence. For example Sir Pita Sharples was one of the guest speakers at a politicians event we had earlier on the issue of using legislation regulation to try and support the work in countries to reduce violence against women.