Transcript
The police won't comment on their investigation into Priscilla Wonga's husband, or on suggestions he's being shielded from justice by colleagues in the police force.
The national programme co-ordinator for the Family Sexual Violence Action committee, Ume Wainetti, says typically police look after their friends.
"That always happens because many are also perpetrators themselves so they try to protect their own. But what we've seen in the last couple of years is because of the police commisioner's stand on this issue. Many of these police officers have been dealt with. Some have lost jobs, others have been jailed."
Ms Wainetti says it's common for the wives of police officers to suffer from domestic violence.
"So there are many police officers who are beating their wives. One I met showed me a photograph of herself before she started getting beaten up and she was one of the ugliest women in this country I have met, her bone structure has all changed. But she still begged me not to report him to the department because he might lose his job because he was the bread winner."
Domestic violence was made an offence in 2013, three years after the United Nations cited data that two-thirds of women in PNG had been beaten by their husbands.
A hotline to report abuse was set up in 2015, but the President of the PNG Counsellors Association, Susan Setae says it's difficult to get survivors to come forward.
"Women are just too scared to go to...they cannot report any cases to police because police will always tell them that it's your personal issue and its a family matter, a domestic issue so you go back and sort it out with your husband."
Efforts by the police to crack down on staff abusing their partners has been complimented by the establishment of family sexual violence units in some police stations.
The manager of Oxfam's gender justice programme in the Highlands, Serah Chapau, says to counter domestic violence her NGO partners with local organisations who report good relations with police.
"The family sexual violence unit is the section of police that our partners do communicate with and have been involving them in trainings and workshops. They are part of the rapid response team in the Highlands where they go into villagers to help our partners take out survivors of sorcery related violence and of course aggravated violence so it's a good sign of seeing how police are becoming responsive."
Serah Chapau says following the collapse of several mismanaged women's refuges, Oxfam is now focused on the prevention of gender based violence in Papua New Guinea.
This is Ben Robinson Drawbridge.
