Transcript
Tonga is a Pacific country whose government has agreed to work towards the 30 percent participation of women in Parliament.
It is sitting well behind this international benchmark.
The director of Tonga's Women and Children Crisis Centre says International Women's Day is a good time to take stock of the fact that less than seven percent of MP's are women.
'Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki says the Press for Progress theme is a call to keep pushing for legislative change that will increase representation from the current two female MP's.
According to her, the government can learn from Vanuatu which has taken on a temporary special measure introduce women's seats at the municipal level.
She says the neighbours to the north lead the charge.
"Certainly Samoa was leading in the forefront. They've made a constitutional amendment allowing for five floating seats to be activated at any time where there are less than five women being elected through the general election process."
However Ms Guttenbeil-Likiliki says in the wake of Cyclone Gita and the bedding in of a new government, women are focused on the country's recovery.
RNZ's Mei Herron has been in Tonga with New Zealand's prime ministerial visit and attended a women's breakfast.
"What was interesting was actually talking about how females helped in the recovery of Cyclone Gita. They in many ways managed to describe the effects of Cyclone Gita in ways I hadn't heard. They talked about the psychological impacts on children for example."
In Solomon Islands the business programme Strongim Bisnis is advocating for growing the economy through the participation of women.
It focuses on the entrepreneurial strength of women in the country who account for 90 percent of tourism income generation and for 90 percent of Honiara's central market vendors.
However ,only one in four vocational trainees are women.
In Samoa where women's parliamentary representation has been boosted by legislation, the country has also recognised the issue of domestic violence.
The country has been running an enquiry into the issue and one of the commissioner's Tagaloatele Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop says sharing women's stories have been positive for Samoa.
"People in the villages and the fa'amatai and the communities are starting to think it is not a male's right to hit a female or to show all these evidence of power over a female. That women and girls have a right to feel safe and protected and it's a family where that should happen, in the family systems."
She says rural women living at a more subsistence level are more susceptible than their urban counterparts who are well represented in government organisations.
The Pacific Community is pressing for progress for rural women where 50% of those in relationships have faced sexual or physical abuse.
Its director-general Dr Colin Tukuitonga says the SPC will be supporting Pacific candidates who are focusing on rural women's empowerment at next week's UN summit on the status of women.