A mini poll on the YWCA PNG website rates security as an issue of grave concern for Papua New Guinean women. As a student living and studying at Victoria University in Melbourne, the issue of safety is one aspect of life that I really appreciate.

We all know far too well that women and girls in PNG cannot move around freely without being harassed or sexually violated even in broad daylight, nor are they safe in their own homes, the workplace, on public transport or in their gardens. For young girls, the protective fabric of the family unit has disintegrated to a point that safety and security is no longer guaranteed within the family structure. UNICEF estimates that around 1 million children in Papua New Guinea live with violence, either at home or in their community.

While it can take a war for personal security to become an issue in most peoples lives, insecurity is all too common for women, irrespective of war. Female insecurity is so prevalent that it has become invisible and accepted as the norm.
The World Health Organisation, (WHO) reports that the global statistics of male violence against women has reached a crisis level with one in five women enduring male-induced physical and /or sexual violence.

Living in Port Moresby, women have become accustomed to always looking over their shoulder everywhere they go. My work colleague has been held up at least four times walking to work and a victim of carjacking at least twice. There are seven female employees in the office and we all have been a victim of an armed holdup, carjacking or break and enter both at home, in the office and on the way to work. This is a typical example of what women go through on a daily basis and is a matter of alarm.

Here in Melbourne there is at least an element of safety that one appreciates. Women and girls travel freely even at night, some for family outings, others to party with friends or for work purposes. I have to travel at night every week simply because my classes are scheduled in the evenings between 6pm to 8pm while the other class is at 5.30pm to 7.30pm.

Typically after my class ends at 7.30pm I have to wait for thirty minutes at the train station for the next available train at 8pm. It is another thirty minute train ride to my destination. I reach my destination at 8.30pm and have to walk 20 minutes home because the buses have stopped running. Residents here dont switch their security lights on when they are at home so you can imagine how dark it is walking along the streets. By the time I reach home, its almost 9pm.

Although Melbourne has its share of problems, there is no way I can be able to travel alone at night on public transport in Port Moresby. The opportunity to move around without fear is in itself, a small ask by the women of Papua New Guinea many of whom are victims of domestic abuse. But their cry for justice often falls on deaf ears.

The issue of safety and security of women in PNG boils down to an attitude problem and it starts at the political level. PNG is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW commits governments to act with due diligence to ensure that gender-based violence against women is prevented, investigated and punished, whether the perpetrator is a State official or a private individual, and that reparation is provided to victims. With the exception of a few politicians, we currently have an Ostrich as a government who lacks the political will to address the issue head on.

At the grassroots level, communitys inaction and the general attitude that men have the right to hit their wife compounds the problem. There is also the lack of respect for fellow human beings, the weak and vulnerable, for your neighbours property and perhaps jealously.

Violence against women will only cease when men join with women to put an end to it.

Why?

Well, statistically nine out of ten perpetrators of physical assault are men. This makes violence against women also a mens problem. Men should rally with women in the movement to attack the root causes of violence. Men can organize forums and can use every opportunity to speak out against violence rather than being fence-sitters.

In many countries, both developing and developed, groups of men have emerged whose agenda is to end mens violence against women and children. The best known example of mens anti-violence activism is the White Ribbon Campaign, a grassroots education campaign started by a handful of men in Canada on the second anniversary of one mans massacre of 14 women in Montreal, Canada.

Today, the White Ribbon Campaign is the first large-scale male protest against violence in the world.
Men who wear a white ribbon demonstrate their opposition to violence against women and their commitment to supporting community action to stop violence by men against women.

For those few good men who have chosen to make a difference, they share the fundamental principle that men must take responsibility for stopping mens violence. Taking responsibility begins with individual men taking personal steps to minimize their use of violence.

Imagine what a place PNG would be if men took personal steps to minimize their use of violence and mobilized into a public and collective action.