Page 7 - IB March 2018 Edition

WE SAY

Women politicians like President Hilda Heine, Ro Teimumu Kepa and Fiame Naomi Mata’afa are among the few women that are parliamentarians in the Pacific. Photo: Supplied

of the total number of legislators in the Pacific. Just 40 women close second at about 68 per cent and Solomon Islands at a close
MPs out of the current 559 we have. When you take this, and third at around 67 or 68 percentage.
add figures of women in governments, boards and businesses, The thing is this: With women making up half of our popula-
total women representation is at 15 per cent. Ours is the lowest tion, imagine what each of our countries are missing when only
in women representation in the world, according to UN Women. a very small number of them are being given the opportunity to
Story is not expected to change in the number of women take up leadership roles in all levels of our society, be in national
entrepreneurs or those holding chairpersons or director roles in governments, corporations, churches, sporting bodies or villages.
boards of corporations. So apt and timely is what Sandra Bernklau, the UN Women’s
Similar story is found in women’s participation in paid employ- Pacific Regional Technical Specialist told this magazine that when
ment. Up to the Pacific’s north-west, at the Federated States of “you withhold 50 per cent of the population, you withhold 50 per
Micronesia, 56 per cent of their women were part of the island’s cent of the economic and other potential in a country.”
labour force in 2000. By 2010, the number has dropped to 28 So what’s stopping our 22 countries and territories of the Pacific
per cent. In the larger Melanesian island of Vanuatu, 71 per cent from giving women 50 per cent or more of positions in national
of women were in paid employment in 2000, but this fell to 61 leadership? Why can’t we have 10 or 11 more Hilda Heine, the
per cent one decade later. current President of Marshall Islands? What is stopping island
The FWRM in their contribution to our Status of Women in the nations from having thousands more successful business women
Pacific Report special feature in this edition quoted a study by like Mere Samisoni, founder and owner of Fiji’s Hot Bread Kitchen
Professor Wadan Narsey that shows females in the labour force chain, or Rosemary Leona, owner of hotel and kava businesses
do less paid work per week on average than males, although in Vanuatu?
females do far more unpaid household work. The end result Is it wishful thinking to believe that in the next decade, there
is that females do 6 hours per week more total work per week
than do males. will be hundred more women like Dr Cecilia Nembou, current Vice
Chancellor of Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea? Or
Maternal mortality is, well, work in progress. Some island Dame Meg Taylor, current head of the Secretariat of the Pacific
states register zero maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 births, Islands Forum, or Lourdes T Pangelinan who was actually the
but only because their population does not even surpass the first woman from the Pacific to lead a regional organisation when
1000,000 mark. These include countries like the Cook Islands,
Niue and Tokelau. she was appointed Director-General of the SPC in January, 2000.
Papua New Guinea on the other hand, in 2010, recorded a ma- Why do names like trade unionist Rosine Streeter of New Cale-
ternal mortality rate of 710 and Kiribati has a 215 ratio. Compare donia, the Reverend Sereima Lomaloma of the Anglican Church in
that with Fiji which is at a low 59.5. Fiji or professional tennis player Abigail Agivanagi Tere-Apisah
This of course is in no way to belittle the humongous effort of PNG have to be lone figures in their professions?
women and gender focussed groups especially in the civil society Or perhaps the question should be, when will you the electorate
movement have put into improving the status of women in the say enough is enough, and that you won’t settle for nothing less
islands over the past decades, and longer. than seeing concrete actions on the ground that offer a lot more
Most countries and territories are nearing the goal of universal opportunities and spaces or platforms for our girls and women to
primary education for both girls and boys. Five in ten girls in pursue and excel in. Male politicians can start walking the gender
the Pacific demonstrate having the expected numeracy skills, as talk by letting women take up at least 50 per cent of their elec-
a recent numeracy study shows. Four countries – Fiji, Kiribati, toral candidates, appoint women to 50 per cent or more director
Samoa and Solomon Islands -- now have ministries specifically of company positions and that more than half of all business or
for women. entrepreneurial loans are reserved for women.
We should not kid ourselves though. Even those four nations, Only with such concrete, practical and measureable measures
if a recent World Health Organisation study is to be believed claim on the ground could lead one to agree that there is genuine and
very high rates of domestic and sexual partner violence. That real efforts to exploit and maximise the huge potentials women
WHO study puts Kiribati with the highest prevalence of lifetime and girls can offer to the development of humanity and our vari-
physical and/or sexual partner violence at 70 per cent. Fiji is a ous human endeavours in the Pacific.

Islands Business, March 2018 7