IWD 2006 media watch | PNG

Women join forces to fight rise in rape incidents
Thursday 9th March 2006
The National, Papua New Guinea

WOMEN’S groups have formed an alliance in response to the current high number of reported incidents of rape on young children and women, to formulate a more focused and appropriate approach to address this issue.
The group comprised non-government organisations such as the Soroptimist International, business and professional women, women’s fellowship, YWCA, ICRAF and the National Council of Women.
During their first meeting yesterday, Minister for Community Development Dame Carol Kidu encouraged the women to work collectively if they wanted their actions to be noticed at the highest level.
“More than ever, now, the group must look at the positive side of the situation and continue to encourage women and children to report these abuses to the authorities,” Dame Carol said.
She added that many years of advocacy and awareness work done by many of these dedicated organisations were seen to be getting through to the victims and witnesses, resulting in more reporting of the cases to the authorities.
“Another positive sign is the Amendment to the Criminal Code on Sexual offences and Evidences Act 2003, which, she said was slowly but surely being implemented,” she said.
The coalition group of women’s organisations believes that it was vital that a momentum of its progress was maintained with a yearly calendar of events being drawn up to continue the advocacy work.