Vote hailed as milestone for women in PNG

Source: The Age

 

WOMEN danced, wept and embraced outside the Papua New Guinea Parliament

yesterday as years of campaigning culminated in a watershed vote to allow

22 reserved seats for women in the almost exclusively male chamber, where

just one of 109 seats is presently held by a female.

With time running out before the 2012 general election, expectation and

anxiety were high among supporters of the bill, with women loudly

admonishing MPs from the packed public gallery when the debate was delayed

on Monday.

But encouraged by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, the constitutional

amendment to allow the  women’s seats, one for each province, was

eventually passed by 72 votes to two, with several members abstaining and

some absent.

”Only with the input of women will PNG go on and thrive to become a great

nation,”  said Mr O’Neill.

The president of the National Council of Women,  Schola Kakas, described

the move as ”a cry of the mothers of this nation”.

She added:  ”So many of our problems as a society are faced by women -

health, violence, maternal mortality. Only women can understand what must

be done to make things better.

One of the nation’s most seasoned female political campaigners, Greens

leader Dorothy Tekwie, was in the country’s remote north-west when she

heard the news. She said women around her were overjoyed at the bill, which

she said was required if women were to push through fiercely male-dominated

political and social cultures.

”They were just jubilant, clapping their hands. They said – the men too -

‘Tame Blong ol meri’ – ‘time for women’.”

Celebrations were later tempered by confusion even among experts and key

players as to whether the Equality and Participation Bill (or the Women’s

Bill, as it is widely known) faces another legislative hurdle if the

women’s seats are to be in place in time for next year’s general election.

Dame Carol Kidu, the sole elected woman in the Parliament and sponsor of

the bill, said a critical second element of the bill had vanished from the

notice paper, but she hoped it would be resolved in the next few days. If

not, the seats would probably not be in place by the poll.

This issue remains on a knife edge, she said, as the enabling legislation

requires 73 votes to pass – one more than secured for the constitutional

reform yesterday.

The vote marked a huge milestone in PNG and signalled a hunger for change

in the nation, said Dame Carol. ”A lot of people who in the early days

said they would never support it are supporting it now. So whatever

happens, there has been huge progress.”

Queensland-born Dame Carol, 63, the widow of former chief justice Sir Buri

Kidu, will retire at next year’s election. Given entrenched cultural and

financial barriers to women’s participation in politics, there were wide

concerns that PNG  could become the 10th nation in the world without a

single elected female, most of them being Australia’s near neighbours in

the Pacific.

”The changes are very significant,” said Dr Jim Macpherson, a member of

the PNG legislative working group.  ”They are the first changes to the

membership of Parliament since independence – and in some ways a stunning

reversal and recognition of the way gender assumptions have excluded women

from decision-making.”

Another key vote cemented the creation of electorates in two new provinces

- including the critical electorate of Hela, home to the $US16 billion PNG

liquid natural gas project. ”No Hela, No Gas” had been a local refrain,

raising anxieties about the security of the Exxon-Mobil lead highlands

project.

The votes come during a tumultuous period in PNG politics following the

vote on August 2 that installed Mr O’Neill as Prime Minister, ousting Sir

Michael Somare.

The constitutional legitimacy of the decision by Speaker Jeffrey Nape to

declare the office of Prime Minister vacant, triggering the vote that

deposed Sir Michael, 73,  is the subject of a Supreme Court investigation.

Last week the Deputy Prime Minister, Belden Namah, and the

Attorney-General, Dr Allan Marat, were arrested and bailed for contempt of

court after they led a bid by the cabinet to suspend Chief Justice Sir

Salamo Injia while Mr O’Neill was in Hawaii for the APEC summit.

They accused the Chief Justice of financial rorting, but were in turn

accused of trying to sabotage his delivery of the full bench judgment on

the legitimacy of their government, due on December 9.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 25th, 2011 at 10:00 am by and is filed under News.