Farran, Sue --- "Gender, Equality and Pacific Islands Countries with Particular Focus on Domestic Violence" [2015] JSPL 6; 2015(2) JSPL A1

Gender, Equality and Pacific Island Countries with particular focus on domestic violence

*Sue Farran

Introduction

The aim of this article is to raise awareness and facilitate discourse on the issue of gender equality in Pacific Island Countries. While the focus if this paper is on domestic violence this is part of a much broader topic and clearly when referring to gender and equality, there are many variations not just between countries, but within countries, between rural and urban areas, between those who have access to various resources and those who do not and so on. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, addressing Pacific representatives recently said

I was heartened by last-week’s meeting on gender equality and women’s empowerment, where leaders agreed to close the gender gap.

There has been progress across the Pacific – but we still have to help women who are threatened by violence. We have to do more to involve women in politics. And we have to make women’s rights a reality everywhere.^[1]

This may suggest that closing the gender gap or achieving gender equality is all about women, but this does not mean that this is just ‘women’s business’. Although the main focus may be on improving the position of women this cannot be done without involving men and getting their support for whatever changes may be necessary. In almost all countries in the world it is, after all, men who dominate legislative assemblies, determine legal disputes, run government ministries, sit on the executive boards of companies, hold the majority of senior positions in the public services and so on. However much this state of affairs may be criticised as evidence of prolonged gender inequality, it is only by working with society as a whole that positive and sustainable changes can come about.

Although the population of the Pacific region is fairly evenly divided between men and women (see Table One below),^[2] the experiences of men and women are vastly different and some of these differences are attributable to gender. Of course some differences are inevitable and found in all societies, for example: only women can bear children, and most usually – although not always - women are responsible for child-rearing especially in the early years of a child’s life. Men may be physically stronger than women and so better suited to some tasks than women and the emotional make-up of men and women may be different. Formal gender equality however, aims to eradicate differences between men and women wherever possible, while substantive equality means advancing the equal treatment of all individuals so that they can fulfil their potential regardless of whether they are born a man or a woman. This does not mean that women and men should necessarily be treated the same, indeed there may well be arguments for positive measures to be taken to advance opportunities for women where they have been historically discriminated against, so that in fact women are treated differently form men, but in order to achieve substantive equality – for example by reserving a proportion of parliamentary seats for women. It might also be necessary to distinguish equality between men and women – particularly in the formal sense, and ‘gender equity’, the latter being focussed more on doing what is fair rather than what is the same.

Table One; men and women in the Pacific

Country	Population 2015 estimate	Men Est. last census	Women Est. last census	Life Expectancy Men Women
Cook Islands	15,300	7,600	7,600	73.6 79.8
Fiji	867,000	438,100	421,100	63.8 67.7
Federated States of Micronesia	102,800	52,400	50,600	68.5 72.0
Kiribati	113,400	53,600	55,200	58.0 66.3
Marshall Islands	54,900	27,800	26,400	67.3 72.6
Nauru	10,800	5,300	5,200	57.5 63.2
Niue	1,500	800	800	66.1 72.8
Palau	17,900	9,400	8,400	66.3 72.1
Papua New Guinea	7,744,600	3,863,100	3,535,300	53.7 54.8
Samoa	187,300	97,000	9-,400	72.7 75.6
Solomon Islands	641,900	311,300	299,500	66.7 73.7
Tonga	103,300	52,100	51,200	68.6 72.7
Tuvalu	11,300	5,600	5,400	67.4 71.9
Vanuatu	277,500	135,200	129,500	69.6 72.7

Of course achieving substantive gender equality is not an easy task in any society, and it should not be thought that developed countries in the global North have necessarily achieved this. Culture, society and individual attitudes determine how we regard each other and where those attitudes are reinforced by entrenched institutions, laws, and social, economic and political structures, achieving gender equality is a real challenge, so that changing the law alone is unlikely to change attitudes or stereotyping. The law is however important, because it indicates how the state reacts to issues. If the state permits or facilitates inequalities it is in effect condoning these not condemning them. A first step therefore is formal equality.

At the state level there are international instruments which advocate gender equality, and the commitment of national governments to national and international legal obligations is a demonstration of political will to address gender issues. Almost all Pacific Island Countries are parties to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) although some quite recently, eg Cook Islands and Marshall Islands 2006, Kiribati and Federated States of Micronesia 2004 and Nauru 2011. It should however be pointed out that with dualist legal systems commitments under international treaties have no effect in domestic law until incorporated into the national law.^[3] Only Vanuatu has done this.^[4] Consequently although all states which have ratified the convention remain subject to the reporting procedures that accompany international conventions, the provisions therein cannot be argued in court as being part of the domestic of national legal system unless specific provision is made to do so or courts are prepared to take a pro-active stand, which increasingly they seem prepared to do.^[5] Moreover, whether or not international conventions and treaties are formally incorporated into national law this should not be seen as a major obstacle as most Pacific island countries have bills of rights within their written constitutions which include provisions stating that everyone is equal before the law, or prohibiting discrimination on a range of grounds – although not always on the grounds of sex/gender as indicated in Table Two below:

Table Two: International and National Gender Equality law

Pacific island country

CEDAW

Given effect in national law (as required)