Posts Tagged ‘Gender violence’

Kiribati: Churches oppose death penalty

Friday, September 12th, 2014

Bishop Paul Mea says his church will not support introducing the death penalty. He says there are other measures that can be taken to try to reduce violence in the community. The Kiribati parliament has passed the first reading of the bill and leaders are supposed to hold consultations with their electorate before the second Read more

Catholic Church not helping women by focussing on sorcery

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

 The Catholic Church has long been fighting sorcery in Papua New Guinea. An Auckland academic says the real issue with violence against women in Papua New Guinea is not sorcery, but gender inequality. Evangelina Papoutsaki  says unequal gender relations which are the result of the post-colonial times and Christianity, are being used to justify violence against Read more

Chow Brothers’ plans for Auckland brothel dropped

Tuesday, April 1st, 2014

Strip club owners the Chow brothers have dropped plans for a controversial, central-city, 15-floor super-brothel, in a last-minute backdown welcomed by opponents of Auckland’s burgeoning flesh trade. John Chow said a bruising liquor licensing battle had exhausted the brothers’ patience. “I think with the new liquor licence and the law change, we will be looking Read more

Ex-prostitutes say decriminalisation has failed them

Friday, November 29th, 2013

Former prostitutes and their advocates are calling for clients of sex workers to be prosecuted, saying the decriminalisation of the industry has failed them. Freedom from Sexual Exploitation director Elizabeth Subritzky told Parliament’s justice and electoral committee the only solution to the damage that prostitution caused, and the violence it created, was to prosecute buyers Read more

33% of NZ Children blame drugs and alcohol for violence

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

A global study conducted by ChildFund Alliance shows that more than a third of the 1000 New Zealand children surveyed said alcohol and bad behaviour were the two main contributors to violence while just under a third said drugs were among the main causes. Professor Sally Casswell of the Whariki Research Centre at Massey University Read more

Women appalled by Church Leader’s comment about sexual violence

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

Author, blogger and Pacific female advocate, Lani Wendt Young, has published a blog post criticising Deacon Kasiano Le’aupepe comments about sexual violence, which has fuelled support from Pacific females around the world. Le’aupepe, who Chairman of Samoa’s National Council of Churches,  has urged girls and women to bite men who sexually assault them. “In fact”, he said “they Read more

Have a quarter of pacific men really committed sexual assault?

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

A statistic based on a United Nations Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence led many to believe that one in four men admitted to sexual assault in Asia and the Pacific. But is this founded on evidence or merely a misreading of the research? Numbers, we’ve learned time and time again, can be deceiving. After Read more

Momis asks UN to apologise for flawed Gender Violence Report

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013

The validity of United nations report on Gender Violence has been called into question by the President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, John Momis. He says that since the Report has not yet been formally presented to the Government, he is not “prepared to go into a point by point rebuttal of the findings”. Read more

New initiatives to try to combat violence against women

Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

New initiatives to try to combat violence against women have been on the agenda of a UN meeting in Fiji last week. 26 representatives from six Pacific Island countries are in Suva to review national strategies and initiatives Melissa Alvarado, from the UN Women Fiji Multi Country Office is one of the Coordinators of the Read more

Fiji’s Elizabeth Krishna at Summer Peace building Institute

Tuesday, June 18th, 2013

Elizabeth Krishna, 52, of Fiji,who works through the  Catholic Church to combat unemployment and crime and close the gap between rich and poor, was one of 16 women from five regions in the South Pacific who attended the 2013 Summer Peace building Institute (SPI) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), May 6 -June 14. Krishna says, ” for me, it’s always Read more