United Nations new Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s appointment is not everyone’s choice. The ninth man to lead the UN in its 71-year history has drawn opposition from gay rights and women’s groups. Guterres will replace Ban Ki-moon when he retires at the end of December. The devout Catholic is against abortion, marriage equality and gay Read more
Leoba Devana is serving time in the jail on Buka Island, part of Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville after having an abortion. She was charged and convicted – erroneously, in the eyes of a coalition of senior medical, legal and human rights advocates in Port Moresby who have taken up her case – Read more
The Prime Minister of Tonga, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, says the issue of ratifying a United Nations Convention CEDAW which recently led to protests in the country, will be put to the public, after the coronation celebrations end. Cabinet announced earlier this year its intention to join the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Read more
A petition has been presented to the Tonga parliament backing the government’s efforts to ratify the United Nation’s Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW. Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, the director of the Women’s and Children’s Crisis Centre, stated in an interview with Radio New Zealand that there are plenty of people who Read more
Women seeking an abortion are being offered easier access to the procedure with a free, national telephone consultation service that started this week. Using the freephone number the service has been set up by Wairarapa abortion doctor Simon Snook because of the delays, said to be potentially harmful, faced by many New Zealand women seeking Read more
Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi says women should not let their drive and determination to enter politics make them neglect their God given duties as mothers. He said women hold families, villages, and churches together and they are also the backbone of the country. Tuilaepa was speaking at the final sitting of Parliament for Read more
Solomon Islands National Council of Women says 27 aspiring women politicians are intending to contest the National Elections later this year. The Council’s Women in Leadership Officer, Casper Faasala, says all of the intending candidates have gone through leadership training and will receive mentoring in the build up to the elections. Solomon Islands is one Read more
Increasing domestic violence in Solomon Islands is being blamed for the rise in the number of women and children seeking shelter in a care-centre in Honiara. The Church of Melanesia’s Christian Care Centre’s director, Sister Doreen Awaiasi, says she is having to turn people away as the centre is at full capacity. Sister Doreen says Read more
High Court judge, Justice Stephen Pallaras QC says that the Solomon Islands is a small country, “and a small country be what they want it to be.” He said in order to mould the communities, everyone has to act and do something about respecting women and children. “You have to learn your rights what they Read more
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