Preventing Violence at Home, Allowing Violence in the Workplace: A Case Study of Security Guards in PNG

This short paper draws on the views shared by security guards who participated in discussion groups as part of a larger research project that explores how men interpret and respond to primary prevention messaging addressing HIV and violence against women.

Behaviour-change messaging aimed at primary prevention of violence against women in Papua New Guinea is challenged by dissonance between men’s lived situation of everyday violence in the workplace, and awareness messaging about non-violence in the home. The tensions created in the overlap between the ideal of non-violent men who are secure in themselves and their circumstances, and men’s experiences of insecurity and violence, can undermine the wider mission of gender equality and obfuscate the complexities of social and intimate relationships where violence occurs.

This highlights the complexities and paradoxes that inhere in prevention of violence against women messaging in Papua New Guinea. For this messaging to be more effective, there needs to be an increased focus on the different ways that class, economic insecurity and violence affect women and men, and their relationships.