In the Pacific region, there has been some significant progress towards achieving the SRHR goals embedded in international commitments. The number of Pacific Island countries with national population policies is steadily increasing and the integration of sexual and reproductive health into primary health programs has also improved. Reducing child mortality is an area where the Pacific region is doing particularly well, with 10 of the 14 Forum island countries on track to achieving this goal.
This publication is a ‘one-stop-shop’ for international human rights conventions and other related documents. It is designed to be a reference for judges, magistrates, legal practitioners, law students human rights advocates, civil society representatives and policy makers across the Pacific.
In the Pacific region 56 per cent of the population is under the age of 25. Pacific young people have diverse needs, opportunities and experiences, living as they do across 20,000 islands around the Pacific Ocean. This dynamic group of young people live in urban and rural areas, on remote islands and in large cities. They have diverse sexualities and gender identities. They are young people living with disabilities, they are sex workers, they are young women and men living with HIV and AIDS.
This annual report notes that the eyes of the world were focused on Samoa and the wider region for the Small Islands Developing States Conference and UN Women’s Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo Nguka’s first visit to the Pacific.
Highlights from the year included:
- The launch of UN Women’s Markets for Change project.
- A highly visible 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign.
This short policy brief states women’s empowerment is important because:
- Women’s empowerment contributes to economic growth.
- Marginalisation of women in Pacific island labour markets reduces the labour ‘talent pool’.
- The high level of violence against women is a major barrier to development.
It suggests a number of actions that can be taken:
- Temporary Special Measures to raise women’s political participation can increase women in decision making which can result in broad gains in women’s empowerment.
This paper supports the case for a transformative goal on gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment. The case for a stand-alone gender-related goal, as well as addressing gender priorities into each goal, has been actively supported by Pacific Leaders and the women’s movement. The importance of a standalone goal in post-2015 development agenda was evident at the 12th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women held 2013.
Emerging policy lessons from World Bank evaluations of programs to prevent violence against women include:
- Programs to increase women’s economic empowerment may reduce GBV by increasing women’s bargaining power and ability to leave abusive relationships, though there are also risks that increased empowerment could threaten household patriarchies and exacerbate violence.
Violence against women and girls is a grave violation of human rights. It also has tremendous costs for individuals and societies, especially in the Pacific, from greater health care expenses to losses in productivity to a pervasive sense of fear and insecurity.
Decades of mobilising by women’s movements have put ending gender-based violence high on national and international agendas. An unprecedented number of countries have laws against domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of violence.
The UN Women Fiji Multi-Country Office, in consultation with partners, identified two main challenges facing Pacific organisations and networks to scale up efforts to end violence against women in the Pacific region. These were:
- Limited access to financial resources, and related needs for skills building in project, financial and organisational management.
- Knowledge and capacity needed to strengthen rights based approaches for survivors of violence against women.
Women’s economic empowerment is the ability of women to bring about positive changes in their lives and societies as a result of their participation in economic activities. Enhancing women’s economic empowerment is strategic for long-term, equity, growth, and sustainability. UN Women research has shown that improving the economic status of women leads to increased economic activity in communities and positive ripple effects for the whole nation. Marketplaces are key sites for women’s economic empowerment as well as national poverty reduction.
The overall message of the four-day meeting was that there can be no realisation of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for Pacific women without attention to issues of bodily integrity and autonomy, and that no gender equality is possible without realisation of full human rights and social justice - including core focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The forum provided a secure place for diverse Pacific feminist and human rights civil society organisations, networks and advocates from across the Pacific region to:
Every day, 20,000 girls below age 18 give birth in developing countries. Births to girls also occur in developed countries but on a much smaller scale. Most of the world’s births to adolescents— 95 per cent—occur in developing countries, and nine in 10 of these births occur within marriage or a union. About 19 per cent of young women in developing countries become pregnant before age 18. Girls under 15 account for 2 million of the 7.3 million births that occur to adolescent girls under 18 every year in developing countries.
This factsheet explains the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by answering the following questions:
- What is CEDAW?
- What is the role of the UN CEDAW Committee?
- What are CEDAW General Recommendations?
- How is the implementation of CEDAW monitored?
- What are Concluding Observations?
- What is the CEDAW 'Follw Up' Procedure?
- What is the CEDAW Optional Protocol?
- What is the status of CEDAW ratification and reporting in the • Pacific?
Costing is an emerging area of research within efforts to address and prevent violence against women, whereby researchers and advocates are working to measure the economic impact of such violence, from both a specific financial point of view (unit costing) and a broader societal perspective (impact costing).
Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have acknowledged the importance of gender equality through the Pacific Plan and in various Forum Communiqués. The purpose of this brief is to draw the attention of Pacific delegates attending the Rio +20 conference to the importance of gender equality and to ensure contributions to the global sustainable development agenda and negotiations take into consideration gender equality commitments made at the regional and international levels.
The Revised Pacific Platform For Action is a regional charter developed and agreed to by representatives from all Pacific Island countries and territories. It has four strategic themes:
- Mechanisms to promote the advancement of women.
- Women’s legal and human rights.
- Women’s access to services.
- Economic empowerment of women.
This report focuses on the experiences of adolescent pregnancy and motherhood. It highlights the challenges that adolescent mothers face when pregnant and as mothers.
Over the last decade, young women’s fertility rates (ages 15-19) across the Pacific have declined in eight countries. However, in five countries (Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) rates have remained high, at over 50 of births to women 15-19 years per 1,000 women 15-19 years.
This review looks at progress toward the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action’s goals on the following themes:
- Sexual and reproductive health and rights.
- Health, morbidity and mortality.
- Family wellbeing and society.
- Gender and empowering women.
- Population and Sustainable development.
- Population change and social development challenges.
- Urbanisation and internal migration.
- International migration and development.
- Population development and education.
The reproductive risk index ranks 21 of the 22 Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) according to ten key sexual and reproductive health and rights indicators. In doing so, the RRI provides a comprehensive overview of the sexual and reproductive health and rights environments in individual PICTs, how these compare to each other, and combines them to build a clear regional picture of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
In the lead-up to the Beijing Conference, the Pacific Islands region adopted the Pacific Platform for Action (PPA). Its purpose was to identify regional issues and priorities within those Critical Areas and to put them into a local context. The framework was subsequently reviewed and a Revised Pacific Platform for Action on Advancement of Women and Gender Equality (RPPA) was endorsed in 2004.