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 Pacific Data Hub

The Pacific Girl Inception Workshop was held from 21–25 October 2019 in Suva, Fiji. The week-long workshop comprised the following meetings:

- One-day Girls Pawa Toktok with adolescent girls from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu.

- Two-day Partners Meeting with selected civil society organisation partners from Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

- The Pacific Girl Regional Learning Network meeting.

 Pacific Data Hub

This document provides details about the Australian Government’s investment in supporting adolescent girls in the Pacific. It includes information about:

 Pacific Data Hub

This report presents lessons learned from menstrual health actors working in the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the local context of island-based nations. It is a unique case-study that captures the specific menstrual health challenges faced by countries with dispersed populations across large geographic locations with limited income and commercial access. The report explores how innovative investment can be a means of facilitating a new market opportunity, enabling improved access to necessary healthcare products, and support venture creation for women-led businesses.

 Pacific Data Hub

Findings from the study include:

- Girls in Kiribati lack knowledge about menstruation and reproductive health as they transition into adolescence and adulthood.

- Poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) contributes to girls being unable to manage their menstruation in Kiribati schools.

- It is often considered taboo for men and boys to talk about menstruation or interact with menstruating girls and women.

 Pacific Data Hub

Findings from this study include:

- There is a knowledge gap amongst school-aged girls related to menstruation and reproductive health more generally. This lack of knowledge also extends to the school-aged boys and mothers.

- Some teachers interviewed indicated that they were unaware that Menstrual Hygiene Management is part of the curriculum.

- Traditional beliefs and practices related to menstruation are strong in Kiribati communities, in both the urban and rural settings. These traditional beliefs affect girls’ lives in a number of intersecting ways.

 Pacific Data Hub

Poverty data in Fiji is derived from household income and expenditure data, collected via periodic Household Income and Expenditure Surveys. Given gender inequality within households can be significant, assessing individual poverty by using household data and then assuming all household members have the same access to resources and opportunities is problematic. Household-level measurement also means accurate disaggregation of data is impossible. This makes the work of policy makers and advocates harder, masking differences rather than revealing them so they can be addressed.

 Pacific Data Hub

Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:

- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.

 Pacific Data Hub

Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:

- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.

 Pacific Data Hub

Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:

- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.

 Pacific Data Hub

Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:

- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.

 Pacific Data Hub

Key findings from this research into women’s and girl’s experiences of menstruation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are:

- Adolescent girls and women face a number of challenges that influence their ability to manage menstruation effectively and with dignity; these challenges interact, and have the potential to negatively influence physical and emotional health, participation at school, work and in the community, and impact the environment.

 Pacific Data Hub

This volume critically interrogates the relation between gender violence and human rights as Fiji, Papua New Guinea nad Vanuatu and their communities and citizens engage with, appropriate, modify and at times resist human rights principles and their implications for gender violence. It is grounded in extensive anthropological, historical and legal research.

Chapter titles are:

- Villages, Violence and Atonement in Fiji.

- ‘Lost in Translation’: Gender Violence, Human Rights and Women’s Capabilities in Fiji.

 Pacific Data Hub

This paper reports that in Tanah Papua (the western
half of the island of New Guinea, currently
comprising the Indonesian provinces of Papua and
West Papua), there was an HIV prevalence of 2.3% of survey participants, ranging from 0.6% in easily accessible coastal areas to 3% in the highlands. This makes the estimated HIV prevalence in Tanah Papua the second highest in the world outside Africa.

 Pacific Data Hub

Papuan perspectives on family planning have historically emphasised political concerns that reflect the tensions between the Indonesian state and indigenous rights – Papuans have questioned both the need for them to limit their population size and the propriety of the state to intervene in their reproductive matters. Family planning in Indonesia is said to have stagnated, and rates of contraceptive use in Tanah Papua (the western half of the island of New Guinea, currently comprising the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua) are considerably lower than the Indonesian average.

 Pacific Data Hub

The Vanuatu study shows that violence against women is prevalent:

- Among women who have ever had an intimate sexual relationship with a partner, 60% experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime; 68% experienced emotional violence; 28% were subjected to several forms of control by their partner, 69% experienced at least one form of coercive control, and most of these were living with physical and sexual violence.

 Pacific Data Hub

The Samoan study shows that violence against women is prevalent:

- 37.6% of women who have ever been in a relationship are likely to have experienced physical abuse by their partner.

- 18.6% of women are likely to have experienced emotional abuse by their partner.

- 19.6% of women are likely to have experienced sexual abuse by their partner.

- Of women have experienced physical abuse by their partner, 23.8% had been punched, kicked or beaten while they were pregnant.

 Pacific Data Hub

Similarities across the situation analyses in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tonga include:

- Women with disabilities make significant contributions to their communities. However, while they have similar talents, skills and experience as other women, they may be more often underrecognised and have fewer opportunities.

- Each country has a committed and active disabled persons organisation and a family health association that are in a good position to increase their focus on disability and sexuality.

 Pacific Data Hub

Pacific Island adolescent girls participating in the two-day preparatory workshop ahead of the Pacific Girl Regional Stakeholders’ Dialogue in May 2018 wrote a song together to express their feelings and experiences. It highlights challenges for Pacific girls, including teen pregnancy and cyberbullying, and encourages girls to believe in themselves to overcome any barriers.

 Pacific Data Hub

Adolescent girls in the Pacific face challenges because they are girls; and they can also be discriminated against for other reasons, such as having a disability or getting pregnant. In this short video, adolescent girls from the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu talk about the issues that are important to them – such as education and climate change, the challenges they face – such as violence in their homes and cyber bullying, and the strategies they believe will work to empower adolescent girls in the region.

 Pacific Data Hub

This checklist proposes actions in five specific areas:

- Learn from women’s experience and support their leadership.

- Develop and implement gender-sensitive responses to COVID-19.

- Support women’ economic security.

- Prioritise support to domestic violence survivors.

- Ensure continued access to health services.