Fiji and PNG were part of the World Bank’s qualitative study informing the World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development, for which local researchers organised focus groups to systematically record the factors that women and men in the study saw as helping to increase their feelings of empowerment.
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.
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.
This short paper reflects on the experiences of 38 young, educated women in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It finds that:
- Young women in Melanesia are subject to intimate forms of control. However educated and able they may be, family members continue to exert or seek to exert control over their behaviour and choices.
This short paper draws on narratives from communities who participated in research in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. The findings suggest that strong gender norms may constrain women’s agency and their ability to be economically independent.
Among the consequences of conflict over gender roles or norms, the most disempowering one is violence against women. As part of the World Bank’s qualitative study informing the World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development, local researchers in Fiji and Papua New Guinea organised focus groups to elicit information about the impact of gender norms on women and men and to learn about the changes in women’s and men’s lives as these gender norms changed or persisted.