This paper draws on research undertaken in 2015 among coffee smallholders in Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, focusing specifically on some of the challenges faced by women coffee farmers in accessing financial services.
The research was a collaboration between the Department of Pacific Affairs (formerly the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program) at the Australian National University and the Coffee Industry Support Project of CARE International in Papua New Guinea.
This paper reports on research that found that increasing women’s savings or income does not necessarily lead to greater bargaining power within the household in Papua New Guinea. For women, the choice to escape violent relationships is constrained by gender norms and social customs such as bride price, custody of children and access to land, which limit their ability to live independently.
This short paper draws on research undertaken in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in 2015. It specifically explored the relationship
between women’s economic empowerment and violence
against women through in-depth qualitative interviews.
Interviewees included business women in the urban context
of Arawa (Kieta District) and rural women involved in informal
marketing and alluvial mining (Panguna District) and in
informal marketing and cocoa farming (Tinputz District).
The Bougainville Do No Harm research confirms that women do not always gain greater empowerment when they bring money into the household because their access to economic resources does not automatically give them control over those resources. Neither is violence towards them reduced. Bringing economic resources into the household may in fact heighten tensions over the expenditure of the resources.
Numerous studies show obvious links between alcohol abuse and violence in Melanesia. In Papua New Guinea, alcohol is incorporated into sociality involving gift exchange and distribution practices associated with the ‘big man’ culture.
This short paper reports on planned research in Fiji, the first country in the Pacific to pilot a measure of poverty at an individual level from a gender perspective.
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.
Poverty profiles presented in Fiji emphasise income, consumption and expenditure characteristics that are often associated with poverty measurement at a household level. Measurement approaches aggregated by households often obscure the gendered experience of poverty by assuming that aspects of men’s and women’s lives are common, rather than that there are dimensions that are particularly important to women or men.
In Papua New Guinea, it is primarily through being ‘good’ wives, mothers and household managers that women become valued. This situation can leave young women and those who do not become wives and mothers with limited options for gaining respect and a voice, while potentially also constraining the opportunities for women to participate in other spheres.
At the opening of the 2014 State of the Pacific Conference organised by the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop noted the Australian Government’s commitment to expanding the Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and the contribution that labour mobility could make to development in the Pacific. In the minister’s words, ‘some seasonal workers have earned up to $12,000 in Australia, and have been able to remit about $6,000 over a six month placement, the scheme is having flow-on benefits.
Even as the importance of women’s economic inclusion and empowerment is acknowledged and acted on, it is also known that such gains are not without risk; for increasing command over financial resources can expose women to domestic conflict and violence.