| Home > South Pacific & Oceania >> Papua New Guinea | |
Sexual violence keeping young girls out of school in Papua New Guinea
IRIN - April 9, 2012
A recent study by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), one of the country's main providers of medical and psychological assistance to survivors of family and sexual violence, showed that from 2008 to 2011, a significant proportion of patients who received treatment as a result of violence were children, some under the age of five.
In the rural settlement of Tari, 31 percent of those who reported violence were between five and 12 years old. In Lae, the second-biggest city after the capital, Port Moresby, 26 percent were between the ages of 13 and 17.
Almost half of those reporting sexual violence in Lae from January 2008 to June 2010 – some 520 people – were under 18. In Tari, 248 were minors, MSF medical coordinator Patrick Almeida said. "In both places, in over 70 percent of the cases, the perpetrators were known by the survivors," he added.
"It's really bad," said Ume Wainetti, head of the Family Sexual Violence Action Center NGO, based in Port Moresby. "Young girls are already disadvantaged when it comes to education, and the threat of rape and sexual abuse aggravates these inequalities. As it is, parents generally hesitate to send their daughters to school because they will just get married and have babies. Boys will carry on the family name and continue to work," Wainetti added.
The 2010 Unesco Education Digest listed PNG as one of 16 countries worldwide with "severe" gender disparities. Gross enrollment rates in 2009 were close to 82 percent for boys, but only 74 percent for girls.
The cost of tuition is one of the main reasons for the gap, according to Unicef. In 2009 the government adopted a plan to gradually phase out school fees by 2015, when it expects to fully fund basic education. The remote locations of schools have even greater implication for girls, Unicef noted.
"Some kids have to walk for hours to get to school, and the journey on the way to school makes them vulnerable to attack, especially for girls," said Joseph Logha, the Department of Education assistant secretary.
"The experience of sexual violence definitely affects a girl's education in terms of being able to stay in school and school performance," said Ruth Kauffman, MSF project coordinator at a Family Support Center in Lae.
These donor-funded hospital-based centers are safe houses and "one-stop shops" for survivors of violence who need medical, psychosocial or legal assistance.
"If a girl is raped, she may be beaten by family members. If she gets pregnant, she misses one year of school and may not be able to go back. Even if she doesn't [get pregnant], she's already a different person. The trauma makes it difficult for her to concentrate on school work," Kauffman said. Sometimes, the girl is married off to the perpetrator for a "bride price" – similar to a dowry.
"Some communities see marrying her to the offender as a way to make him accountable for his behavior, without considering the additional emotional trauma that the child will suffer," said Elaine Bainard, Unicef's chief of child protection in PNG.
See also:
 |