UPR Sexual Rights Database

National Report:
Para 31) The Family Protection Act 2013 passed by the National Parliament on 18 September 2013 provides a comprehensive legislative framework to combat domestic violence against women in Papua New Guinea and to provide for family and interim protection orders. It also criminalises domestic violence; allows for neighbours, relatives and children to report domestic violence; as well as gives police the power to remove perpetrators from their homes to protect the victim. Penalties for breach of the Act include fines up to K5,000.00 (US$1,650.00) and 2 years in prison.

"""National Report:
Para 44) The Village Courts and Land Mediation Secretariat, has incorporated human rights issues into its training manual and programs for village court officials and land mediators. Through this program village court officials and land mediators are trained in cross cutting issues such as gender, family and sexual violence, HIV and AIDS.

Para 47) Village Courts in PNG are mandated by law to uphold basic Human Rights as guaranteed under the Constitution in relation to protection for women and children from all forms of violence.

Para 48) The Government, through the Magisterial Services, has commenced training for district court magistrates on human rights in general and in relation to the protection orders under the Family Protection Act to protect women and children, including men, against domestic violence including threats and intimidation.

Para 87) The Government developed and established hospital based Family Support Centres (FSC) to assist victims of violence with a one-stop shop for coordinated medical, psychosocial and referral services, and case-management support has improved the situation of women survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). The establishment of FSCs is in line with the National Health Plan (2001–2020), which emphasises on the value of rolling out FSCs as a strategy for addressing the poor indicators related to maternal and child health and HIV/AIDS and STIs, and to improve healthy lifestyles. The FSC guidelines were finalised in 2012 and disseminated in 2013

GESI Policy (2013–2015)
Para 119) The Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Policy provides a progressive mechanism for the empowerment of women and girls within the Public Service. The GESI is specifically aimed at promoting, building skills and capacity of women to be leaders in the Public Service and the wider community. It also provides for the protection of women from gender-based violence and exploitation in professional settings.

Para 120) The Family Protection Act 2013 criminalises domestic violence and provides for family protection orders for victims of domestic violence.

Para 126) The Government has taken steps to review laws to protect women against discrimination and gender-based violence and to promote gender equality in the country. The Government is in the process of completing a Report with recommendations to harmonise CEDAW with domestic legislations.

Para 127) The Government has developed the Papua New Guinea National Strategy to prevent and respond to Gender Based Violence (2015–2025). This Strategy is aimed at strengthening and institutionalizing all initiatives and work on gender based violence in order to achieve zero-tolerance towards gender based violence. The Strategy will focus on the prevention of gender based violence and family sexual violence and on the delivery of quality services to survivors of gender based violence and family sexual violence. It also focuses on strengthening existing structures and interventions based on best practises at national, regional and international levels rather than re-inventing previous work.

Para 128) However, Gender Based Violence (GBV) remains a concern as it is endemic which continues to pose major obstacles to development. The Government remains committed to addressing these issues. To a large extent, Gender equality and women’s empowerment are dependent on freedom from violence, and an enabling environment to give all women and girls the opportunity to participate in all aspects of development. The global Gender Development Index and Human Development Index for successive periods persistently continue to place Papua New Guinea amongst the lowest ranking countries in the world.

Para 130) The Government established a multi-sectoral technical working group which started the process to develop asexual and gender based violence strategy (Sexual Gender Based Violence Strategy (2015–2020)).The Government has also conducted training programs on sexual and gender based violence for relevant stakeholders.

Measures/achievement
Para 131) Some of the measures being implemented by the Government to address violence against women and girls include:
- The creation of domestic violence centres and family support centre which are accessible in the urban and provincial centres;
- Gender mainstreaming within different government departments through the GESI Policy;
- Criminalising gender-based violence.

UN Compilation:
Para 5) The Special Rapporteur on summary executions noted the positive step of the adoption of the Family Protection Act (2013), which criminalized domestic violence.16 According to the country team, Papua New Guinea was taking actions, supported by the United Nations, donors and national civil society actors, to implement the Act.

Para 21) In 2013, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women noted that the country had undertaken legal and institutional initiatives to address the situation of women and girls in the country. However, those had not been translated into concrete improvements in the lives of the majority of women, who remain marginalized, discriminated against and at high risk of being subjected to violence.

Para 35) The country team indicated that, in 2014, the Government had drafted the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence 2015-2050

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 4) HRW recalled that, during its 1st UPR, PNG committed to take specific measures to eliminate domestic violence. In this regard, CS, International Presentation Association (IPA), Human Rights Watch (HRW), Medecins sans Frontières (MSF) and Passionists International (PI), recognized as a positive step that PNG had adopted the 2013 Family Protection Act, which criminalizes family and sexual violence and gives police power to arrest and prosecute perpetrators. However, although the Act came into force in March 2014, it had not yet been implemented. CS added that despite the Act, women still commonly suffered from physical and sexual assault.

Para 27) HRW welcomed the establishment of police Family and Sexual Violence Units and hospital-based Family Support Centres, as well as the process initiated to develop a gender-based violence strategy."

National Report:
Para 118) The National Policy for Women and Gender Equity provides for women empowerment for equal participation and beneficial in all areas of economic, social, political and spiritual development.

Para 121) The National Council of Women Act 2013 provides for equal participation in political and public affairs.

Para 123) The Constitutional Amendment No. 32, Equality and Participation Law 2011 promotes equality in political participation, giving effect to the second goal of the National Goals and Directive Principles of Equality and Participation adding "a number of women elected from a single member women's electorate as defined under an Organic Law".

Challenges
Para 128) Papua New Guinea has made significant progress to date, but has not achieved gender parity in education. Representation of women in parliament is also low. Papua New Guinea is a signatory to several international conventions and instruments to support gender equality and empowerment including CEDAW, MDGs and the SDGs. Targets under these instruments has been domesticated and progress has been made, such as MDG 3 which focuses on the inclusion of women and girls in education and economic and political empowerment.

Measures to ensure greater representation in Parliament for women
Para 135) The Government has enacted the Constitutional Amendment No. 32. Equality and Participation Law (2011) which promotes equality in political participation. This law gives effect to the second goal of the National Goals and Directive Principles (NGDPs) of Equality and Participation adding "a number of women elected from a single member women's electorate as defined under an Organic Law."

Para 136) The Government also enacted the National Council of Women Act 2013 which provides for equal participation in political and public affairs. The Constitution also provides for the principle of equality between men and women in all areas.

Para 137) Recognizing the disparity of women's representation in parliament at the regional level, in 2012 the Pacific Islands Forum Gender Equality Declaration, which Papua New Guinea is a State party, committed to adopt measures to accelerate women participation, such as temporary special measures to establish reserved seats for women and political party reforms. Despite efforts to improve this situation there remains much work to be done.

Para 138) Despite the obstacles, Papua New Guinea has made some progress over the past 3 to 5 years, at both the National and Sub National levels. There are now three female MPs in Parliament compared to one woman in the previous Parliament. Over 20 women were also elected at the last Local Level Government Elections; and Political Parties are getting more women into party leadership. This is due to advocacy from women's groups, development partners including UNDP, EU, USA and Australia.

UN Compilation:
Para 46) The country team stated that women's participation in political office was low. In 2012, three women had been elected for a total of 111 seats (2.7 per cent). In the autonomous region of Bougainville, 3 of 39 parliamentary seats were reserved for women. In local elections in 2015, one woman had won an open seat.