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Women, Peace and Security Initiatives: Papua New Guinea
In-country | International

In-country

Wife-Beating is a Crime- Disarming the Fist
1986-1991
The Papua New Guinea's Law Reform Commission (LRC) launched a massive public-education campaign to try to change attitudes to wife-beating. In collaboration with the Women and Law Committee, the LRC published a series of leaflets and posters and a video called Stap Easi (Take it Easy). These explained what was wrong with wife-beating and how beaten wives could get help from the law. Also, a young people's theater group toured villages, often on foot, performing plays about the evils of wife-beating and working with local groups to develop their own plays. National radio participated by broadcasting plays, panel discussions, documentaries, interviews and recordings of training sessions. Local action groups sprang up all over the country, one of which produced a reggae song called Noken Paitim Meri! (Don't hit your wife!) that became a smash hit on the national airwaves. The Catholic Church joined the campaign, requiring that young men preparing to marry should disclaim any right to beat their wives and granting dispensations for wives to leave husbands who beat them. For more information click here.

International

Justice and Self-determination for West Papua
To sign the petition on-line for a call for a genuine act of self-determination for Papuans click here.