Women Battle For Seats In PNG Parliament

Port Moresby, July 1 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Jul, 2022 ) :Women are fighting to get at least one seat in Papua New Guinea's male-dominated parliament when voting opens Monday in a mountainous, forest-clad land scarred by gender-based violence.

Prime Minister James Marape is fending off a challenge from his predecessor Peter O'Neill to lead this resource-rich but poverty-struck Pacific Island for the next five years.

Whoever wins, the new leader will need to cobble together a coalition government, say analysts.

Women, though, are hoping just to have a voice in the 118-seat parliament.

In the nearly 50 years since Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia, only seven women have ever secured a seat, and not one in the last election in 2017.

"A lot of us really feel like we stand a great chance," said Sylvia Pascoe, one of 142 women among the almost 3,500 candidates in this election, told AFP.

"Not just because the timing is right, but because we've spent our lives building up to this moment."Statistics on women's experiences in the country are alarming: 63 percent have been subject to physical, sexual or emotional violence at the hands of their spouses, according to a national survey completed four years ago.

At least 70 percent of both men and women agreed that a man would be justified in beating his wife in at least one of these circumstances: if she burnt food, argued, went out without telling her husband, refused sex, or neglected her children.