Significant numbers of women, such as members of the Mt Hagen Handicraft Group in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea, have been impacted by HIV/AIDS with consequences including widowhood and hardship. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
GOROKA, Papua New Guinea, Aug 11 2015 (IPS)

It has only been six months since Iveti, 37, lost her husband of 18 years, but already she is facing hardship and worry about the future.

Similar to many married women in the rural highlands region of Papua New Guinea, a southwest Pacific Island state of seven million people, she stayed at home to look after their two children, a daughter aged 11 and a son now in his early twenties, while her husband’s income paid for the family’s needs.

“There was always food to serve to my children, but now the man who provided the food has gone. On the days we don’t have food I make ice-blocks and sell them at the market for 20 or 30 kina [seven to 10 dollars]." -- Iveti, a 37-year-old widow
“I worry about food; I worry about bills and the children. I worry about the relatives who come and visit to mourn with us, because we have to kill a pig [for a feast] or give them something. Who is going to come and say they have the money for all this?” Iveti frets as she sits in her modest home on the outskirts of Goroka, a town in Eastern Highlands Province.

She is surrounded by her children, and her husband’s mother and sister who also live with her.

“There was always food there to serve my children, but now the man who provided the food has gone. On the days we don’t have food I make ice-blocks and sell them at the market. We get 20 kina (seven dollars) or 30 kina (10 dollars). Every two days we pay about 20 kina for the power and with the 10 kina (about 3.60 dollars) which is left, we buy a tin of fish.

“My daughter goes to school and we budget 4 kina (just over a dollar) for her lunch,” she continued.

There is a diversity of widows’ experiences in Papua New Guinea. Those who have completed secondary or tertiary education and have an independent source of income are in a strong socio-economic position to look after themselves and their children.

However, more than 80 percent of the population resides in rural areas where many women have limited access to education and employment.

Female literacy in the Eastern Highlands, for example, is about 36.5 percent. Gender inequality in the country is exacerbated by social practices, such as early and forced marriage, bride price and widespread domestic and sexual violence experienced by two-thirds of women in the country.

While there are no accurate statistics available about widows in Papua New Guinea, the national Widows Association claims that most have been in widowhood for between five and 30 years.

For women in the highlands, the risk of losing a husband is increased due to the prevalence of tribal warfare. Outbreaks of fighting between different clan groups can be triggered by disputes over landownership or pigs, the most prized livestock, or ‘payback’ for a wrong committed against a community.

And, in most cases, the death of a male warrior plunges the wife and children into a precarious existence.

Families are also being impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. By 2010, 31,609 cases of the virus had been reported with the highest prevalence of 0.91 percent recorded in the Highlands, slightly higher than the national rate of 0.8 percent, which is estimated to have decreased to about 0.7 percent last year.

When a husband dies, the widow and children usually have the right to remain on the husband’s land and property. But this is often not the case if AIDS, which is accompanied by social stigma, has been the cause of death.

Agatha Omanefa, Women’s Project Officer at Eastern Highlands Family Voice, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to counselling and supporting families, told IPS that while extended families were traditionally very protective of vulnerable members, she had witnessed rising cases of brothers of the deceased husband making moves to claim the land.

When “the husband’s relatives come in to share the properties the widow becomes a loser with her children […]. Sometimes they come up with stories, history, such as: ‘you are from there, your husband is from here’ and then she [the widow] needs someone to support her to secure the land,” she explained.

“It is having a big impact on widows’ lives, especially when they have small children. So they often keep little food gardens to try and maintain the children’s welfare as well as themselves.”

Families in Papua New Guinea are traditionally large with up to eight or 10 offspring, and the struggle includes paying for children to complete education, especially to secondary level. Female headed households are several times more likely to be below the absolute poverty line, according to government reports.

But one of the greatest threats to a widow’s welfare is the risk of being accused of sorcery. In nearby Simbu Province, women aged 40-65 years are six times more likely than men to be blamed for using witchcraft to cause a death or misfortune in the community, reports Oxfam, and the consequences, including torture and murder, can be tragic.

“There is growing concern that sorcery accusations that lead to killings, injuries or exile are often economically or personally motivated and used to deprive women of their land or property,” the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Rashida Manjoo, reported in 2013.

Widows with sons, however, have a source of protection.

“In our culture in the Highlands, when you have a son, no-one will chase you out, because you will gain strength from your son, but if a woman does not bear any child then she is more vulnerable,” Irish Kokara, treasurer of the Eastern Highlands Provincial Council of Women, explained.

President Jenny Gunure added that there was also a lack of awareness about women’s rights and the law at the village level, a situation the women’s council is working to rectify through a bottom-up education programme aimed at rural women, which was begun last year.

However, Kokara believes that the risk of violence will not diminish until the behaviour of young men, who often perpetrate such crimes as part of vigilante gangs, is addressed.

“It is the youths who take drugs, like marijuana, who are the ones burning the women and hanging them on trees. So we need to change the youths first, then we can change the community,” she declared.

In recent weeks widows across the country have called through the local media for the government to introduce legislation to better support recognition of their rights.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Villagers in the Simbu Province of Papua New Guinea, where over 200 people have been killed in sorcery-related violence. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jun 15 2013 (IPS)

Following worldwide outrage over a spate of brutal sorcery-related murders in Papua New Guinea, the government has rolled out a new hard-line approach to spiralling crime in this southwest Pacific island state.

Repeal of the much-criticised 1971 Sorcery Act means that sorcery-related killings will now qualify as murders and will be punishable by the reinstated death penalty.

But for many who reside in the mountainous highlands in the country’s interior, where there is scarce infrastructure and government services, safety from sorcery-related violence will remain a distant reality unless promises on paper translate into action at the local level.

Monica Paulus, a human rights defender in the highlands province of Simbu, supports the government’s move to repeal the Act. She knows what it is like to be accused of ‘sanguma’, the indigenous term for sorcery or black magic, and now works to support those who are targets of vigilante style purges.

In the Kundiawa district of about 58,000 people, Paulus is aware of five major incidents of sorcery-related violence in the last five months.

But she told IPS legislative reform alone “won’t make a big difference”, explaining that cultural pressure on communities to remain silent about such crimes would likely continue, while the impunity of perpetrators would have to be challenged by police capable of rapid response.

She added that justice was dependent on victims and witnesses being given adequate protection, and the reduction of widespread gender inequality.

Particularly in rural areas, where more than 80 percent of the nation’s population of seven million reside, spiritual beliefs are still used to explain events in the physical world.  Death, especially of young people, is attributed to evil forces. Those accused of sorcery – particularly the elderly, women and widows – are often unable to defend themselves from the young disenfranchised, males making the allegations.

In 2009, a rise in reported ‘sanguma’ violence, with an estimated 200 related killings in the Simbu Province alone, prompted the government to launch a Constitutional and Law Reform Commission to investigate the pre-Independence Sorcery Act, whose aim to punish so-called black magic practitioners had raised questions about the difficulty of proving “witchcraft” in a court of law.

The subsequent recommendation that the Act be repealed was accepted by parliament two weeks ago.  Simultaneously, the government reinstated the death penalty applicable to crimes of murder, rape and violent robbery.

Dr. Arnold Kukari at the National Research Institute based in the capital, Port Moresby, commented that the Act’s abolition signified the government’s “first step to address sorcery-related violence”, but said it was “not enough.”

“A major problem has been poor law enforcement by the police,” he continued.

The horrific immolation of 20-year-old Kepari Leniata in front of onlookers in the highlands town of Mt. Hagen in February, after she was falsely associated with the death of a young boy, unleashed wide public condemnation. Arrests were made and two individuals subsequently charged.

The following month six women and one man were reportedly tortured following allegations of witchcraft in the Southern Highlands Province, while in April two accused women were kidnapped and one publicly beheaded in Lopele village in southern Bougainville.

The police force has long been plagued by a lack of resources, with common reports of victims being asked to pay for fuel for police vehicles and “fees” for investigations and arrests, while corruption is rampant.

However, according to a local media public awareness campaign this month, the government is planning to boost police numbers and training to support its new crime fighting measures.

Bringing perpetrators to justice will be dependent on improving community trust in law enforcement and proper protection of witnesses, who are often accused of sorcery if they provide testimonies.

Reluctance to report incidents is also due to many Papua New Guineans’ fear of sorcerers and a widespread belief that removing them is necessary to protect the wellbeing of the whole community.

Gender inequality has contributed to the problem, with Amnesty International claiming that women are six times more likely to be accused of witchcraft.

Jack Urame, director of the Melanesian Institute in the Eastern Highlands Province, said that “a deeply embedded belief that men are more important in society” makes it difficult for women to defend themselves or even retaliate.

“Sanguma is a dangerous name in our country,” Josephine, a woman who has suffered the stigma of sorcery for more than ten years, told IPS.  “It affects you for the rest of your life and affects your children as well.”

Kukari added that sorcery-related violence was driving women to “live in fear and isolate themselves from active involvement in all spheres of development.”

Challenging harmful beliefs through education and increased law enforcement is essential, but there is an equally pressing need to address widening socio-economic disparity in a nation unlikely to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), experts say.

A 2010 Oxfam report highlighted a Health Services finding that sorcery-related violence is increasingly associated with “high expectations that have turned into frustration and anxiety as many people have found themselves excluded from the benefits of development.”

It identifies a trend of sorcery allegations being used to veil premeditated assaults motivated by revenge in disputes, envy of another’s success or desire to possess their land and wealth.

Hardship in the highlands is exemplified by a lack of economic opportunities and basic services. In Simbu, where male and female literacy is 48 percent and 34 percent respectively, there are a total of just seven medical offices and 31 health centres serving a population of 260,000.

There are no quick fixes to this complex collision of ancient ways with the harsh realities of low human development. Legislative reform and better law enforcement are a start, but nothing short of an integrated multi-sector approach embracing cultural, social and economic change is going to reduce the tragic fallout.

“All Papua New Guineans must take ownership of the problem,” Kukari emphasised. “Everyone, including the government, parents and churches have important roles to play.”

But Josephine pointed out that addressing the issue effectively necessitates directly affected grassroots communities overcoming their fear of speaking out.

“People have to acknowledge and talk about the problem before they can find a solution,” she said.  “At the moment, people don’t even know how to defend themselves.”