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The idea for a Pacific Women's Conference was first
voiced in
At one of the earliest meetings of the Planning Committee, it was decided that we work on the situation of women in the Pacific, as defined by ourselves, and that we discuss the issues that concerned us and which were relevant to the Pacific.
A programme for encouraging ideas and feedback from women in the Pacific was launched through letters and also the media.
Of course things took time. Immediate reactions and responses were sometimes received, others remained unclear about the aims and objectives of the conference, tending to think it was some plot to do with ‘Women's Lib.’. But mostly, the response was one of interest, as better communication was made. This demonstrated the very real concern women in our region had for examining their role and status in their societies, particularly the conflicts between the traditionally defined role and status of women, and the new impetus for women to develop to their full potential.
We decided to start with an examination by women of the
institutions in society which mould us, defining our role,
and restricting an emergence outside of this. It was there
As you will see from this report, the conference reached far beyond this, beyond what are considered ‘women's issues’, showing that women of the Pacific are concerned about all that is happening in their particular nations and in the region. This concern was expressed in the follow-up action of the conference resolutions.
Above all, women at the conference felt the need to express more clearly at national and regional level, their continuing concern for what is going on affecting their lives. This is reflected in the commitment by the women at the conference to set up a Pacific Women's resource centre, one of the resolutions we hope to see a reality.
It would be difficult to sum up the feeling and experience of the conference. We on the Conference Planning Committee believe sincerely that the conference has been significant for the Pacific and that it has opened the way to an active and sustained concern for the interests of women in the region and the people of the Pacific as a whole.
Our thanks are many to the people who have supported
the conference and helped in different ways, from contributions to its planning, to participation at the conference.
We would like to thank very specially, the organisations that
supported our conference – the Ministry of Women, Board of
Global Ministers of the United Methodist Church of the United
States and in particular Ms. Rose Catchings; the Canadian International Development Agency and in particular Ms.
It has been my difficult task to put together a report of a conference where some eighty Pacific women spoke out for the first time. There were many valuable contributions and I regret that not all could be included in this report. I have attempted to present various contributions, having them lead up to a certain point or conclusion. I think this does not go against the experience of the conference itself. Where women from colonial or minority situations have spoken out on their conditions, I have given them fullest expression because I believe that these conditions should be known.
I hope I have captured in a small way at least what to all of us was a great experience.
In the Gilberts, we have in a family a father, mother and five or six children. The father's duty is to see that his family is safe and to fish, cut copra etc. The mother's duties include carrying all the family's worries. She must look after the whole family. She sees that there is enough food to eat, she does the washing, and other housework, and she even goes out fishing or out to the bush.
Each family has a history and it is the duty of a son and a daughter to learn from their grandparents and also to know that relations are very important in everything. It is important that the children know their relatives so as to prevent them from falling in love with their relatives.
Arranged marriage is one of our strong customs. All parents choose their children's partners. They choose someone who has a good background, someone who has a small family, and someone who is a hardworking boy or girl.
And now let me talk about women.
Before there was no place for women to go and talk. They used to just listen to the men talking. The women in olden days were not very important. They were told to just be happy, eat, and enjoy what they have.
Women were not allowed to talk, but nowadays we know
that most of the women in the Gilberts go to school and there are members of the House, members of Councils, and in government departments some of our women are working there.
Now the government is trying to help our women by breaking
down some of the culture. There is the Health and Welfare
section which is divided into the Family Planning, Health
Education, and Women's Clubs – all of which deal with
A family in
In the family, the head is the father. The mother is the go-between. When the children want something, if they do something wrong, the mother explains all this to the father.
Above that is the ‘mehikitaga’, the father's sister. In Tongan families the status of a woman is very high because the ‘mehikitaga’ is much respected in her family. Although she pays respect to her brother, to his children she is really much further up. We say that the father is the lord of the family but the ‘mehikitaga’ is the overlord of the family.
Women have duties - they keep the home, they are the hostesses to the people who come in, such as the men coming to meet the husband and talk around the kava ceremony, or to talk business. Also there are young men who come in to court her daughter/s, and the women prepares for all these things.
But even though she has high status in the family, the woman generally retires and does not join in the discussions. It is not compulsory - it is part of the ceremony. She prepares to retire to her weaving and draws the curtains behind her and leaves her husband to the discussions.
Because of traditions our women were rather like decorations for the house, not really useful. They were almost
unable to do things. Before our women never went into the
Our culture is taught to the children through the
talatala-i-fale, a kind of family council within the house,
where the mother and father tell their children one aspect
of traditional culture - how to appear in public, how to make
tapa etc. This was so in the past but nowadays, this generation, prefers to go out dancing, rather than to sit down
for a ‘talatala-i-fale’.
The woman as the life-source of the clan in the pre-colonial
Kanak system
Life in traditional Kanak society rested on two fundamental bases: the women who produces the child, and the land which feeds the tribe. Thus there is an identification between the women and the land, as in many societies - they are both sources of life, and they both have a reproductive function. A sterile woman is an arid land - they were the same in the eyes of the Kanak people in pre-colonial times.
The woman's task, then, was to produce children for her husband, to bring up her sons to the age of adolescence, when ritual forced them to leave their paternal roof for the house reserved for young bachelors. As for her daughters, the woman had to look after them up to the day of their marriage. In addition to her reproductive function, and her role as educator, the woman maintained the plantation and did all the household duties.
As for all Kanak people in the traditional society, the life of the Kanak woman did not belong to herself, but belonged to the community, whether the society was seen in terms of the family, the tribe, or the whole group. Her education, her actions, her work, were carried out as a function of the group of which she was a member. In fact, she didn't exist as an individual but always as an inseparable part of the whole which makes up the tribal community.
As a source of life of the tribes in the society, she
submitted to the prohibitions which regulated and stabilised that society. Some examples of these prohibitions on
Kanak women:
she had to bow in front of men, give them right
of way, humble herself before them; she could neither approach the chief nor speak
to him, nor allow herself to be seen by him.
She had to adopt the same attitude in regard to
her brother and her maternal uncle; she could not participate in the meetings of the
Council of Elders which revolved around the
chief and which made all the important decisions for the tribe.
The education of the Kanak woman in traditional society was solely designed to make her a mother, a woman capable of producing children, above all else. By her marriage, always outside her paternal clan, she guaranteed alliances between groups and perpetuated the life of these groups.
A woman is never independent from the time she is single and through marriage, and in some cases the woman does not own land or property or even home; nor does she have a say in the upbringing or children. The widows in the male-orientated societies very often in the past had to walk to their graves and be buried alive, particularly if their husbands were bigmen, and this shows the extreme attitude of men in our society, despite the powers possessed by our women in land dealings and the trusteeship of children. At least some more enlightened areas allowed the poor woman to go back home to her own people, which even today is not permitted in all our islands.
What is the position of a woman in the village? According to New Hebridean custom, a woman's place is always in
In early times, the woman's place was always in the home. She was the mother and the homemaker. Traditionally, our women did not speak out on anything; it was always the woman's place to be the cook for the family. The woman had to be sure that the cupboard was full, that hospitality was extended to anyone and everyone who may knock on her door. Also it was very much an extended family group so that it was not only her little family that she was concerned with, but the community as a whole. We used to live mainly in communal groups in the country areas.
However, this has changed a great deal. Nowadays, the majority of our people, because of employment, are moving into the cities to live and to work. We tend to lose the community spirit that we had in the country areas.
In some areas, traditionally, women are not permitted to speak on our maraes. In other areas, they are allowed to speak. But usually, it is the man who does the speaking and women do not speak on the marae. But in the city areas, women are now speaking up more than they used to.
The role of the Pacific woman in New Zealand, to me, at
the moment is very, very insignificant at regional and international level. At the grassroots level, which is the
It's the woman's role (to me it's very important) within the community to cope with seeing children off to school. Some of them work at two o'clock in the morning - they get up, they go to their part-time jobs, they come back home at half-past seven, they prepare the children for school, and see them off. Then some of them go off to another part-time job or a full-time job, in trying to help the family budget. In a city like Wellington, men's wage-rates are up to $200.00 a week, rent of a house is up to $60.00 a week. Clothing, (well, I'll just name a few garments that you put on) - a coat is nothing below $60.00, unless you go to a sale then you'll be lucky to get something under $30.00 or unless you go to a Bazaar then you might be lucky to get something really cheap. But of course, being proud women of the Pacific, we want nothing but the best. Food: for $10.00 or $20.00, your housekeeping money will buy you very, very little. The mother, the wife, is expected to cope with the family, and then herself cope with whatever she meets as she commutes daily from home to her job, to the dairy, to the shops, to the city and back again.
So our role in New Zealand as
Family life was a strongly organised social institution
in the
She wove strings from coconut fibre for construction of canoe and house buildings; skirts, the only wearing apparel, she fashioned from coconut leaves for all the family. Bedding mats and baskets she dexterously wove in intricate designs from pandanus leaves. Her usual household chores would have consisted of collecting firewood for cooking purposes. As there would have been no cooking utensils, all food had to be either baked or grilled. Toddy was converted into molasses by being boiled in coconut shells on hot stones. All this would have taken up most of a housewife's day. With the extended family system, she would have had helpers, as old women could have done many of these tasks.
Unlike many other cultures, a girl was not purchased from parents by prospective husbands. She had her share of family inheritance, although less than a son's share. An only daughter inherited not only land but also whatever particular skills her father possessed - even navigation. Women were mostly well treated by their husbands except when these were of a jealous nature (which was quite common). Then the wife had very little freedom and could not assist at any social gathering. Young girls were subject to very strict supervision and could not go anywhere alone.
In spite of all this, women were (and still are) regarded as inferior to men. On no account must she stand up to address an assembly in the ‘maneaba’ (meeting house), but must sit meekly behind the elders in the first rank. Walking along the road she usually kept a few paces behind her man.
When education was introduced by the missionaries, it was thought to be only for boys; girls had no need of it. It was a long struggle to convince parents to send girls to school, but they were quite happy and even anxious to let them be in boarding school with the missionaries as they knew they would be safeguarded. So long as they were taught to weave mats, etc., it did not matter what they learnt academically.
Even after
From the time they were small babies, children were taught how to behave towards their brothers and sisters. Female children had to observe certain restrictions on their behaviour towards their brothers - they were not allowed to step on his sleeping mat, or dance with him in a traditional dance, and could not kiss his face but rather his hand, as a sign of respect. They had special forms of address for their brothers alone. Females could not appear partially undressed in front of their brothers. Males were also taught to respect their sisters, and could not swear in front of them. These observances were reinforcement to the strong incest taboos.
The first born child in the family, especially if it was
a boy, occupied a privileged position in the family. He had
to stay with the father and learn the management of the
household. His younger brothers and sisters were taught to
obey the first born in all family matters since the knowledge of the family's genealogy and lands was passed to him. He
was also the teller of special family traditional stories.
The head of the household was the father. It was his responsibility to provide for the family. There was a definitive division of labour; only men did the fishing beyond the reef and women fished within the lagoon. On land the men were the hunters and gatherers and the women made mats, etc., and looked after the children at home. With the coming of Christianity, the belief that the man had authority over the woman was reinforced.
However, the changes in economic life, caused changes
in the division of labour and women became slightly more independent. Both sexes participated in planting, men working
on the land, and both sexes planting and harvesting. This
division of labour still exists today. After contact with
Europeans, the Cook Islanders noticed the greater independence of European women and the fact that the head of their
country was a woman, Queen
Many women in the
Women had been important in making alliances between tribal groups but an examination of traditional stories does not reveal women as decision makers or leaders, but as desirable marriage partners, childbearers or the cause of disputes over their favours.
Today, women are valued not only for their ability to
bear children, but also, with the introduction of a new economic system, as wage earners. Children can claim land from
both their mother and father and men can work their wife's
land. Marriage is also a way of acquiring more land. Within
the home, the husband still remains the decision maker, and
in some cases this is necessary, while in other cases, women
As women are starting work, and sometimes are earning as much as their husbands, they are now realising the independence that money brings. However, generally, girls are not expected to plan a career of their own as it is assumed they will be having children for most of the time between the age of 20–40, when women are tied to the home. As their children grow up and begin to help with child-minding and housework, and later earn wages, women assume more authority in the home In middle age, when children no longer have to be watched over, these women want to go out and work. It is at this time in her life that a woman begins to be independent.
What the Rotuman woman is like today is really a lot of traditional attitudes or beliefs that have been handed down by generations to the young ones today.
How does traditional culture fashion Rotuman women? Firstly, like other cultures it defines the sex roles of Rotumans, and child bearing and child rearing become the prime role of the woman. One striking feature regarding Rotuman women is that their role is very, very rigid. This is greatly determined by the fact that Rotuman women are considered very uneconomically productive in agriculture. Yet if you go to Rotuma now, you would not meet a Rotuman woman coming back from the bush carrying a load of food and her caneknife because this would only reflect that her husband is lazy! Relieved from agricultural activities, her activities within the family or in the home become very rigid.
Thus, it is the woman who wakes up at night to answer
to the call of the child, cleans up any mess and controls the
child, while the father is left to sleep on because he has
had a strenuous day in the bush. In the urban complex, the
woman is blamed for the untidiness of the child when he or
Marriage is commonly matrilocal, the husband residing at the woman's place. The Rotuman woman acts under a lot of constraint. The husband is regarded as a guest, therefore she adopts the role of a good hostess. Within the family, the woman had to keep quiet about troubles and give in to her husband to uphold the family image publically and also to uphold family solidarity.
Traditional culture specifies many things that a woman cannot do. For example, she is not supposed to talk too much in a meeting since this is a priority of the men. The woman is expected to make herself as inconspicuous as possible in a gathering, remaining, if possible, at the same place and not moving around.
Her in-laws expect her to display proficiency in speaking, in craftwork, and it can become embrassing for the woman if she visits her husband's place and does not succeed in the tests given by her in-laws. For example, they may ask her to plait a certain mat out of coconut leaf, and she is expected to use up the whole coconut leaf economically. This means that she plaits the mat and then if there are any bits left over, she makes a broom, and out of the hard stem in the middle, she must fashion a certain fork, a Rotuman fork. She cuts it up into long strips and then folds them into two. If she is able to prove her efficiency, then she is accepted. If not, in early days, songs would be composed about her inefficiency. Even though this is not done today, the idea that you must be adequate in the eyes of your in-laws is still very strong.
The Rotuman woman is also expected to be proficient in
ceremonial activities. Her main role is either serving the
kava or serving the food. In Rotuma, the food is served on
a very low table and the serving of the food needs a lot of
skill, and a lot of practice. If you forget the type of food
that goes on first, you are subjected to a lot of ridicule
The most important and the most controversial feature of traditional culture is virginity. The women are expected to be virgins when they marry and are condemned if they are not by the parents or in-laws, if they find out. This is quite unfair that while women are expected to inhibit their sexual desires, men can have a good time and nothing is said about them. In Rotuman society, the men are entitled to this, it's the men's right or priority but not for women. This attitude had better change. Once the attitude is changed then women will not suffer from unnecessary guilty consciences.
The Rotuman wife in the family maintains the strong link between the relatives. She initiatives how much should be taken to a wedding, how much should be taken to a funeral. But this is not acknowledged. For example, when a man is successful as a leader in the society, he is praised, but the wife is never associated with him. She is not associated with the success of the husband. But when the husband does a lot of bad things, normally the people blame the wife, saying that she must be a bad wife, inconsiderate etc.
In her family, the woman's husband sometimes takes advantage of her and even though she is better educated, and better paid, he still has the final say in the home. And it restricts woman from speaking up or saying things that may be constructive as far as the whole society is concerned.
Rotuman women are not equal to the opposite sex. Attitudes that the Rotumans hold strongly must be modified. We need a lot of womenpower to do that. Women should threaten their husbands, that if he does this or that again, they will walk off, since they may be earning a lot more than he is.
I have been asked to come and say something about Papua
Our women work in the gardens and basically they look after their children and also do the housework. Because of these - working and planting in the gardens, looking after the children, working in the home - the men consult the women about what to do, and the actual decisions are made in the home before they go out to the public. In that way, I should say that our women indirectly do play a part in decision-making in our traditional culture.
Nowadays, it is not so obvious that women are a success. I would like to see an equal recognition of the sexes. I would like to see that there is equality in pay for capability in doing the same type of work.
The idea of ‘women's liberation’ is a bit confused back in our country. Western countries have their own ideas of what ‘women's liberation’ is supposed to be and this has been passed on at our PNG University. In the beginning, I used to think that if I became liberated I had to become like a European woman or her ideas of a ‘liberated’ woman. But I have come to believe now that this, liberation, is not in the sense that they are pushing into us - to go out and demonstrate. We don't need to have all that. We should try to think of ‘liberation’ within our own capabilities, how much we understand, how much we can do, how much we can contribute and not simply go out and demonstrate how we must dress and things like that.
Religion is, to me, a personal thing, a faith that shapes a woman's life. To me, religion is God living in your heart and He living in your heart will rule from there and I sincerely believe that we will never go wrong if we have that administration from within us.
In
What I think about now is that we might get too narrow-minded about religion; that our minds may be taken up too much with religion in the old gospel, I mean religion in the Old Testament, and not with the New Testament. And what is the leading spirit of all is love. If we women could learn to love each other, to love your husband, and your children, to love people as you do yourself, as the bible says, which is the compass for Christian religion. That, I think, will solve all problems.
I speak as a Cook Islander and as a member of the Cook
Islands Christian Church of the Ngatangiia Parish. I am also
a promoter and organiser of the World Day of Prayer services
in the
The four main denominations in the
Religion plays a very important part in the life of most
Cook Islanders, men and women. In the CICC denomination, men
have an advantage over women and I hear that this is the same
in the
In the
Further, women do not preach from the pulpit – only men do that. I often wonder why this is so, especially since women clean and sweep the pulpit. If only men are allowed to preach from the pulpit, then why can't they sweep and clean it?
In the Cook islands, women have to wear hats or cover their hair whenever they have to enter a church. Women do all the preparations for any feast at a religious function and wait on the guests. After the feast the women have to clean up. The men decide the feast but the women do all the work. Women have accepted this and the men took advantage of them. I think its about time we do something about it.
There are many other ways in which women do all or most of the work in the church. Yet to hold a position in the church, for example, to be a deacon, one must; a) be a man, b) be an elderly person, c) preferably be a chief traditionally or a son of a chief.
Another interesting thing about deacons and ministers
is that if their wives die, they cannot remain as minister
or deacon because they have no wife to do all the woman's
duties. Unless he marries again, he will lose his position.
In our church at Ngatangiia, the ‘deacons’ wives clean all
This goes back to our traditional culture which, with
Western culture, has a great influence on religion in the
Most men like to stick to these traditions but it is simply a way of preventing women from becoming ministers or deacons. Thus, women can be ordinary members of the church, but not its organisers or leaders. I think its about time we do something about it. We will speak out.
I want to ask a question to all the women from the
other islands. A very important question in
The time I want to tell you about is when John, my brother, was the deputy in the French National Assembly, and he
was against the bomb. As he is a very religious man, (he's
Protestant), he thought he would get help from the pastors
and even from the Catholic bishop, so he went to see them
And that was just to help the Tahitians… So he went to
see the Bishop first and the Bishop said: “I can't speak
against
So I went to the priest and after a small talk I began to direct the conversation to nuclear tests and the priest was so afraid to talk about it that he just ran out, forgetting his hat in the house! He was so afraid to say a word about that. So I told my husband what it was and he said that it was a French priest and maybe the bishop had told him not to talk about the bomb. So now there was nothing to do, so I decided to turn to my Protestant pastors.
I was not happy about it because first, they are
Tahitians. And so I couldn't understand when the Protestant
pastors would not talk about the bomb because I said: “We
are women and we are thinking about our children, and you
That's the question I want to ask you. Why are priests
afraid to talk about all these things against the bomb? They
represent God and God wants the good of the people, and they
should want the good of the people too. And I want to know
if this is the same in your countries, if the priests take
the same position, and don't want to be involved. This year
it's a bit better because the bishop wrote an article in
which he says, very vaguely, I must say, a little against
the atom bomb. And the Protestants are talking a little bit
more. But I must explain that I didn't know about the South
Pacific Bishop's meetings (the World Bishops Conference, Vatican,
But I didn't realise about the conference because in
no contact with the outside world. They cut
it off. Everything is turned to outside, to
But this doesn't mean that I'm no more Protestant. I'm still a very good Protestant and my husband is still a very good Catholic because the religion is God's; the pastors and priests are human beings.
I'd like to answer the question that our sister from
Her first question was that she'd like to know from us
– from other countries – what our ministers or what our
churches' stand is in relation to the bomb and nuclear testing in
I am very grateful that this Conference has made it
In the
The point is this: in the
Coming back to our ministers, in the Anglican Church in
the
Our stand is with you. We are against the bomb. We are against militarism in the Pacific.
However, our voice is not yet a united voice because the
few who understand us are so few, and our people who are the
masses are so much for us to cope with that the information
has not been channeled back into the grass-roots effectively
yet. But the few who have had the chance to be educated or
to see this light, realise that that is the challenge, and
that that is the direction that educated and the more understanding are taking. And we hope more will come to understand that we must stand together and that things like militarism and other aspects that arise from it, I think we have
to handle carefully and maybe base our ideas on real Christianity – not the Christianity that has been created after
Christ dies, but Christ's true teachings has to be involved.
I'm from
In
My Groupe, Groupe
I would like to say that the Tahitian people are not
alone in their struggles to stop the nuclear testing in
This is the statistics right now – between
They have not involved the priests and the ministers of the various denominations, simply because priests and ministers are considered non-political people although they could probably help along those lines in the name of helping people as people of God. They have not been political along those lines and for that reason we have not involved the priests or the ministers. But rather, we have tried to work among the native people only.
I'd like to comment on the question of religion. I'd like to say again that religion for my people has not only affected them but has totally screwed them up, and today our young people not only reject religion but also reject the education system as a whole.
Religion. I belong to the Ngapuri tribe which is from the north of Auckland, up. Ours strayed from the main tribe. The missionaries came to our tribe and they taught us how to do away with any carvings at all, because my people were mad to believe that they were carved in the image of some of the evil people, of evil spirits and the devil. So they did away with this beautiful culture.
This is how religion had affected my people, and i
still affecting them today. The churches own more land i
the Ngapuri area than my people. We were made to believe
that if you prayed long enough and you look up to God while
As for the missionaries, none of them could possibly
conceive of the fact that
Violence! As it is, they who did not hesitate to massacre the Kanaks with guns in order to implant their christianity in my country, while he of whom they claim to speak, Christ, let-himself-be crucified-peacefully, it is they, along with the administrators, the military and the settlers, who have imposed violence on my people, stealing their land and annihilating their culture.
When we are talking about religion, we are, without knowing it, talking about the introduced religion that has pervaded all the islands. Very few of us have mentioned the traditional religion. So it goes to show that we have been thoroughly socialised in the Western religion and we therefore have come to accept some of the Western values. We can no longer differentiate this from our traditional religion. We have incorporated some of these Western religious values and even have called this our own.
The second thing that has come out is the great influence of religion in shaping lives, our women's roles, so that in effect religion, the Christian religion especially, has reinforced the social patterns, has reinforced the traditional patterns, that we have been used to. And I think that it has become evident that some of these norms, some of these rules that have been introduced by this Western religion have been constructive-we can certainly do with a bit of love, we can certainly do with a bit of unity that Christianity preaches. But some of these norms as they have been pointed out, have tended to restrict us women from developing our full potential.
A long time ago, very few boys went to school and girls were not allowed to go. They stayed with their parents and had to do the housework. We are lucky nowadays that our girls go to school, and that our women are now working just like the men.
Education in Fiji. I wish that the Permanent Secretary
for Education in Fiji comes to talk to you because he may
give a clearer picture than I will…! There are three hundred islands in the Fiji group and over one hundred are inhabited, including the ones some of us come from. And we've
been away from our islands for so long that we don't know
whether we still know our aunts, and our great-grandfathers.
Well, that is how education has removed people, to come over
to this main island,
Education is for everybody. It is everybody's business. Therefore, we have in Fiji, like in any other country, our own education system. Our system is administered by the Ministry of Education. We have our officers and they are far-flung officers who are living with the people, helping the teachers, helping the children, setting exams, which are sometimes rather rigid, for us all to follow, so that we may have some form of standard right throughout the country. I think that is enough to briefly say what is happening in Fiji.
We have exams, we used to have exams galore, but thank goodness some of them have been removed. Exams to get into an intermediate class after six years in a primary school; then you sit another exam after two years to get into a secondary school. Then you sit another exam after that (after the 4th form - after three years) to be able to get to another level. Then you sit another exam in order to sit for your university entrance exam, and then when you've sat your U.E. you can get into university. So if you work all that out, that is your elimination of those people who are not fit to progress and you drop out a lot and therefore are left with a selected few who, if they are not careful, will become an elite member of a separate world, useless to other people but useful only to themselves.
However, this system, we must say, has produced and it has blessed the country in many ways. As a unionist, I can't help but look at the system critically, and I hope that you will bear with me. If you have your figures in front of you you will see there are almost the same number of girls and boys - there's not much difference - going into that factory.
The YWCA and other voluntary bodies have piloted their own pre-schools, and the women are not waiting for anybody. They've set up their pre-schools and they put their children through. I hope that one day the government will recognise the importance of such education; that the children, before they go to school, have to be prepared. The school system is too sophisticated for many of our ethnic groups, and therefore, somehow, you've got to help them to come through the system, if you're going to adopt that system. The pre-school has about 44 groups running in the country - there's probably a little more now.
Then you put them through that factory, and they come out, perhaps, at the university. When they come out, you'd be lucky to read on graduation day that there are more women coming out of that factory, and all did well in their different forms.
After pre-school, you come to the primary. Primary education means more exams - very much formal-oriented, very
What I'm really trying to say is the fact that much of what we learn is very irrelevant to the life that we're going to live. It is very relevant to the successful ones, perhaps like me. But how about the ones who dropped out, who dropped away from the system somewhere along the line? There's nothing for them. We need a new force to cater for people to learn to respect themselves, to learn to use the opportunities that arise; and to be able to learn something in life, that life becomes meaningful.
I'm interested in women's groups because they provide a group of people who are interested in giving education to the women, to the people of the community. Men's clubs in Fiji are just socialising clubs. Women's clubs are very hard working, trying to educate and trying to develop community work. People have to be aware and develop an awareness of the needs of their community in order to help to make that community better.
What are our educational objectives? I feel that it should not just be formal and informal education but should be all that you learn to enlighten yourself for a better life. That, I feel, is much more meaningful in the Pacific if we're going to retain a lot of our Pacific traits and add on some of the things that we feel that will make life more wholesome.
What kind of a woman are we trying to produce? Perhaps
you want an eloquent, intelligent, clean, healthy, nice-looking woman, so academic that she will just be able to floor
everybody including the men. Perhaps your image of that woman that you are trying to create in the Pacific is not quite
that. I asked a few men: “What do you want?” and they said:
“I want a nice, submissive person, beautiful to look at,
obedient, in some ways she can talk but she should only talk
about what she is supposed to talk about.” What is your
We've given all our educational systems, we've given our criticisms and the things we've yet to develop on curriculum, that we'd like the women of tomorrow to learn. All they are learning now at school is very irrelevant. I say to Domestic Science teachers: “For goodness' sake, don't teach them about wool - that's useless! Learn more about handicraft, to plait things, don't just talk about it.” I went and got someone to come and teach handicraft - she does not speak a word of English, but she can plait! And that's all I want - to communicate some skills that exist in the community, that if they are not shared for the betterment of individuals and the community, they would be gone.
To conclude, I leave you with some comments and this is an old wise saying: “To be educated is to be useful.” When you are educated you're supposed to be better everyday, you're supposed to know and be very wise about things. I don't know what your educational system is creating in your countries, but I know that in my country people are getting worse, they are losing their own respect and they are becoming street people instead of being homely people; they're becoming poorer people rather than richer or respectable people, and I leave you with that thought, because I think you must depend on what you want in education, depend on what you want that Pacific woman to be, then if you clarify those thoughts then you will have more hope of working on those strategies and putting your plans down and saying “You go here, and you go there.” So that in five years' time when we do meet again, we can see what we have done - whether you've destroyed Pacific women or whether you've helped them.
These people, when you ask them to come and teach, do you pay for them or not? That's the first question.
The second one is: When you pay them, I find that they
don't come to the classroom, so the introduction of pay for
the value of work has an effect on the contribution of
Yes, I do. But I find the way out is by asking relations to come, because I cannot afford to pay anybody. I once sat down and said to the girls: “Is there anyone here who has any relations who can teach us a good meke or dance?” The girls said: “We want to go away tonight and think about it and ask everybody.”
Some of the people in Fiji will tell you that it's one of the dances that has been performed by schoolgirls really skillfully. The old man who taught the dance to the girls was paid in kind - we used traditional ways to pay him. We went in the traditional way to invite him with yagona, talked to him, I used to pick him up and bring him to school. I used to give him fifty cents or more each time he came - this was for his tavako or cigarettes. We then held a ‘vakacirisalusalu’ at the end of his teaching period, that is, we performed the meke he taught us and thanked him in style and the girls gave him anything that they could give: a dress, a sulu, a shirt, whatever, and mats, and we all presented these to him. Then we all ate together and we really had a wonderful time. So it was payment in the traditional way, because we could not afford the money.
We are here as women to look at ourselves and to ask ourselves: Why are we here? What have we to offer each other? What are we going to do as women of the Pacific area?
I won't go through the education system that exists in
New Zealand because it is here - it's right here - in the
Pacific area. Whatever nation you turn to - be it the Cooks,
I ask you the question: “Education for what?” Why are
we educating these Pacific islanders, why is the education
system British in Fiji, New Zealand, in other areas? Education for what? As suggested by somebody yesterday - for
brown-skinned pakehas? I'll give you my answer - education
to provide the more industrialised areas of the Pacific, including
You won't stop the migration - you can jump, you can
scream, you can do whatever you like - you won't stop our
young people leaving our shores and going overseas, because
the opportunities are there, because that's what the education system has made them do, and that's what you, as a mother, expects of your child. Some of us may be slow to admit
but we are very conscious of status - for our child to be a
teacher, for our child to be government-employed, for our
child to be in some fairly responsible positions in ministries: they have done well. But for our child to be planting,
for our child to be fishing, for our child to be helping in
the community - there's an air of embarrassment, we're
slightly sad. Why should we be?
Unfortunately, the education system here prepares people, our young people, for things that are beyond what the environment can provide; prepares them to aspire beyond what their immediate area can give them. You know as a mother, (and you know that your husband thinks the same as you do) that for your child to be successful is to sit with a white collar and a tie and glory in a package with paper money in it. That is a successful person who has come through the system.
Is that all the education system is about? I hope not.
Because it is examination-orientated, this flow continues.
My remedy is: Here we are right in the centre of a place
that can help to change the education system. What is our
I will tell you a little bit of the New Zealand education system. I am speaking as a person who has come through
that factory as Esiteri Kamikamica has said. I hope I don't
belong to the small elite, useless, group. The New Zeland
system then is pre-school, primary, intermediate, secondary,
tertiary - just as it is here. Of the areas of New Zealand
where Pacific islanders are to be found, mainly Auckland,
Tokoroa,
But who can survive the system? I know of one Cook Island girl, in Wellington, who is going to training college; I
know of five Samoans who are going to training college; I know
of three Samoans who are at present at Wellington Teachers'
Training College. You can count them all on your fingers.
When you think of the large population of
About two-thirds of all children in the
The primary schools have many more boys than girls. The feelings and interests of the class are influenced by boys. Most of the teachers are men. Women teachers often have difficulty controlling classes of older children, where the boys are quite big and there are few girls. Sometimes, men teachers have affairs with the bigger girls, which may disgrace the girls but nothing very bad happens to be teacher; recently, however, some male teachers have been sacked or had other heavy punishments for this.
Secondary schools are also mainly boys' schools. But these schools are even worse, because there are three times as many boys as girls in secondary schools. And these schools are preparing pupils to work in the modern economy, where nine out of ten jobs are held by men.
So the atmosphere in secondary schools is to prepare pupils for a world where men go out and do the important and
A lot of employers do not like the idea of employing women in important jobs, because they do not trust them or they do not think other men will trust them, or because they are uneasy about sex differences at work. This affects the way teachers prepare girls for employment and careers.
The education system is dominated by men, like everything else in the modern side of life in the
This is odd because in our traditional society, women were much more powerful than we are now and we still have more power in the village than we have in the town. Our women have lost power through modernisation and new ways of living. The education system is one of the main ways that these changes are being spread and encouraged.
The planning of the education system has been entirely done by men. There is not one woman politician, or one woman on the permanent headquarters staff of the Ministry, or the Central Planning Office. The needs of women - for example, the need for pre-school facilities in town areas, where many mothers go out to work - are therefore forgotten, or given a low priority.
For sure, the answer cannot be found inside the education system itself, because it naturally tends to continue the way it is. We have to make changes by pressures from the outside.
We should be tackling this in several different ways.
Educating the parents to send their daughters to school.
We have to get parents to see and understand that the
best investment in education is to get their girl children into school.
Educating the employers to give proper, full career
jobs to women and to accept us as real competitors for
a wide range of jobs.
Changing the school curriculum to include subjects and
material which will show to both boys and girls, what
women can do if they are given the chance.
Teaching people about education so all kinds of people
can see what is wrong with the system and think how to
improve it.
Appoint women advisors to Central and Local government
education bodies.
Have ‘balanced employment’ rules for government to give
a good example and to get women into key jobs as models
of what can be done.
Generally raise women's consciousness.
I am at the moment studying Law and I should be the first woman graduate in law from the University of Papua New Guinea. I do find a lot of opposition from male students in the Law Faculty at the university but they have a lot of respect for me and it is encouraging to see that there is not that traditional attitude that women should not come out and talk in public. I do fight for what I think is right and for what I am capable of.
In modern
After more than a century of French colonisation in New Caledonia, one can no longer talk about a woman's education which is really Kanak or traditional.
On the one hand, as far as the woman who is brought up on the reserve or in tribal surroundings is concerned, one continues to instill in her the respect of the group to which she belongs, her duties towards her community, and a submissive attitude in front of men. For example, she is still advised not to speak to certain assemblies of men, such as the Council of Elders, not to talk to her brothers nor her maternal uncle, and to find a husband in order to have children. She is taught to weave mats and baskets, taught how to work in the fields, how to look after the plantations and the areas around the house, the flower-gardens and the weedings, for example. She is shown how to prepare the “bougna” which is the traditional Kanak food cooked in an oven made of hot stones buried in the earth. She is brought along to gather coffee beans, and to cut straw for the roofs of their own houses. And she learns how to recognise edible shells on the reefs for the tribes along the shore.
However, given that traditional Kanak values are denied
by the colonial system, a woman's ‘tribal’ education is an
In the same way, when Kanak mothers say to their daughters: “Find yourself a husband who has a good position”, they are simply pushing them into the arms of lower-level Kanak civil servants - primary school teachers, nurses, country police or policemen - who have an enviable position for Kanak people in the white colonial society. For the Kanak woman to be looked upon favourably by the white people, she must not only speak good French, be well-dressed, and be well made up, but also be a good housekeeper, a good cook, and must know how to sew, iron and mend clothes. She must also be a good mother, a good wife, a good Christian and an excellent hostess.
In this New Caledonian colonial society where racism is institutionalised, where the superiority of the white over the coloured peoples is set up as a principle, the education system is established in such a way that the person being educated - here, the Kanak woman - cannot refer to herself in order to make judgements, since there are no criteria other than Western criteria to be used. This system of education designed to integrate and assimilate can only force the Kanak woman to renounce her original society and make herself more white than the white woman, and to flee the reserve for the town.
Being a well-educated Kanak woman today in the colony of
The more we forget, the more we deny our identity as
Kanak women, the better one is “educated”; that is how it
really is in
But in any case such an integrationist education contains its own contradictions as is demonstrated by this expression frequently heard in
In fact, this Western education is only intended to make us into little puppets, or rather cheap exotic merchandise in the hands of the white master. The intention is to make us into alienated people, so that as mothers we can educate our children in ways still more Westernised, which will thus perpetuate the bondage of our people by the white colonial system.
Now we are going to briefly list some of the Kanak woman's complexes which are the result of this integrated education:
Racial complex: the Kanak woman who believes in the superiority of the white in everything, is ashamed to speak
her vernacular language, to meet her Kanak parents in town,
to be seen with Kanaks and coloured people in general.
Social complex: denying her original society, that is
say the tribal, village world, she prefers to be exploited
by a white boss or become a prostitute in town than to return
to her original community. Of course, those who live in
Class complex: women who have their secondary school
certificates, or who are teachers, nurses, or employed in
offices, believe themselves to be superior to the housegirl
in town. Naturally there is no question of her joining in
with work in the fields, or quite simply of her dirtying her
hands working the land.
If she wants a husband, he should at least be a minor civil servant.
If she is married, the mother of a model family, and a practising Christian, she can only regard unmarried mothers, for example, as whores.
In our group - Groupe
I would like to make a comment to support and clarify
Lucette's statement on education in
The underlying factor in our colonial situation is that
In the
I would like to speak to you about
By chance, the Tahitian women have not the same kind of
life as the New Caledonian and the New Hebridean. Even in the
olden days the Tahitian women had a very high position in the
society and they could even become chiefs. This is so in
other Polynesian groups. In
In our time, the boys were not as well educated as the girls. Both went to school, but when the boys reach the age of twelve they are taken from school to work on the plantations, to go fishing, to work for the family. But, the girls could stay at school and learn more. And now, these girls have married those who are not as well-educated as themselves. This has become a problem in many households because the women know much more than the men and it is very difficult for them. And the women want to dominate the men, and if they cannot do that, they at least want to be on the same level.
I want to speak a little now about the education of our
children today. I have three daughters and they got their
secondary education in
When they begin to work, they always need the family so
they come back to the family. But they want to make the parents do things in the French way, and the parents do not
always agree. So, with all the education you have got, you
still need your mother on the farm, to give you money. You
are not able, with all that education, to get enough money
for yourself. It is a big problem now, because all those
children who come back from
Media is a powerful social force. Who controls it? As far as I can see, it is controlled by only a few people, a certain sector. In some cases, it's the government, in some cases, big businessmen of businesses that sell you images of what you're supposed to look like, what you're supposed to think, what you're supposed to eat, what you're supposed to smell like. It's like the definition of colonialism given at this conference-the self defined by the other. You're defined by the advertisements that tell you what to think.
Media serves to perpetuate those in power, those who have money to control us not only through the media, but also through education. It serves to perpetuate stereotypes that are generally Western, white and male. That's why women come off as very passive and weak. They're supposed to be feminine. The people who control the media know the value of pushing this kind of stereotype through ads. because it makes them money.
The press is a tool to educate. The print shop that I worked in is an alternative to the kind of propaganda that's forced down our throats by history books etc. It is an alternative to newspapers that are old and controlled by a few rich people.
In
The print shop is an alternative to this power. It shows
you can fight back through newsletters, posters, bumper
stickers. We try to show that people have a lot of common
Finally, you can't seperate the issues – sexism, racism, colonialism. They are all related and they all affect women.
With regard to the media, it is in the hands of the colonial power which spreads only one-way information, with the view to isolating us from our true problems which threaten to disturb the good conduct of capitalist affairs. All the films, magazines, newspapers, are there only to stir us to create for ourselves the same white heroes as those of the capitalist countries: Tarzan, Zorro, and Batman.
Let me isolate the most influential means of communication available on
In the educational media, there is an attempt to write
grade school books partly in Chamorro. There are bilingual
programmes in the schools. There is also KGTF, an educational television station partly subsidised by the federal
There are 36 women of the 100 employees at Fiji Broadcasting Commission, and of these only two are on the executive, one is a technician, six are announcers. Wages are equal, but men hold most of the decision-making powers.
What has radio been doing in International Women's Year? Most of the other countries have been doing things that are very women-orientated i.e. things that don't bring the woman out of her home, such as knitting or cooking. There's nothing for education about outside activities.
Working for radio in Fiji, I find that women listeners are very, very passive, and the feedback I get from my listening audience-there's nothing to go on. I have to make up the programmes to go on radio because, unfortunately, I don't get any co-operation from the women. You get pulled down because the women don't give you any ideas of what they want.
Another thing I have noticed in working for the media,
is in describing any events when a woman is present-for
instance, blonde Mrs.
Thatcher, daughter of a grocery store owner etc., which I
think is unnecessary. After all, they don't talk about men
as the mousy little Mr. Kissinger or the handsome Mr. Trudeau…
One of the media that really concerns me is, in the
Pacific especially, the films. The movie industry is really
affecting the South Pacific and no matter where you go or
Some of the media we have some control of, for instance you can ring up the broadcasting station or you can write a letter to the editor and make your criticisms, but you have no control whatsoever over the films coming out from Hollywood, or wherever the films come from.
I am very much concerned about film censorship. In most of the Pacific islands, more than half the population is female. What percentage of the film censorship is made up of women? I am concerned about the representation of women on film censorship boards.
We are an atoll island and we're scattered over thousands of miles. We have just nothing but few lands and a lot of sea. We've got 16 islands in the Gilberts and 8 in the Ellice Islands. You can imagine how people rely on the radio and this is how we, in the Women's Interest Office, work with the women in the outer islands.
We have to get through to them. We have to speak in Gilbertese, Ellice, and very little English and that's why I think if you are having difficulty trying to put through your methods to the women because of the communication difficulty through shipping, I think the best way you have to work with is through the radio. More or less all the people now throughout the islands depend mostly on radio for their messages from overseas and elsewhere, even through telegrams. If the telegrams breakdown on the wireless, we get our messages through the radio. It is one of the strongest things that people in the Pacific are very grateful to have-this sort of communication with the people of the outer islands.
People in the towns who have many things to socialise
themselves with, forget that the people in the outer islands
almost live with the radio. This is their only way of entertainment and they listen very intently and they make very
And I wish to say how much we in the Gilbert and Ellice depend mainly through our work to get any message through to the women or to the people of the rural area-our main communication is the radio.
We in the
We have a woman's programme but to this day no one ever
asked us if we'd like to participate in this hour. [Poko
Ingram led a delegation of Cook Island women belonging to the
I talk about the situation in
But these radio and T.V. are controlled by the French government, so they are always turned to French customs and the French way of life and most of the programmes are in French. On the radio there is about one hour of Tahitian at night and a little before noon with the news. But all the rest is in French and the T.V., the programmes are all in French. Nothing is in Tahitian.
And when we have elections for example, the local parties in
There is no programme for women in
Our plans as well as our images are so dominated by the
media, whether its the modern media or whether its the old
media. Two specific aspects of it I'd just like to touch on
And as we listen to what is done to the image of the Pacific women, you can forgive me for recalling what used to happen and what still happens, although we are vigilant about it, to the image of the black woman in the colonial society of the New World.
When we were getting the images projected to us from two influences, the British colonial system and the American system which was sitting on our doorstep, and also the bombardment with the films etc., my hair wasn't supposed to look like this because this was not how it looked in Hollywood and you went to all sorts of agonising processes to get as much to look like the image. It was absurd - you used the skin whiteners and the hair straighteners and so on, all because there was this external thing being put on us in this oppressive way.
Now let us not make the mistake of saying that because we're independent politically, constitutionally, that we've thrown off that kind of imposition, and this is where I think, at so many levels, we're even more vulnerable when we enter into an independent status, because then, with the economic external forces, the multinational corporations, the big sales talks, come the images as well.
So it is reinforced that before we can begin to deal with the image of the woman, we've got to see where it's coming from, and it's coming from a whole context of oppressive forces. So that's one of the things it seems to me that is tying up so many of these things that we're talking about in this conference.
When, to look specifically at the media itself, one of
the things that seems to us to come over loud and clear is
that we're dealing with perhaps the most sexist institution
barring perhaps the church and this is why I think that particularly women who appear to be given the rare privilege of
getting into the media have to be so much on the alert. Men
are particularly jealous of the fact that they control the
means of controlling you and me what goes on up here in
our heads. So they will embrace the talk of women into the
media and
What are the solutions? Can I tell you a little bit of what we have found possible and is beginning to make a sort of breakthrough at home? If we're talking about a tough and jealous profession, namely the media, controlled by the men, it means that we've got to think in terms of tough professional women who are invading that media, and I would emphasise ‘professional’.
We have recently set up a school, Institute of Mass Media,
in our University of the
At the non-professional level, what we have also found
as a promising means of dealing with the problem is to look
for instance, at the large numbers of persons who are exposed
to the media, and as you spoke of them, a fantastically high
percentage of people in
Now, they needn't be passive peceivers of what the media
is pushing at them. Could they not participate? Could these
women, as they do their housework, mind their babies, have a
transistor to their ears or the TV on or something, be motivated in their community groups to monitor the media?
We've attempted this in a modest way. We're saying, “Look, we know Janet that you're confined in your house for 5 hours every day. Could you make it your job for this week to take any 2 hours of the women's programme which is presented for your consumption every morning. Check it out. What is it advertising? Is it nice recipes and beauty aids and new draperies and so on, or is it involving you in the public issues of the community etc. Monitor it. Tell us what it is saying.” And somebody else is doing the other 2 hours in their home doing their responsibilities and so on. At the end of the week, at the end of a fortnight, these women who have had this responsibility, get in a huddle and examine the pap that they've been fed with from the media, and they decide how much of it they want and how much of it they don't want.
And we come back to another point to remember, and that is, in the final analysis, we women are the consumers and when the consumers indicate what they want, the people who are producing the goods, have to listen to the consumers.
It is only fifteen years ago that we natives of the
1) traditional and modern practices and attitudes which affect us in our daily lives and dealings. These are enforced by local courts applying customary law which of course, like English Common Law is susceptible to change and may be invented anew.
2) written laws which derive from British laws and which can be modified by our legislature.
Ninety percent of our female population still live in the rural areas. These women suffer much from these traditional customary practices and attitudes of our men, as shown by our politicians when debating laws which relate to women - women come second to land in the value of property to men.
In some of the islands this is very true especially in the patriarchal societies. In Ysabel, my home island, the women have a much higher position in our society and they enjoy a much more powerful influence in land dealings and the guardianship of children. But the modern and foreign influences are somehow shadowing our women in some good customs, for example those on land dealing. This is due to lack of education, the dominance of men in our dealings with foreigners, and the lack of presence of our women in the legislature. So, although by custom women should have these powers, we seem to be losing them, although our menfolk keep telling us that they are trying to strengthen custom.
A simple example of the practices and attitudes which are brought in by foreigners is shown in our urban areas and even written in simple rules like General Orders, which govern public servants. Married women officers are denied the official housing, even if they are senior, because their husbands, however limited their resources, must house them, unless government posts the women away from their husband's home. There are other provisions denying them such privileges which would encourage our women's position and role in the modern society. I think provisions should have been made in the rules for our progress.
The Law Reform Commission was established in
Chairman:
Nahau Rooney, a social welfare worker, from Manus;
The varied occupations and backgrounds of the Members
express the Minister's intention that the Commission should
not be composed just of lawyers from the capital city, but
should represent many different professions and regions in
In order to make the law more suitable to Papua New Guinea, the Commission must look at two things – (1) the traditions of the people as expressed in their customary law, and
(2) the aims and needs of the people as expressed in their
new Constitution. Sometimes, these two sources of the law
oonflict. This is especially true in the field of women's
rights.
For example, the Constitution makes it clear that women
should be treated equally. The first clause of the Constitution reads:
“We declare our first goal to be for every
person to be dynamically involved in the
process of freeing himself or herself
from every form of domination or oppression so that each man or woman will have
the opportunity to develop as a whole person in relationship with others.” “We declare our second goal to be for all
citizens to have an equal opportunity to
participate in, and benefit from, the development of our country.”
and the second clause:
The Parliament explained that this second goal specifically referred to equal opportunities for women. To implement the second goal, they called for:
“recognition of the principle that a complete relationship in marriage rests on
equality of rights and duties of the partners, and that responsible parenthood is
based on that equality.”
Thus, in the Constitution, the Law Reform Commission find a clear directive to propose laws that help women become equal. But, when the Commission looks to customary law, our other major source for law reform, we find many laws and practices that go against equality for women.
In the field of succession: Under customary law, it is men
who inherit property, not women - even in matrilineal societies, the land passes through the women's line, but goes to
men in that line. In most PNG socieities, when a man dies,
his sons or nephews inherit his land. His daughters may
receive some fruit trees or personal property, but they do
not get parts of their father's land. And, when a man dies,
his wife does not expect to inherit anything - even the
children, who stay with their father's line. In fact, in
many PNG societies, wives themselves can be inherited. When
a man dies, his brothers inherit his wife or wives.
In family law: Under customary law, the men of the clan
“own” the women. A girl does not choose whom she will marry
- her father and uncles, and sometimes her brothers, choose
for her. They do not make the choice based on her happiness.
They choose a husband for her according to what will be good
for the clan. Thus, if they wish to form an alliance with
the men of another clan, they will marry her into that clan.
If they have killed a person in another clan, they will marry
her as part of the compensation payments to that clan, so
that she can produce a child for that clan to replace the
person who was killed. Women often found themselves, in the
days when clans frequently went to war, married into a clan
that had become enemies of her own clan. Sometimes, when the
two clans went to war, the woman's husband killed her because
she was a representative of the hated enemy.
Marriage involved an exchange of valuables - pigs, shells, and (today) money. This was called the “Bride Price”, but none of it ever went to the bride. It went from her husband's family, who were buying her and the children she would have, to her father's family.
Men in
In divorce law: This was probably the only area of family
law where women had any equality. A woman could, if things
got too unbearable, leave her husband and return to her own
In property law: In a few areas of PNG, women could and did
own land or other important valuables. But, in most societies, although women did most of the work in the gardens, it
was men who owned the land on which the gardens were made and
the houses built. Men also owned the shells and other valuables used in trade and prestige ceremonies. Women did all
the work of caring for pigs - even breast-feeding sick piglets - but their husbands owned them and decided when they
would be traded, killed for a feast or given to someone else.
And, in most societies, men built sacred houses where they kept masks, drums, flutes and other ritual objects; women were not even allowed in the houses, let alone to own anything in them.
In criminal law: Adultery law is a good example of the way
that customary law considered women to be the property of
men - of their fathers and brothers before they were married,
and of their husbands afterwards. A married man could, in
most societies, have intercourse with whomever he wished.
Men frequently raped the women of a conquered village. But
it was considered a great crime for a married woman - or even
a single girl - to have intercourse with someone other than
her husband. She would be punished severely for it, and the
man who had intercourse with her would have to pay compensation to her family. This is because a woman's sexual ability - particularly her ability to bear children – was “owned”
by her father and his clan. It was the commodity they sold
when they married her to someone. After her marriage, it
was owned by her husband and his clan.
This is a very one-sided picture of
The Law Reform Commission has attempted to solve this problem - of a conflict between customary law and the Constitution - in several ways:
(1) Recognising that the Constitution is now the basic law of our country and that the Parliament considered all the demands of custom in formulating the Constitution, we choose the Constitution over the customary law whenever we are forced to make a choice.
(2) Before we drafted any new laws, we talked about
(a) they let us know what issues people feel very strongly
about, and how they would like the law to be; (b) they helped
- as do our meetings with people - to educate people about
new laws. We realised that, much as we wanted to preserve
our traditions, some changes will be necessary in order for
PNG to develop. But these changes will be impossible or useless, unless the people see the need for them and agree to
them. So we go to the people with every new law we propose.
(3) I should point out that, in many areas, the Constitution and the customary law are in agreement, so there are many new laws we can propose that will be much closer to the people's traditional ways of doing things than were the laws introduced by the Australian colonialists. For example, we have recommended that the imported crime, vagrancy, be abolished. Under the colonialists, people without a job could be arrested, even though they were living with their relatives who were supporting them. We recognised that it is the PNG way to support one's kin, so we recommend that this law be abolished.
Areas in which the Law Reform Commission has recommended changes that will benefit women or make them equal to men:
Prostitution: we have recommended that prostitution be
legalized, but that men who keep houses of prostitution
still be liable to a fine or jail. This will, we hope,
curb the kinds of men who live off prostitutes, and at
the same time permit women who are prostitutes to avoid
the shame of frequent meaningless arrests. We have also
recommended that V.D. Clinics be established. Once prostitution is legal, more prostitutes will make use of
V.D. Clinics because they will not be afraid of arrests
at them.
Adultery: we will probably recommend that adultery
cease to be a criminal offence. Currently under the
Native Regulations, adulteres can be fined or jailed –
but only that
adultery be treated not as a criminal offence but as a
civil matter in the village courts. We will also recommend that compensation be available not only to men whose
wives commit adultery but also to women whose husbands
commit adultery.
Drunkness: in the towns, especially, drunkness bas become a great problem. Working men spend their entire
fortnight's paycheck at the bar, often get into fights,
and come home with no money for their wives to use for
food and clothing and school fees. The law as it now
stands, knows only one way to handle the problem – drunks
are arrested and thrown into jail, making it even harder
for their wives to make ends meet. We have recommended
that drunkness by itself no longer be a crime, but that
habitual drunkards can be sent to a magistrate for
treatment. We are also considering recommending that
women be allowed to collect part of their husbands' salaries directly from his employer, if the husband is shown
to be a person who frequently drinks up all his pay.
Succession: we will probably recommend a new kind of
succession law that falls somewhere in between customary
law, which left no property to a man's wife, and the
imported law, which leaves all a man's property to his
wife, ignoring the claims of his clan and relatives. We
hope to work out a formula that gives women equal rights
to inherit property, but which also recognised the need
to maintain strong clan structures. We shall probably
do this either by reserving a certain percentage of a
man's property for his wife, or by declaring that wives
are full members of clans, can become heads of clans
even, and therefore, should receive equal shares in whatever the clan receives.
Marriage and Divorce: we are planning to begin research
Maintenance: Currently, in PNG, a woman can receive
payments from a man who has fathered her illegitimate
child. And a wife can receive payments from her husband
for herself and her children, if the husband actually
deserted her. But a woman cannot receive payments,
until the divorce is final, for herself or her children,
if she left her husband – either through her fault or
because he was impossible to live with. We intend to
change this law.
The whole process of Law Reform will be tedious. A benevolent government can assist, but one that is ignorant of the fact that law can be the most effective instrument for social change will merely perpetuate the existing system. Government policies become mere words if law does not change to implement the goals of the present-day government.
The whole direction of our country's development can be
changed if we choose for a legal system that belongs to us –
where the process of law is in the hands of our people, both
in rural villages in in urban communities. self-reliance.
The village court may not provide what remedy a village woman may want, but the fact is that she can take her complaints to a village court magistrate, litigate on the spot, get a decision. The process is one she can understand, the punishment is one that is understood by the community. There is no concept of “imprisonment” in PNG society. Dispute settlement or punishment is governed by the norm of compensation, restoration of harmony and “shame” in the eyes of one's community.
At this stage of PNG's development, only a few months after Independence, no real choice has been made as to whether the country will continue to live with a legal system that perpetuates a capitalistic society or a socialist/communalistic society. Our eight aims direct us, but the reality is we are caught up in a legal/economic system that is powerful, manipulative, and one that offers a struggle if we choose a break-out. The effect of any such decision will affect women who are the consumers of services and economic consumers in society.
One pressing problem in the field of economic law is the informal sector. Health regulations prohibit persons selling from streets – a set of values for clean Australian streets. Consequently, our people are deprived of a means of livelihood. It perpetuates the interests of a foreign businessman. Our people are then picked up by police for vagrancy. A vicious circle – the innocent person caught up in the middle of it.
The point I have been trying to make is that the legal problems, the frustrations in our country are evident because of the conflict arising between traditional norms and imported legal and economic systems and values.
The section of the community who never rise to oppose and never really challenge it are the mass of women. As the consumers of services in the country, the catalyst for entrenching foreign interests, the women can be effective if they challenge the systems we are living in.
The challenge to PNG women now is do we continue to live
The Law Reform Commission is one channel that can be used.
Right now the laws in
The law is that of a society of prisons, truncheons,
barbed wire, hand-cuffs, and chains. It was in the name of
the law, that is, colonial law, that the land of my people
was taken, under the pretext that we were savages. It was
What I want to point out to you in recounting this, is
that I do not believe that a representative of the colonial
law can have any consideration for me or the health of my
child because he is part of that band of colonialists who
have massacred the Kanak people like the Maori people of New
Zeal and and the Aborigines of
I will attempt to give you the situation as I know it in regard to Aboriginal and Island people. Perhaps I could begin by telling you a little bit about my people and something of our culture so that you will understand our situation.
Our women have a very hard life, especially in the Northern areas they do not have any housing at all in a lot of
the places, and on the reserves, settlements, compounds, many
of the people who are living in those areas are under white
administration very similar to
This is one of the reasons why in our fights for land rights and compensation for the loss of our tribal areas, now the government is saying we have to prove our descendents from the tribe before we can get compensation. It's been very hard for the people to do this.
I'm not an expert on Law but I am certainly an expert on how my people, the Maori people of Aotearoa, are oppressed by British Colonial Laws.
British colonialism is a reality in Aotearoa, and I speak for a minority group from Aotearoa, reminding you again that a lot of you people are the majority in your island groups, and therefore possibly don't understand things that are affecting us, the Maori people of Aotearoa.
We've been called for years to come together as one
people but it's always been like this – on someone else's
This is what is happening. This is why we marched Te Roopu Ote Matakite, the Maori land march from the North of New Zealand to Wellington in September – October 1975, to present the Maoris; demand that not one more acre of their land be taken Unsatisfied with the government reply, many of the marchers camped outside Parliament refusing to leave. Editor.
This is how the law – the British law – has been administered upon my people through the years, since
Why are you concerned about the system of education? Why are you concerned about the legal system? Because the systems that are being imposed on you that are breaking your family life-style, the same way as they have destroyed our Maori life-style – that we've been forced to come into the urban situation; that urban young Maori to day is a totally different Maori from the Maori when my mother was young. They are totally different Maori and yet legislation has not changed to include that different urban Maori.
The education system still has nothing in it that a Maori
child can identify with. That we, even today, can learn more
about fed up.
We're trying to be a part of the system that take no
recognition – no, it does not recognise our culture. But if
it's bringing in the mighty dollar, then the Maoris are terrific. That's what we're us ed for – as tourist attractions.
The few of our people who make it to the top are again left
out. Overseas people are brought in to be our bosses – people from England, people from
We have the Maori Affairs - big deal. It's all headed
by Europeans. We've got nine Maori Affairs districts in
But when the island people - your people - come to
Aotearoa, and I was pleased about Ms Kingstone's report Ms Kingstone, outlined some of the cultural and social difficulties Polynesian women face when they go to New Zealand. Editor.
The British law that is being used in Aotearoa is Victorian and is totally irrelevant to us, the Maori People, and our particular make-up. Time and time again, I have said to the Minister of Justice: “Why don't we throw it out and rewrite our laws for New Zealand? Re-write them to include not only the Maori people but also the ethnic groups that we have here. Why do we have to continually implement old Victorian British laws? Why is it necessary?
Within the prisons themselves – our people are the majority in the prisons. Our people make up 10% of the population and yet within those prisons there, 75% are Maori women
and over 50% men in the prison. Why? Because the whole
system – from the education system right through – is totally
irrelevant to my people. We're always trying desperately to
fit in, to fit in. And today, thank goodness, our younger
people have a better education, are more politically aware
of what is going on around them, and they are not afraid.
People talk about violence – I don't mean violence where one person is hitting another – when I talk about violence in our society (and we live in a violent society), it is racism, the institutional racism, that is imposed upon us, that is used on our people against one another. It is the old British-designed divide-and-rule system used continuously.
Through the whole length of the march, it wasn't the Europeans or the Island people who were against us. It was our own people. They have been so brain-washed into believing that they had such a good deal. A lot of people say and we are told continuously: “But you are better off than those people; you're better off than the South African blacks; you're better off than the Aborigines; you're better educated”. And a lot of our people believe it! This is the old system of divide and rule: “Don't let the coloured people - the non-white people – come together. Keep them apart as much as you can”. This is the playing of one against the other, and this is why I welcome this sort of conference. Because the power comes from the women. Logical thinking will come from the women.
We could not do any work with the system that we live
in, being run by the men for too long, and I've believed in
this for a long, long time and so I welcome this conference.
But don't get carried away, ladies, and think that you're
better off than the other guys, because slowly it is happening here. Slowly, it is happening everywhere. Tourism is
moving in, colonialism is here: it's here. Whoever is
administering it is beside the point. Recognise it. Recognise it within Fiji itself. Tourism is moving in and your
contribution or your benefits from tourism will be to wash
the linen, set the table, and wait on those tourists. New
Zealand and
This is what our Land March is about. To stop the
tourists from coming in and taking our coastal areas. This
But is the Government going to take any notice? Is there any justice for the non-white people throughout the world? The only justice for us is when we get up and fight and pressure for it. That is the only time, I believe, that we're going to bring about real justice for our people. The way the French people are testing in the Pacific – you can't divorce that from women's problems, from the racism, because I believe that if the Pacific was populated by white people, they wouldn't do the testing here. I believe that. Why can't they test somewhere else? You cannot divorce these things – they all interact with one another. As women we have one thousand and one things to do, we really have. We've got to be on watch the whole time, twenty-four hours of the day, not only for our own immediate family, how they react within the education system, how they are housed… My People, a whole lot of them, are not only landless, they are homeless.
In Auckland where we have the urban renewal system, where my people live in the city area, the Government comes up with a big renewal programme to ship them all out to the suburb so that you have one huge problem out in the suburban areas and the city itself becomes something for the businessman. But once they built the townhouses, and things in those city-areas where my people live, the prices are so high that those people cannot move back into it again.
These are the things that are happening in Aotearoa and
if people tell you that the race-relationship out there is
good and everything is fine, I'm here to tell you that that's
a load of rubbish. There is no justice unless we fight for
it. In the prisons themselves, there is no rehabilitation
for our prisoners, none at all. They go in that door, they
are stripped naked, they are given a number, they're marched
So many of our people who have made it to the top have gone through this foreign system that I hear you people have been talking about today. They become so far-removed from the people because there is nothing in that system to identify them. They are not able to come back readily to the grass-roots level. They 've spent years and years and years in a foreign system and it's time they came back again just as Maoris, just to talk at our level.
The legal system if you have looked at what I've been saying about the education system, is it any wonder that in the legal system we have few Maoris to make it to the top to try and make any change within that system? But as I said before, when they do get to the top they are so committed to the system they don't want to rock the boat either.
The majority of our people today are under twenty-five. This is a beautiful thing and this is why I love working with young people because the majority of Maoridom are under twenty-five. And if we're going to affect a change for our people, then it must come from the young ones; from those people who have been frowned upon, told that they're lazy, dirty Maoris; from the young ones who have been through the prison system and are so political - they're beautiful - and who know what it is. They know what the score is, they know that they must stand up to fight for an identity. And they're beautiful to work with. This is how our young people are today - turning their backs completely on everything that is supposed to make you a “nice” person. And of the 200 who are camped on Parliament ground, the majority belong to the gang that our young people get into or form themselves into to form an identity.
“Youth problems” - I don't call it “youth problems” - I call it “the system problem”.
I would ask all the delegates here if they would support our people who are camped on Parliament grounds by sending perhaps a telegram of support, of encouragement, because, to me, this is the best thing that has happened to Maoridom, the best thing that has happened to Aotearoa, for us to get together 2,000 in number, and to arrive on Paliament grounds to try to determine a course to include us, rather than an identity that we have to continuously try to fight to be part of.
A few of us are watchdogs. I am a great believer in running an honest government, a government who treats their people equally, regardless of their colour, religion, and political affiliation. I am also a great believer in the
United Nations Human Rights charter, freedom of speech, worship, freedom of movement etc. So I wish to ask you as women, to come together and to work together for the benefit and harmony of our people in each of our countries.
part of a paper prepared for the Pacific Women's Conference
If we accept that women in traditional Maori society occupied a far better position than historians and anthropologists have generally accorded us, then it follows that we occupy a position of even greater eminence in Maori society today.
It is undeniable that the kaha (strength) of Maoridom
today comes from the women. The Maori Women's Welfare League,
which was established to care for the young, the elderly and
the sick, was for many years the most effective voice of
Maori hopes and aspirations. In my home area, women joined
Today, the League has lost much of its momentum because
it has tended to concentrate on patchwork welfare aid instead
of actively pressing for political change. Nevertheless, it
is still far more effective than its male counterpart, the
New Zealand Maori Council, although it has lost ground to
the more strident demands of younger political pressure
groups such as
But in the broad spectrum of Maori life, women continue to play even greater leadership roles than in the past. The new, younger, rising groups are dominated by women members who articulate most effectively the grievances of our people.
The leader of the Land Rights March, which started on
September 14, an 82-year old woman, Mrs.
More probably, however, it marks just a more open comment of the position Maori women have always occupied in Maori society.
While this is the position we as Maori women occupy in our own society today, we, with our men, continue to be oppressed and exploited by Pakeha society. We are the victims of both the racism and sexism of Pakeha society. We are doubly discriminated against.
As women, we are considered to be the sex-objects of Pakeha men, some of whom treat us as just a good and easy lay. Many of our women who are so unfortunate as to marry one of these racists pays for it with a lifetime of suffering from a man who is unable to reconcile his sexual desires with his own racism.
As a people, we are denied justice in our own land. More than 50% of the total prison population are Maori, and 75% of the female inmates of penal institutions are Maori. Yet we now make up only 10% of the total population.
But although we outnumber everyone else in the prisons, we do not enjoy the same position of prestige in the better-paying, better-prospect jobs. We are discriminated against by a chauvinistic and racist education system, which is supported by an equally racist and sexist society. This ensures that we are the slaves in New Zealand. The dishwashers, the waitresses, the cleaners - that's us. More grandly, we drive buses, we man the toll circuits, pack packets, fill cans and bottles, write parking tickets and serve hamburgers.
All our people are victims of an education system which
is geared to our psychological destruction. One result of
this is that we have far too few university graduates, although a fair proportion of these are women. Many of them
have gained prominence in the
While some Pakeha women talk in very middle-class terms of directorships on boards and improved management courses, we fight for economic, social and cultural survival. We suffer with our men in their battle to survive as men. As women, as mothers in a culture which prides itself on its feeling for people, on family and tribal affiliations and communalism, we are under increasing attack from Pakeha society. With its emphasis on individualism, acquisition of things and small, nuclear families, Pakeha society is attacking us through the budget-conscious, the family planning freaks, the abortion on demand protagonists, Christians, and anyone else who is concerned about the rate at which we are increasing our numbers. Since contact, some Pakehas have always feared that they would be swamped by hordes of brown-skinned natives.
The Maori Women's Welfare League has consistently opposed moves to restrict the size of Maori families, as has every other Maori group. We choose to do this because it ties in with our values, and because these remain important to us. To us, people remain more important than the Pakeha dollar and material things.
The involvement of Maori women in the political structure is naturally tied into the leadership role we have in Maori society. One of the two Maoris at present in Cabinet is a woman, Mrs Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, and at one stage two of the four Maori representatives in Parliament were women. There has been greater representation by Maori women than there has been by Pakeha women.
The Kingitanga Movement, a Maori political movement which started in the 1850's, has at its head a woman, Queen Te Atairangikahu. Maori women are active at all levels of politics, but too much of this involvement, especially in Pakeha-type organisations is in the expected women's roles of tea-maker and supporter rather than leader. We have far more to offer than this.
One of the greatest needs for Maori women is to develop even deeper political awareness and to become more involved in politics. A seminar is being organised during International Women's Year with these two objectives in view.
As Maori women, we have a firm desire to work with Pakeha women on the mutual problems that confront us. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that most Pakeha women are prepared
to work with us only on their terms and only on issues which
are of concern to them. Their attitude is marked by a total
lack of understanding of us, and their expectations of us
reveal this attitude. At a women's conference held in Auckland to consider the Government's Report on Women, it was
moved that Maori and non-Maori Polynesian women be trained
in home and child care to improve their skill and status.
This resolution was not passed in
From this, it can be seen that we have much to do, for at the moment is seems that Pakeha women are equally our oppressors.
In conclusion, it may be said that Maori women are liberated in our own society. We are a powerful and effective
voice among our people. In the broader context of Pakeha
society, however, our struggles are the struggles of all our
Our attitude to our menfolk and our Pakeha sisters is appropriately summed up in the following Maori proverb:
“Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri”. With your help and our help the oppressor will be vanquished. Ti Hei Mauriora.
Our government is 100 percent behind International Women's Year. Our government has given our women every incentive to become involved with women's issues and to bring these issues to the notice of the Women's Committee on International Women's Year.
Under the old National Development Council framework (the word ‘national’ has no political affiliation), the Labour party rearranged the National Development Council into the Sector Councils and these Sector Councils comprise Education, Mineral, Building, Trade Promotion, Forestry, Distribution and Social. I am a member of that Social Development Council.
The government being concerned with International Women's Year, set up a Women's Sector Council, giving priority to all women's issues. In our Parliament last year, there was a Women's Committee to seek out ways and means of improving the lot of the women of New Zealand. Every women's organisations were invited to come down to give their point of view. I'm afraid to say that not many Polynesian people became involved.
Last year, the government, for the first time said to
us: “We are concerned about the education in this country.
I have become involved at grass-roots level in may capacity as Voluntary Social Worker to see what I can do to help our people who are living in New Zealand.
As you all know, I originally came from
I must give you the background of the migration pattern
of Polynesian people to New Zealand. In the early years, the
men went first. Then they brought their wives, their brothers, their sisters, and their children. Now this system
went on until
All the industries in New Zealand, menial jobs like laundries, are passed on to Polynesian workers. In the late half
of the 1950's, a social group from the
The pattern of life and migration of Islands people to New Zealand was really a very, very hard one. Polynesian people tend to group within themselves. The Niuean by themselves, the Samoans by themselves, the Cooks by themselves. The only time they meet is when they go to church.
This pattern of life is going in Auckland. The government is really helping all the Polynesian people in Auckland. So really, I cannot say very much against the lot of Polynesian people in New Zealand. We're fairly well treated; the New Zealand people are very kind to Polynesian people in industry and work. The New Zealand government realises the potential of Polynesian people in Auckland working in industry and if they were to go back to their own islands, industry in New Zealand would disintegrate.
But the government realised all these problems. We are not discriminated against, although some of us say that we are, we are not. We just work quietly in the background. A lot of booklets have been published to help Polynesian people like - ‘The Understanding of Polynesian people living in Auckland’ and ‘The Polynesian in Industry’. In work and industry now, they give English lessons to Pacific islanders living in New Zealand.
In Auckland we have a
International Women's Year is one of the ways we can
bring some reason to the argument about men's right and
women's right. And why? Because in the simplest terms, they
are people's right and their responsibility is to the whole
community. International Women's Year needs the working
I represent a minority of South Sea Island people, descendants of the people who were brought to
This was prior to the federation of the Australian government, and up to date we have never been recognised as an
ethnic group and have never been compensated for the loss of
our identity. Our people have had to fill in applications
to the government identifying as Aboriginal people to get
financial assistance. In
The consequences of this action is that the women and children are suffering because all our people are not skilled workers which means that wages are very low. Therefore you will understand that our men and women cannot provide adequate housing, education, or health facilities for our families. And the women find it very hard to make ends meet all the time.
Our people are descendants from
You speak of your culture and extended family kinship;
our ancestors were taken from their families at the ages of
14 years onwards. Although we still retain the kinship we
have lost our culture. So what have our children got to look
forward to in an extreme racist country as
I don't consider myself as a political speaker but all I can speak about, and I consider myself an expert on it because I lived the way of life, and my people lived the way of life - I can only tell you about our conditions and the legislation of the governments that we have to exist under. You can make up your own mind whether its political or not.
I'll start in what they call in
When
The Government set up a Department for Aboriginal Affairs
to deal specifically with us, in the way of funding for housing, education, legal needs, which is a new thing. Should the
Liberal Government get into power, they are going to get rid
of that assistance. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs is
run, for the government, by the public service people, and
they are the ones who make decisions in regard to anything
to do with Aboriginal people and communities. We have one
Aboriginal there,
When Labour got into power, (I'm not here to speak for Labour Party because as far as I'm concerned, they're all white, and we don't expect any better from them unless we know that they accept what people put to them for our needs), but when Labour did get into power, there has been an easing of a lot of the conditions, especially in the area of education, legal assistance.
When it comes to the tribal people, they live under the tribal law, so that when they come into the courts, they don't know why they are arrested and they can't understand English, a lot of them. We would like to see our own peers, the tribal elders, deal with anyone who came to the courts. There has been a move made by some of the courts in the Northern Territory, where the tribal people are being handled by their own people.
There has been a lot of delegations and demonstrations
in
The organisations that get funded have to beg and scrape for whatever funds they get. We do have many women who work within the organisations at a national level, and they form the backbone of them.
The main thing we have to live under is the policies laid down by the Department, and the various political bodies who come into power. Most of these are not done with the consultation of the people. Therefore, there is never any relevance to our way of life.
Our land rights claims have yet to be fully understood. If they are understood, there is always a financial reason behind the government not accepting the people's request. In many of the tribal areas there are very rich minerals and this is where the mining goes on.
You might have heard about land rights being given to some of the tribal people. This is the way that they do it. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs buys the land, whatever land they give, from the government and the people hold it in trust, but they pay for it from whatever projects they are working on, so in actual fact, we do not and up to date have never had, any land rights.
Speaking of our people under the various governments runs
to form because its a white system, outdated system even in
regard to white people, so we don't expect to have any understanding or sympathy, until they change many of the laws that
they brought out when
I would like to explain some of the things that many of
our women have to exist under. As you know, we have a lot
of social problems and many of our women end up in jail,
either through drink, prostitution, or just for no reason at
all they're aware of. And we have had over many years reports at our conferences that women have been raped and are
being raped while they are in jail. Being bashed up by the
police. We've had our people murdered while they are in jail.
I had a report not long before I came over here of a man
whose body was sent back to the place where he came from,
(that's from
This is just one instance of a woman who had her children taken away from her by the Welfare department in Queensland. She was so depressed and upset that she lost her children that she poured petrol over herself and burned herself to death.
So when we come to a conference like this, I'm not here to speak about myself because I want you to understand what's happening with my people. And I consider it a privilege to be able to speak here.
The urban situation is very much the same, so I would
like you to tell me if there is any future for our women and
children when they live under these conditions? You are
happy and you are very blessed because you have your culture,
you have your land, you have your own way of life. You have
never known what it means, and I hope you never will, to
lose all of these things.
I would like to ask for your understanding and support - not if you feel you don't want to give it, but from your heart. So if we are going to help each other as women, for the sake of our children and our people, then I can go back and be happy and tell my sisters that it was good to be here with you.
The political histroy of modern
In
In the following elections, Pounanaa and his party won the majority of the seats (17 out of 30) in the Assembly, and he became Vice-President and Minister of Internal Affairs.
In
These elections took place on
In
Towards the end of the year, Teariki (brother), who had
become deputy to the
On
On
Every year, during the months suitable for the tests,
Thousands of Polynesians from the outside archipelagoes,
Marquesas, Tuamotu, Australs islands, Gambies islands, came
to
Thousands of French citizens came from
In Pupu Haere Ai'a won the majority with the Te E'a Api.
At the first working session, on
In
Everytime they have had a possibility to do so, they
asked for control of the radioactivity and the end of the
nuclear tests. They never received a direct answer. The ministers for Overseas in
For example, when one of these ministers, Mr. Rey, left
Since Pounanaa's deportation to prison in
It was not until September this year that the French Government sent to the Territory Assembly its own project for a new statute for consultation.
This statute takes back some of the rights which had
been given to us by the “lei-cadre” in
This is only a very short resume of the political situation in
We have the right to speak up just as much as the men.
But this right for political evolution which is recognised formally by the French Constitution in its preamble and
This is why we need you - all of you - all those who have now the chance to live in a free country, and those who, like us, are still under the domination of a foreign nation.
Help us, through your government, or individually, or
if it is necessary, through the
Already, through international reaction against nuclear testing in the Pacific (atmospheric tests) the French military people have changed to underground testings.
It is no better, in our opinion, but it shows that the French government is afraid of the outside world.
My topic is down as ‘Women in the Struggle for National
Liberation of the
At the moment not only the women, are still struggling
to get up, but also our men, are struggling to get into power,
because without power we can't be recognised as New Hebrideans.
On the other hand, I'm glad to say that education has led a larger awareness where some New Hebrideans are now looking into the situation more closely and trying to shake things up. Nonetheless, we can't change the whole system in a matter of hours or weeks or months and what's more, without having independence or a legislature in the country. But there will be a Legislative Assembly by the end of November.
My speech is “Women in the struggle for National liberation of the
I'm going now to the present political situation and the struggle against colonialism. I've already mentioned earlier how the two colonial governments are treating the New Hebrideans. In the French system of education, they've planned our syllabus whereby New Hebrideans can't get to Forms 4 and 5. About one or two get to the top, if any. Then the excuse is - the New Hebrideans are lazy, not clever, that's why they fail their exams. This is all nonsense. The white French colonialists themselves make sure that no New Hebrideans get to their level. But the few who manage to get to the top are taught in such a way that they become black French people with white French thinking. Looking at the British system of education, I can't say that it is better either. Better only in that New Hebrideans get to Form 5 in the secondary level, then to University if they are lucky. But the government still says it can't get anymore children into the secondary level or for further training because there won't be enough jobs for everybody, because the government knows that if it allows these students to progress, they will have a wider, more diverse knowledge that will decide what to do and will be a useful source in the years to come. They make excuses so that they can put a full stop to it all.
Because of this unsteady progress the New Hebrideans are
saying: “Yes, we got two foreign bodies in the country, but
we are not moving fast enough”. Changes have come out slowly.
We have now in the
The National Party started in
This year,
Now we are looking forward to this coming elections in
November, which is the representative elections. But again,
Can changes for women be achieved within the struggle
for national liberation in a country where colonialism exists?
To me, it would be a hard task to tackle but in a Melanesian
society people work to get what they want or to achieve their
goals. They don't just sit and wait for it to come because
it will never come. This is part of the struggle. Since the
Is liberation of women just a change in role? I don't think it's the change of role, but rather that your opinions and ideas be put forward as women, - so that women feel they are part of something or part of the country. We are human beings so we have the right to voice our ideas to the public just as we are equal in the sight of God. That's why, this year, in August, we put up one woman candidate in the Municipal elections and she won the seat. So she's in the Council but this doesn't mean that her role as housewife and mother will be taken away.
We have actually put up another candidate for this
We must not only educate our women but our men too. We must educate our men in such a way that they see our reason because if they don't reason with us, we won't lead a happy life, those of us who are married. Tell your husband, or your boyfriend, “O.K., you're the big boss, but can you reason with me about this or that?” Make him understand you and trust you.
To conclude, I'd like to say that I've come across a few men who told me that women's decisions are not usually put into practice. I'd like to say that decisions and opinions are there to be considered whether they are good or bad.
Micronesia - tiny islands, compose a unique and substantial part of the earth's surface north west of the equator
and east of the
Since 1521 when Portuguese-born
Micronesia, is a unique and an unprecedented political
entity - a United Nation's “strategic trust” under the control of the
The concepts of the
This approach is further described by the testimony of
Admiral William Lemos before a Sub-Committee Hearing of the
The
Germ warfare tests have been held on
To reiterate, the planned timing has been politically inconvenient.
The social impact due to military presence and harassment, and military nuclear experiments and other related activities are far-reaching and beyond the experience and understanding the Security Council of the
Micronesia's present status is rather uncertain. Only
the Northern Marianas Islands have made a formal move towards
closer ties with the
In August this year, the
The remaining five districts namely
All that has been said sounds convincing but there are more problems facing Micronesians than just the issue of administration of the government. Micronesians as people are aware of the injustices (as well as the extinctions of island characters; culture, customs, languages, etc.) which have been demonstrated to them by the so called “civilized” powers of old. At the present time some concerned Micronesians leaders are searching and negotiating for an independent political status and it is my hope that it would be one that would obtain for Micronesians the freedom to determine their own future, be it unified or disunified Micronesia. My concern here is for Micronesia as a body of indigenous people rather than just a political entity.
To those islands of the pacific that had once been colonies of the European nations and the we are people deserving justice and fair agreements.
We are here at the conference representing many islands
and many people who have never stopped fighting to survive;
whose land has been occupied continuously by strangers and a
people who have been cheated by their own leaders - men, who,
no doubt, were sincere in their efforts to serve their own,
people, at least during the first stage of their careers. BUT
because such leaders received neither encouragement nor support from their constituents they eventually changed their
positions from that of, let's say,
Also, we are gathered here because we are convinced that unless we, as women, speak and do for ourselves, no one is going to act for us. For a long time we have blamed the society and in particular, men, for the various discriminations we suffered, when, in fact, we were not concerned enough to do something about these conditions - we were unwilling to give up our domestic security for the improvement of women's status. I am most pleased to be here with the rest of you and to share with you what I think needs to be done with respect to establishing self-determination, and ultimately a nuclear-free Pacific.
This is where I would like to draw the parallel between the struggle for women's rights and the struggle to free the Pacific islands from colonial influences. No longer can we blame the colonisers for our lack of progress or their failure to fulfill their obligations. If we cannot help ourselves, most certainly the colonisers would not give a damn about helping us. The time is fitting and proper for us women to do something about this.
I can offer neither easy solutions nor answers to the problem but I would like to suggest an approach. That is, we need to bring about political awareness in the people through unceasing education.
We as women have played an important role in education both in the home and as teachers in school. Therefore, we can utilize our influences to bring about this awareness. Our participation can only enhance our status and at the same time catalyse our self-determination.
Our input is in demand whether or not we realize it. Our problems here in the Pacific are much different than those of our colonisers. It was recognised on the first day of this conference that we must work together whether we are black, white, brown, or yellow women. Thus, I firmly believe that if we women could work closely with each other and with our counterparts, then and only then can we help to bring about a Free Pacific.
Before beginning my paper, I would like to thank, on behalf of the Groupe
First, I would like to make some comments on the economic system and the political role of the chief and the woman in the Kanak traditional society. I will then discuss the condition of exploitation in which the Kanak woman lives under the colonial and capitalist white Caledonian society. I will end by spelling out some ideas on what I consider to be the role of the Kanak woman in the struggle for national liberation and by posing some questions on the kind of struggle that we as women want to get involved in here.
Before talking about the present condition of exploitation of the Kanak woman, of her condition of slavery - since after all we colonialized people only serve as cheap manpower for the white capitalist - let us quickly point out the ways in which the economic system of the traditional Kanak society had nothing to do with the exploitation of man by man or with the exploitation of woman by man. Lucette told you yesterday that the two essential bases of the Kanak traditional society were the woman, who perpetuated the life of the group, and the land, which feeds the group. The traditional Kanak society rests on fishing and agriculture, but especially on agriculture, i.e., on the tilling of the land and the products of the land, in short, the LAND. This economic system is established on the exchange of goods between groups. If a certain clan offers taros or fish to another clan, the latter should offer ignames, for example, in return.
As for the woman, source of life of the clan, she assured the political alliance of the clans by her marriage. When
a clan marries a woman into another clan, the latter must
With that said, if the work of a Kanak woman consisted of raising her children, the upkeep of the property in and around the house, cooking, weeding the gardens, weaving mats, clothes and baskets, that of men in traditional Kanak society was to deal with the hardest tasks, such as clearing and ploughing the terrain for the fields and building the huts. Because the Kanak woman had to be self-effacing before men or didn't have a voice in the Council of the Elders, one must not conclude too quickly that there was in that the exploitation of women by men. I am saying only that under an economic system of bartering, there is not an accumulation of profits by an individual or by a rich minority, as is the case in the capitalist white society.
If today, at the tribal level, the Kanak woman is hemmed
In the city, that is,
As for Kanak women who are doctors, lawyers, professors
or elected to the municipal council or the Territorial Assembly, there are none. Presently in
With respect to the men, there is presently in New Caledonia for those who have university degrees: two pastors, one
teacher, one sociologist, one administrator. The sociologist
and the teacher in question are Nidoish Naisseline, and Elie
Poagoune, who are participating actively in the anti-colonialist struggle in
Now, with regard to all the subjects that have been on
the programme of this Conference, I would like put forth
several comments using what is happening in
The family, culture, religion, the law, the educational
system of traditional Kanak society have been destroyed by
the introduction of bourgeoise Christian western values. For
the family, the whites tell us that it is not the clan or the
tribal group which counts; it's the individual. For culture
and religion, it's simple: first, it is claimed that in
Everything in
It follows that the struggle of the Kanak woman must be inseparable from the struggle for national liberation of the people. It is as a people that the Kanaks are oppressed: it is not as women alone or as men alone, or as individuals. We must act as a people: KANAK INDEPENDENCE concerns ALL the Kanak people, the men, the women, the old, the young and the children.
Our cultural identity or our identity as women, our human dignity, we will NEVER have under the capitalist system. I have no illusions on this point: I know what this system has done to my people and to all people that they colonialise. We are not going to struggle only for political independence vis-a-vis French capitalism. A Kanak independence with the retention of the capitalist system, the interests of the big mining companies, doesn't interest us. We do not want a NEO-COLONIAL independence, which would make us the local valets, nigger kings or Uncle Toms, on sale for the western capitalists whether they be Australian, New Zealander, French, English or American. We don't see how, with the TOTAL independence that we want, we would be able to establish for example commercial exchanges with the Australian and New Zealand capitalists who exploit the Aboriginal and Maori people.
Presently, all the countries of the Pacific are economically subservient to the CAPITALIST system. If, as women of the Pacific, we want our people to be REALLY FREE, we must also think of putting an end to western capitalism implanted in the Pacific. For me, the struggle against colonialism and the struggle against capitalism is one and the same. No longer am I in any way inclined to believe that the family, culture, religion, education, the law, the media, must be separated from POLITICS. I think that it is absolutely necessary that one gets it in his head once and for all that it is the economical system of a country which determines its politics, that is to say, its culture, its existance, its justice, its liberty, its law, etc.
If we want to struggle, we the women of the Pacific, for equality, justice, liberty, are we going to struggle to put these back in the hands of a coloured neo-colonial elite which accepts the capitalist system? Or do we want these REALLY for all oppressed peoples of the world?
I thank you for listening.
Dr.
Lucille Mair fromJamaica , was one of the resource persons invited to the Pacific Women's Conference. Lucille has taught widely in and served on many national bodies inJamaica , helping, just recently, to set up the Bureau of Women's Affairs in the Prime Minister's office. She is at present attached to the Permanent Mission ofJamaica to theUnited Nations .
I am more than happy to bring greetings from the sisters
of the Caribbean to the sisters of the Pacific. The feeling
which I have is really that of being at home. You know, to
travel halfway round the world and to arrive in Fiji which
is the twin-sister of
That important thing or the important things which I
think we should try to share is the process of re-discovering
or re-defining our womanhood, at the same time we are also
discovering and defining our nationhood. In these important
tasks I think it is important that we should share our aspirations and our dreams. Whether it is in your archipelago in
First, I would like to bring you up-to-date with what the Carribbean sisters have been up to since we last broke bread together in whatever century that happened, and before this particular week is out I hope I will have the opportunity of finding where you have been also.
At this point, I can't sufficiently express my appreciation to the organisers of this Conference for allowing me the opportunity to be here – they've invited me most graciously to come and share this experience of yours, and, let me assure you, I see it as a great learning experience from my point of view.
But to go back to the sisters who have lost touch over the centuries …. You are actually luckier than we were, for the natives of our islands – the persons who were born in those islands – of those, very few survived the invasion of the Europeans, an invasion of conquest, and an invasion of occupation. So that by the time the second invasion of Europeans came in the 17th Century, there was need for new blood, there was need for new imported muscles and sinews to grow and process sugar on those plantation factories of the New World. That is how our ancestors arrived in the Caribbean.
A unit of labour is a unit of labour whether it be male or female, preferably male, but on the other hand if it were female, it could also breed other units of slave labour, and that is how the African mothers arrived in the Caribbean. And they laboured in the canefields alongside the men, they laboured in the boiling rooms of the sugar factories, they bred slave children, our ancestors. They taught those children how to survive, they themselves, of course, surviving. We are only now, in the Caribbean, beginning to discover the greatness of those Caribbean mothers and to really pay tribute to that greatness.
No history of any civilization ever pays tribute to its
women and we are now attempting that, in all humility, because it is necessary to correct that. Women, for their own
We are finding in the Caribbean that as the past comes increasingly to light, we are really exhilarated by our findings. I can only very briefly, on occassions such as this, indicate those findings. They relate to those vital areas of development of any country and any people. I'd like to refer very briefly to the economic life of our people and the traditional participation of the women in that life.
In those dark days of slavery, our women were the backbone of the workers on the estates, which meant they put in
an average of from twelve to sixteen to eighteen hours, sometimes longer during the season of crops. That was forced
labour. On their own initiative they moved into their own
little private plots and there they farmed, they harvested,
they marketed, they became the leading producers and traders
of the domestic economy, feeding the society for which they
slaved. In
In the very important religious experience of the society,
women, particularly women of direct African origin, were regarded as having very special spiritual strength. So it's not
surprising that in the unorthodox religions of the time (as
they were termed by the Establishment) women were most prominent both as members and as leaders in the great religious
During the more obviously communal political public activities, we found that our women participated fully. The whole legal machinery of the society was such as to make the slave incapable of seeking legal redress, but there was legal machinery and that legal machinery was sought and was used. Women for instance, in groups would assault the courts of the time for very basic human needs such as the right of a woman to nurse her child, a right which was often denied by the plantation. In doing this, she learnt the skill of group organisation and this gave lie to one of the myths which survives all over the world – that women are incapable of working together in a cause. We know that this is not true. And as a necessary corollary of this type of organisational skill came participation of women in those many movements which resisted the existence of an institution such as slavery.
This type of activity of women in so many spheres culminated in what was to me personally one of the greatest happenings in our country and it happened only last week. We
celebrated what is called the National Heroes' Day, and for
the first time the Prime Minister of a Caribbean country announced our first national heroine, one whom I would like you
to know about. Her name was Nanny and she was a Maroon, one
of the first great guerilla fighters of the New World. She
led her band of warriors in our mountains not unlike yours,
perhaps a couple of thousand feet higher but very similar
terrain to yours, and those guerillas, not more than a thousand or two, resisted the English for over 50 years till
eventually the only answer was a truce. Not military defeat
You might well ask – why this obsession with the past?
We're living in the year
The fact is that women, and men too, if they would admit it, need their heroines now. There is a widespread and fundamental need for this process of self-analysis and self-discovery, of identifying those positive strengths which are there in our bloodstream, embedded deep in our heritage. As one speaker put it so well this morning in this Conference: “We want to know where our roots are”. So, evidence of women's proven capacity to face the current challenges of whatever (whether it be slavery) form of exploitation, is an imperative for the sisters of the 20th Century, whether they be of the Caribbean or of any other Sea. If we look back at the past, it is not in anger or in escapism, but in pride at the endless possibilities, at the endless talents which we have for confronting challenge.
For now, we do face the double challenge of the 1970's. Where do we find the resources to be both woman and citizen in the context of what is demanded today of woman and of citizen? It is no coincidence that in so many countries, men and women are seeking for the full release of the potential of women at the same time they are seeking for the full release of nations.
I think all of us here know something, if some of us
It seems to me above all, that it is colonised peoples, whose historical integrity has been so violated by the forces of exploitation and imperialism, it is above all colonised peoples who must not now be brainwashed into turning their backs on their history. In their history lies their national heritage. Above all we need that continuity of experience to make harmony - past, present and future.
The future, as I see it, which opens up for today's women of the developing world (which is the world I know best), is one in which the existence of second class citizens and second class nations is just no longer acceptable. This is why I'm very happy to be working at present at the United Nations where that process of converting all that is second class into one and only class and that class first, is being advanced - in many ways, in many bodies, by many process - but is being advanced. The guidelines have been set in international forum such as the U.N. and it is being set by the full participation of countries, some of which are represented here. And may I pay tribute to one of the most recent members of that international body, the country of Papua New Guinea.
The first necessary step to that state is to identify
the indices of second class citizens – until we know that
state we cannot adjust it. In my own country, we are trying
as objectively as we can to identify the elements in our
society which point to discrimination against women which
relegates them to a position less than equal to that of other
citizens in the society. We look, for instance, at the economic
Nevertheless, it is true to say that there is no recognised leadership of any significance among women. Women keep
our spiritual life really vibrant; nevertheless they do not
direct that life. In our political life we are very aware
of the fact that women constitute the majority of our electorate because they exceed men in the population; they constitute the majority of the consumers and let us never forget
that. Consumer potential is significant political potential
and our women are that, if you consider how much goods and
services the woman in any society consumes. So, she is the
critical economic component there; she's a critical political component. In the political life of the party she is
the grass-roots worker in the constituency. No man could
get into power without the work and the vote of the woman.
Nevertheless, in a legislature of 55, we have only been able
to put three women in those positions. And we are conscious
of this. And we are particularly conscious of this because
it seems to us that the whole process of converting any type
of citizen from one status to another is a political process.
It is the exercise of political will which is directed into
We're not engaged in any war of the sexes but a partnership of the sexes in re-building our new nation. And it is
a nation such as ours that critically needs women's inputs
in the economic re-construction which has to be undertaken
at the national level, at the regional level, at the international level. Women's inputs are needed to so develop our
rural areas that we can retain the strengths of those rural
societies which are being rapidly eroded by all sorts of
modern developments. We know and we have identified here
We need, above all, the inputs of women to work for peace. I don't want to indulge in the cliches about the special qualities that women have to bring for peace. I can only say that the many areas of international conflict which we observe in the world today are, if you know, areas which are directly dominated by man. The least one can say is, if women are involved in the peace-making areas of the world they could scarcely do worse than our men have done. I would just like to close by saying that these things which have to be done have to be done by the conscious act of women themselves. Women themselves working together, women themselves communicating with each other, women sharing with their sisters and with their menfolk, women, indeed, such as the sisters of the Pacific, sharing with the sisters of the Caribbean, their dreams and their plans, as we work together for a brighter and a freer world.
Thais Aubry is an American of African descent also invited to the Pacific Women's Conference as a resource person. Thais is an educator who has taught and lectured in the
United States , and is particularly concerned with working amongst her people to change their conditions of oppression.
I want to thank the organisers of this Conference for having invited me here and all of you for staying around and listening because I know you're very tired. And also, I want to thank Mrs. Rose Catchings of the United Methodist Church for making it financially possible for me to get here. I'll try to make this as brief as possible and then get onto any questions you might have.
These last three days have been for me – it's hard to
find words. One can't say, certainly one wouldn't say, entertaining, because there was nothing entertaining about what's
been going on; interesting is far too mild a word; moving,
stirring – they're mild compared to what I really feel, based
on what I've experienced here in the last three days. I've
come from an awful long way and it may sound very, very presumptuous of me to say that in listening to every single one
of you, as I'm listening, I'm saying: “I know, Lord knows I
know”. I think it may not seem quite so presumptuous for me
to say that “I know, Lord knows I know”, if perhaps I can
share with you a bit of our process of re-definition because
I think the theme I've been hearing throughout these three
days has been re-definition and not just re-definition of
women.
The African in
I'm sure that most of you know that European penetration
into
I'm going to jump now to the 17th Century, because the
first Africans were brought to the U.S. (and I want to stick
to the U.S. because I know most about that) in Before the “Mayflower”. The “Mayflower” is the
ship that, in the popularised version of American history,
is pointed to as the ship with the ancestors of all the
Americans. I think that was
No man loves them shackles, be they made of gold, but
then, there's ‘slavery’ and then there's slavery. I'm going
to deal with two periods of our existence in the U.S. From
1519 to
With respect to the family and tradition, under chattel
slavery in the U.S., there was no family life. There were no
traditions, on the surface at lest, allowed to remain. Chattel slavery means you are a piece of property. To find slave
records, one does not look in the Census, but under human
beings, one looks under Property, next to the pigs and the
cattle. A mother did not control her children; a father did
not control his children. Marriage was forbidden. I think
the slave masters permitted certain kinds of ceremonies, (one
of which was jumping over a pool and you're married). But
totally free labour.
In addition, with respect to traditional customs, no group of people, no ethnic group, was allowed to congregate together, to remain together, because that was a potential threat. Consequently, the African peoples, were totally mixed up. They couldn't talk to each other, (one way to control them).
We are very, very musical people. In fact, music is a
great part of our spirituality and we developed some very
interesting instruments, especially talking drums. In
It's very difficult to disassociate religion and music
in the history of the African peoples, especially in the U.S.,
and of course, in
During the neo-colonial period, religion was again one
of the most important survival mechanisms of African people
undeniably, because by
The educational system that we had in the early neo-colonial period, was either non-existent or totally segregated, with a curriculum designed to instill in us our inferiority.
Politics - in the early neo-colonial period, with respect to African people's involvement in politics, after one-quarter of the U.S., where the majority
of Blacks live, and still live, were permitted to vote. They
had to pass a law in Congress, the Voting Act of
In
There was, however, two streams running there, that have
always run there. The one is of separation, and the other of
intergration. A lot of black people were propagandised by
the propaganda of the
Now, after the legally segregated. In
other words, for example, if I and my family moved out of New
Orleans, Louisiana, we'd have to get off the train at Texas
and go in the back to the carriages reserved for us. So, I
could go on - drinking fountains, sitting at lunch counters,
all of that.
So, in the South, in Montgomery, Alabama, in
That movement of desegregation moved to a slightly different level in
Now, I'm sure most of the adults in this room can remember the period of say, 1955 to 1965. That was the period
when we were waging a totally non-violent struggle and were
brutalised, jailed in mass numbers. You may recall that Dr.
Now, that move has undercurrents in a lot that's going
on, but in the early 60's and late 50's our move was for
integration. We saw integration as the best way for us to
achieve liberation for ourselves. As the movement got on,
though, and so many died or were brutalised, and so little
happened, there began another process of re-definition. By
That process had to do with looking at our condition less
as one brought about by big prejudice. Before, the liberal
rights and the more educated Blacks would talk about ‘prejudice’ and ‘teaching people in learning to like each other’
and ‘brotherhood’ and ‘integration will come’ and ‘we shall
overcome’, but by
Then something else happened. We no longer began to
look to white, European values as our values. You see, the
education that we did have was an education designed for us
to accept our inferior position and also designed to assist
the white child in accepting his superior position; works
both ways.
By the late 60's however, we began to look at this problem somewhat differently. It was no longer a question of individual prejudice, of people not liking each other. It became a question of institutionalised racism. All societies have institutions. And what we began to realise is that from the beginning, racism had been institutionalised throughout the U.S. so that it would be knocking our heads up against a stonewall to be trying one-on-one brotherhood being. It was a luxury we couldn't afford. So we began to re-analyse, redefine our situation, which meant, though, that we were redefining all of the institutions in the U.S.
Now, obviously, all those years of oppression did their psychological damage. Yes, we had to always re-define our condition, re-define the institutions that controlled us in some fashion. But the psychological damage to us, I'm sure you may know something about. In some parts of the U.S. - at one point in our history, they had so many words to define the gradations of mixtures of white that it was absurd - there was octaroon, the mulatto, the quadroon, and I'm sure if you keep adding Latin prefixes you can get as far as you want to. I think Blacks in the U.S. have more terms of the colour of skin than anybody in the world and, as kids, if somebody called you ‘black’ that was immediate cause for fighting.
One good thing that existed and still exists today, (I
can't find too much good in the U.S. experience for us) is
the Jim Crow laws. (The Jim Crow laws are the segregation
laws that came into effect after the liberation of Blacks,
the so-called Independence, after
But by the late 60's we had begun to appreciate ourselves as African people. I mean, Afros out to here. Black parents almost fainted - they spent all their time straightening that hair and there, their kinds came busting out yelling: “I'm beautiful and my hair is beautiful.”
But there was something else going on. The re-definition of self. Obviously the re-discovery of African history, the re-discovery of our very proud history under slavery. In the late 60's, a lot of the things started to be re-defined. When we started talking about history, and historiography, the writing of history, we began to realise that all the history of the U.S. was written from one point of view, the European point of view. We set out to do something about that. When we looked at the educational system, we realised that that institution was so racist, racism was so entrenched, that we had to somehow, control that institution in our neighbourhood. Here are just some examples - we began to look at I.Q. tests which are racial and class-biassed. They are there to see how well someone comes up to a racist and classist standard. That's all that that is. It's no judge of anyone's ability.
We began to look at the whole question of language. Even
in the areas where the schools were integrated, black children were not coming out of those schools able to compete with
anybody. So we began to look at the language used in the
teaching of our children. Most people when they talk about
Pidgin (I don't like the term) they say that it's not good
English or it's not the Queen's English. But there is a problem in the U.S. of A. - the problem that our children have
to go to school that is taught from kindergarten on in
Now, I'm sure you've read about all the so-called riots
- we prefer to call them rebellions - that occurred? Most
people have heard of Watts; from 1964 to 1968, for four years,
every summer, some city burned. Much of what I've been describing as the re-definition was occurring at one level among
black people, that is, the so-called ‘educated’ level. The
masses responded by burning down at least one city per summer
- at least certain areas of those cities.
When we began to re-define ourselves, though, and when we said we would begin to defend ourselves rather than continue to be brutalised and killed, there was an immediate response and the response was: oh, violence is terrible; you can't have violence. That “black is Beautiful” is reverse racism; “you mustn't hate. Hate is terrible”. That came primarily from the Whites in the U.S. and it also came from a lot of our parents. In the last part of the 60's and early 70's, black parents and their kids were going at each other. But that was understandable because so many Blacks, black parents, black elders, had survived in another way. But it didn't destroy the relationship of black parents and their children.
A lot of people died in the sixties, a lot of people died.
I'm talking of those actively involved in the movement, of
those thrown into jail. The leading exponent of non-violence
in the U.S., Dr. Martin Luther King, was murdered. It's
curious because he was murdered when he moved beyond the Civil
Rights, beyond attacking the problems of the so-called Civil
Rights non-violently.
Going back to
Very quickly, we began to re-define. That re-definition
is still going on. But what has been the result of all this
in the U.S., in the neo-colonial period? The result has been,
according to the
I haven't talked about the economic institution. The U.S. was built on slave labour for the benefit of the very few, black or white. For the most part today, the U.S. still is being run for the benefit of a very few.
Now, I've heard a current for the last three days, that
sometimes seems to be saying that colonialism somehow had
its benefit and I can understand that because many black
people in the U.S. still say: “Well, we're better off than
the black people of
Right now in the U.S., I wish I could be able to tell
you there was a mass movement of black people for liberation
and that we're out on the streets struggling everyday. That
Now, what has that got to do with this Women's Conference? Before I get into that, I want to talk about Women's
Lib. in the U.S. Practically every Lib in the States today,
whether it's Gay Liberation, Women's Liberation, grew out of
the push for black liberation in the States. Women's Lib.
in the States, however, is predominantly a white women's
movement for many reasons. The Suffragette Movement after
the Civil War, 100 yerrs ago, grew out of the Abolitionist
Movement during slavery times. After many of those women
got the vote they were just another oppressor. The overwhelming majority of black women in the U.S. do not adhere
to Women's Lib. as defined by white women because for us it
is primarily the liberation of the whole people. One has
to establish priorities. Another statement I have to make:
Black women have never had the luxury of sitting behind a
curtain. A pedestal? Try a pit! We didn't have to agitate
for employment. We're always employed. My grandmother began
to work when she was eight-years old - she left school to go
to work. My mother left school at thirteen to go to work in
a garment factory - she's been working all her life. And we
come from what would be considered a better economic family.
Black women have always been right there. Slavery didn't
permit you to sit behind a curtain, you see. You were preg-
but you went back out into those fields. You had that baby
and you went back to those fields.
So, much of this (‘Women's Lib’) is irrelevant to us.
Much of what they're talking about is irrelevant to us. But
one has to ask: “Why do we come together here?” I'm assuming most of us are about the liberation of all of our people
as our priority. Then why are we meeting as women? You know,
why didn't we invite everybody's husbands? The answer is
obvious. Because women are, and I'm talking now about coloured women of the world, women of the world are on the bottom
of the ladder, anywhere.
Now, what does this have to do with the whole process of re-definition? We say in the States among black women: “When you're on the bottom of the ladder, you see everybody else's dirty drawers.” And once you have dealt with yourself and re-define yourself, you may be the most important factor in calling to someone else's attention that they got some dirty drawers - especially since you don't want to be washing them. But if we are not about the liberation of all the people we may as well hang it up and go home.
We have to get down to specifics in some of the things, were're talking about, examining how racism and capitalism is institutionalised in all of our societies and doing something about that, concretely. What kind of society do we want for the world, for our children. We have to examine every single institution in our society and devise strategies for eliminating the racism, and I add, capitalism, in those institutions.
One other thing I've got to go back to is the question of
violence. I've recounted a history that is. violent is too
mild a word to describe that history. We weren't violent.
We didn't enslave anybody. There seems to be among some of
us still a fear of violence. But it's always a fear that it's
our violence. I suspect that's a very sound reason. For the
same reason the black parent would get very upset when his
children started yelling: “Black Power!” They knew the possibility of reprisal. But let's be clear in our thinking. The
most violent society in the world is the U.S.A. You cannot
have… I don't know what you call the last ten years in Indo-China. And there's all kinds of violence. I can perpetrate
as much violence on you if I take your natural resources, pay
twice what I paid you for and you keep getting
lower and lower - that's violence. This is violating people's
stomachs, people's health, people's lives. One man's violence
is another man's self-defence.
What I'm suggesting here is that we begin completely to examine the institutions in every single country and even for those of you who are now in a colonial situation, and were devising strategies for political liberation, you have to also, at the same time, be devising the kinds of institutions that you want once you get that independence.
It has to do with re-definition. What kind of society
you want - is it you and a few others or is it for everybody? If it is for everybody, then we as women who are pre-eminently in the position because of our bottom-of-the-ladder
position, we are pre-eminently in the position to force these
re-definitions and we cannot afford the luxury of even trying
to decide whether we want to stay on a pedestal. When your
people are not free, that pedestal has long since been pulled out from under your feet and events in the world today
are occurring so rapidly that I don't think we have that much
time and there are certain luxuries we just can't afford.
But I hope that we are dealing with institutions - how
those institutions are infused with racism, capitalism and
oppression and that we devise strategies, concrete strategies, for dealing with them. But after three days here, I
feel very confident and as they say in Mozambique, and presently in Angola: “The struggle will begin.”
Mrs.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Ms.
Ms.
Mrs.
Ms.
Mrs.
Mrs.
(resident in Fiji)
Ms.
Mrs.
Ms.
Mrs.
(resident in Fiji)
Mrs.
Ms.
Mrs. Ngatoko
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Ms.
Mrs.
Ms.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Ms.
Ms.
Mrs.
Mrs.
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Mrs.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Mrs.
Ms.
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Ms.
Mrs.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
(Resource person)
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
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Mrs.
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Madame
Madame
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(Resource person)
Ms.
Ms.
Ms.
Resolution 1: We accept the sentiment expressed that women need to have a surer method of
receiving economic support for the family, and that free legal aid, home counselling and government subsidy through child endowments be provided for women.
Resolution 2: That all parents make special effort to train and educate their children regarding
their attitudes and responsibilities in the family.
Resolution 3: As domestic violence seems to be largely the result of excessive consumption of
liquor, that a national educational programme be conducted in the use of alcohol through school
curriculum and all levels of the mass media.
Resolution 4: That all present government policies and legislation be reviewed and future policies
and legislation incorporate the strengths and responsibilities of the extended family system.
Resolution 1: It is understood that very little research has been done in the Pacific region on
Women's Health. Thus, this conference should push for more research and this should be by
Pacific health teams, because of their understanding of their own people mentally, psychologically
and medically.
Resolution 2: This conference should press for a definite guide for Pacific countries on under-nutrition and protein and energy malnutrition. Results will have to be classified as items and reported in the country's medical reports available to the public. Women's groups should ensure these
are read and absorbed by their politicians.
Resolution 3: South Pacific women can be encouraged to more breast-feeding. In the education
syllabus, and with the adult education, encouragement can be placed on the advantages of breastfeeding.
Resolution 4: Family Planning publicity is needed at all levels of rural and urban life and more
audio-visual aids should be used, depicting actual Pacific scenes and people, and that Family Planning welfare and education should be introduced in all educational institutions.
Resolution 5: This Women's Conference requests the World Health Organisation through regional
governments to send a health team to research the radioactive fallout and its consequences on the
health of Pacific peoples, islands and especially on present and unborn children and that this information be made available to the Pacific people.
Resolution 1: That the learning and process of religious education and the opportunities to attain
the highest possible rank in the religious structure be opened to both men and women.
Resolution 2: That monetary offerings towards any church or religious activity be made voluntarily
rather than imposed and the practise of publicizing the donor be eradicated to stop unnecessary
competitive offering.
That the educational objective for boys and girls, men and women, be the same. The most important objective of formal education should be to equip all people with the relevant skills necessary for daily living.
Resolution 1: That the school curriculum be widened to include relevant activities to help train
students for their community. A “basic” education course be included in the existing education
core and this should cover all social, economic and political skills (which does not exist in the
present curriculum) which the child requires for all the different roles he/she will be expected to
play in the future.
Resolution 2: That the formal school curriculum include a course mounted especially to help
students to understand one another and their own culture and the different roles they will need to
play in their own society. That educational programmes for parents and guardians be organised to
involve them in this programme.
Resolution 3: That greater emphasis be put on the development and implementation of courses on
local craft and local food preservation.
Resolution 4: That the curriculum of Pacific schools be Pacific orientated and youth be trained to
respect their land, their identity and their heritage. This will involve a thorough examination of the
present formal school system. Foreign elements which demote such a process should be removed
and new ones evolved to replace them. Relevant basic texts to support such a revised re-orientation
course must be written for the Pacific area. Education must be for self-reliance.
Resolution 5: That the educational authorities be urged to re-examine and ban all text books that
use sexist and imperialistic language and concepts.
Resolution 6: This Conference recognises that in many areas “pidgin” or the vernacular language is
a valid and beautiful language spoken by the majority, not only nationally but also regionally.
Therefore, in order that education serves the masses, national development, unity and regional co-operation, these languages should be the language of instruction.
Resolution 7: That Parents' and Teachers' Associations be established in those territories where
they do not exist and educational programmes be organised through it, encouraging and helping
parents widen the educational opportunities and horizons for their children.
Resolution 8: That the women of the Pacific make every possible effort, use every opportunity
available, contact every organisation possible to make funds and resources available so that complete and free education can be offered at all levels for everyone.
Resolution 9: That all systems of education in the Pacific include a section on continuing
education.
Resolution 10: That the
Resolution 11: That the
Resolution 12: That the Pacific women who have had the advantage of formal education help those
who have been less fortunate and organize programmes to encourage, equip and develop their skills
for full participation in their own community at all levels and that Pacific women use the
traditional personal approach when presenting any educational programme and attempt always to
treat with respect and consideration any different culture.
Resolution 13: That education programmes and the needs of countries of the Pacific be defined by
the people themselves.
Resolution 14: As education must be above all an education for self-reliance, parents must be
assisted in participating actively in the review of their children's work and the maintenance of
school facilities by the establishment of a
Resolution 15: That an area where women are traditionally the cultivators of the soil, it is the
women who must be the recepients of agricultural training programmes.
Resolution 16: Adult education and literacy programmes, priority items, should be conducted according to the themes and guidelines enumerated above. Special emphasis must be placed on
educating men toward non-sexist attitudes.
Resolution 17: That the media, being the most effective means of education and communication,
be scrutinized so that –
(a) programmes which are relevant to and consistent with national and regional interests are
responsibly chosen by the Directors of the media;
(b) commercial advertising which may have adverse effects on the nation or the region is restricted or prohibited.
Resolution 18: That every effort be made to control the type of films which are harmful to the
social and cultural development of any community.
Resolution 1: That delegates from this Conference pressure their governments for the establishment
of a Law Review or Law Reform Committee to review laws in their country so that they are more
suitable to their way of life; and that such a body include equal numbers of women and men and
that women's organisations be consulted during the process of review and when new laws are being
written.
Resolution 2: That a Resource Centre be set up where information and skilled persons can be
utilised throughout the Pacific and that through this proposed Resource Unit, Pacific women are
represented internationally, on social, economic, environmental and legal issues, so that information
can be filtered back and women mobilized.
Resolution 1: That the Pacific Women's Conference supports that the titles of all lands being returned to Aboriginal people be freehold and not leasehold and that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs be taken out of the
Resolution 2: That the Federal Department for Aboriginal Affairs support the move for a Royal
Commission into:
Aborigines and Police
Aborigines and the Administration of Justice
Aborigines and Corrective Services.
Resolution 3: That the government give assurance to all Aboriginal legal services that they will
remain in existence regardless of which political party is in power.
Resolution 4: That this Conference supports the recognition of the Australian descendents of South
Sea Island people for compensation for loss of land, culture and identity.
Resolution 5: That a cable supporting the Maori marchers camped on the steps of Parliament
House, Wellington, New Zealand, be sent. The cable sent read as follows:–
THE PACIFIC WOMEN'S CONFERENCE WHICH IS BEING HELD HERE IN SUVA, FIJI,
FROM OCTOBER 27 TO NOVEMBER 1, AND WHICH IS BEING ATTENDED BY WOMEN
FROM THROUGHOUT THE PACIFIC REGION, DECLARES ITS SUPPORT AND
SOLIDARITY WITH OUR MAORI BROTHERS AND SISTERS CAMPED OUTSIDE
PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN WELLINGTON STOP WE SUPPORT THEIR DEMAND FOR AN
ASSURANCE FROM THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT THAT NOT ONE MORE ACRE
OF MAORI LAND WILL BE TAKEN FROM THEM STOP WE BELIEVE THAT IT IS ONLY
THROUGH SUCH CONTINUED STRUGGLE AND UNITY THAT THE MAORI PEOPLE WILL
REGAIN STATUS, IDENTITY AND SELF-DTERMINATION IN THEIR OWN LAND,
AOTEAROA.
THE PACIFIC WOMEN'S CONFERENCE
Resolution 6: That the Pacific Women's Conference supports the Queensland Land Rights Conference to be held from November 28 to December 1, and a cablegram of support will be sent to
the Aboriginals who are organising the Conference. Should there be any money left over from this
Conference a contribution will be sent.
Resolution 1: That a Regional Pacific Women's Resource Centre be formed where information and
skilled persons can be utilised throughout the Pacific.
Resolution 2: That a regional Pacific Women's Association be formed to be the support group of
the proposed Pacific Women's Resource Centre.
Resolution 3: That the Conference will help and support the struggles of women in the colonial
territories of the Pacific and that women in independent and self-governing countries be made
more aware of the double difficulties facing women in colonised countries; that we publicise and
circulate among women the situation facing women in the colonial territories, for example Dewe
Gorodey, and offer financial support.
Resolution 4: That Resolution 3 become a function of the Regional Pacific Women's Association.
Resolution 5: That the Conference support a denuclearised Pacific and in particular the proposals
of the People's Treaty for a Nuclear Free Pacific formulated by the Conference for a Nuclear Free
Pacific,
Resolution 6: That the independent and self-governing nations in the Pacific support territories under colonialism wanting to achieve self-government status, namely the independence movements of
Resolution 7: That the 200 miles territorial limit proposal at the Law of the Sea Conference is in
the interests of the Pacific people and that the conference supports this proposal.
Resolution 1: That the South Pacific Regional Women's Conference of this kind be held every
three years, countries in the Pacific taking turns to host and that an Executive meeting of the
South Pacific Regional Women's Conference be held annually, or as it suits. The members of the
Executive Committee should be comprised of representatives from each country or territory to
review and evaluate the outcome of the last meeting and to plan for the future meeting.
Resolution 2: That all meetings of the South Pacific Regional Women's Conference whether it be
of Executive or General be opened and closed in the traditional style of the host country.
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