7 Nov 2011

Vanuatu Women's Centre clients only a small percentage of violence sufferers

6:49 am on 7 November 2011

The co-ordinator of the Vanuatu Women's Centre says it is only seeing a small percentage of victims of domestic violence.

Australia is awarding the centre five million US dollars to be spread over four years from next July.

The announcement of the funding follows the launch of a women's centre report showing 60 percent of women have experienced some form of physical and sexual violence and a further 68 percent emotional violence.

Merilyn Tahi says the Port Vila and Luganville offices both see about one-thousand women a year.

"There is a lot of women coming to us but out of these we think this is only a small percentage of the total number of domestic violence that is around in the country because of distance, of time, of cost or the women can't come."

Merilyn Tahi says she's extremely grateful for the Australian funding, which will cover four years of operational costs.