Human rights backsliding in PNG

Transcript

A new report from Human Rights Watch says Papua New Guinea's human rights record took a turn for the worse in 2014.

The 2015 World Report cites gender inequality, violence, corruption and excessive use of force by police among the problems faced by the country.

Human Rights Watch's Australia director, Elaine Pearson, told Koroi Hawkins Papua New Guinea won't see any improvement to its human rights situation unless the government enforces the law.

ELAINE PEARSON: Papua New Guinea has its own chapter in the report. What we found over the last year is continued pervasive human rights problems. Particularly issues like violence agains women. The rates of violence against women in PNG are certainly among the highest of anywhere in the world. And also continued problems with police abuses, police torture and arbitary arrest and detention. So those who should be actually providing security to the population are actually a big part of the problem. And we think that this will continue as long as there isn't proper accountability for abuses. I would say the sort of new threats in PNG, is the way in which the credibility of the government has been undermined and so has rule of law. And that's happened through the disbanding of the anti-corruption body. Which was actually doing quite good work in tackling corruption. And the sacking of various senior officials including the chief of police last year.

KOROI HAWKINS: So would you say that the situation in Papua New Guinea is going backwards? Or is there improvement in some areas?

EP: We certainly see, over the last year probably a backward slide in terms of rights protections. And really while corruption continues and there are sort of challenges undermining those who are fighting corruption, it's going to be very hard for the government to address many of the problems affecting the country. PNG is a very wealthy country if you think about it in terms of natural resources. But unfortunately most of that mineral wealth is not flowing through to the ordinary citizens. It remains a very poor country with nearly half of the population living at the poverty line. So really until some of those problems are addressed, I don't think we are going to see dramatic improvements across the whole spectrum of human rights issues.

KH: More specifically also, you're saying here that Papua New Guinea remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. What's that about and how bad is the situation in that regard?

EP: Yes indeed, I mean Papua New Guinea is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, an estimated seventy percent of woman will experience rape or assault in their lifetime. So you know, the majority of women are going to face some form of violence. And while there has been some progress, certainly in tackling domestic violence, a new law was passed a few years ago. Implementation of that law has really been lacking. And you know the other sort of main issue I guess affecting woman in PNG is that there continue to be a lot of sorcery related attacks. Where violent mobs you know basically scour villages looking for victims who often tend to be women and girls. And Just last year there was a particularly brutal case where six people including three children were actually hacked to death by hundreds of men on a sorcery hunt in April last year.

KH: What needs to be done in Papua New Guinea from a human rights perspective to get things back on track or improving?

EP: Well I think clearly there needs, the perpetrators of these abuses need to be held to account. And that doesn't happen across the board. Whether it's violence against women, whether it's police abuses. What we've seen is, you know, sometimes when there are particularly bad incidences there are statements from people and senior officials saying this won't happen again. And we may see perpetrators of such crimes, you know arrested and held for a short period. But too often police run out of money to conduct their investigations. Quietly the suspects are let go, there's a very poor criminal justice system and so we don't see accountability. And really, until people see that there are penalties that will be inflicted on those who engage in abuses and bad behaviour. We're unlikely to see a real improvement in how people are treated and remedies for the victims of those abuses.