WUNRN
Papua New
Guinea Government to Push for Women’s Equality & Participation Bill
PNG women
The
much awaited Equality and Participation Bill will be tabled in
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said the reserved seats bill was a priority agenda
item of government.
He told a National Council of Women gathering at the Sir John Guise Stadium in
O’Neill
said the participation of women in parliament was an important issue that had
remained outstanding.
“Since coming into office, our go¬vernment has seen this as an important outstanding
issue. That is why we are recalling parliament to seriously commence the
process of legislating to include women as equal partners in the highest
decision-making arena.”
Women had been pressing the go¬vernment to reserve 25 seats for women in the
O’Neill said his government was prepared to make women’s representation in
parliament a reality.
Participation of women in the PNG parliament was low compared to other nations
in the Pacific, he said.
“There is only one woman MP, which means that our statistics of female
participation is 0.9%, a shocking indicator, clearly contradicting our
Constitution and the various government development goals,” he said.
“We are rated as 136 out of 144 countries for having less than 1% of women in
parliament.
“This is a shocking indication of our lack of real action to the commitments we
have stated to our people in the Constitution and various development goals.