The shocking news this week of a young Australian raped during a car hijacking in Papua New Guinea is another visible symptom of a country drowning in poverty. Beyond these sporadic publicised incidents is a reality so bleak it is heart breaking.
Earlier this year I was offered a position working with PNG’s government in Madang to assist in the development of their eco-tourism industry. I turned it down, mainly due to issues of safety but also because I had doubts about the effectiveness of eco-tourism in reducing poverty when basic foundations of human rights and law and order are significantly lacking.
During my research into the position I spoke to various people living in Madang, the town where I was going to be located, and was shocked at just how bad things sounded. One person spoke about the province wide curfew and alcohol ban imposed earlier this year due to extreme violence and unrest. There were five reports of rape within a four day period and hold ups with sawn-off shotguns numerous. Another person I spoke to hired a security company to get escorted to the airport and fled like it was a war zone. This occurred in Madang, supposedly the safest province in the country.
It’s become clear this small island country is facing some of the biggest development challenges in the world. Here’s a brief picture from a government committee in Australia who published a report in February 2010 about the state of PNG:
Violence against women
Two out of every three Papua New Guinean women experience domestic violence and around 50 per cent have been subject to forced sex.
Unemployment
Australia’s High Commissioner to PNG suggested that there is approximately 70 per cent youth unemployment in urban centres in PNG.
Inter-ethnic conflict
Evidence provided to the committee also suggested that PNG is difficult to govern because of tribal loyalties and great cultural diversity. PNG has more than 700 disparate cultural groups, speaking over 800 languages.
Corruption
PNG is one of the top 30 most corrupt countries in the world. Ranking 154out of 180 on the 2009 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) developed by Transparency International (1 being the least corrupt).
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complex realities of social, cultural, political and environmental interactions contributing to the current state of affairs. I feel a strange sense of guilt that I had the opportunity to choose not to go to PNG and witness this type of poverty and often think about the harsh reality of Papua New Guinean women my age. As an Australian, a very close neighbour and a key political and financial funder (my grandfather was in PNG during the war), it is distressing to see how bad things have become.
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