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WOMEN’S SAFETY ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA PHILIP F PRIESTLEY Philip F Priestley is Assistant Foundation Manager MSB, M-Bus, Vehicle Operations Manager at Ginigoada Foundation in Port Moresby. Twitter: @Ginigoada Facebook: @GinigoadaFoundation
Papua New Guinea was once called “like every place you have never been” or “The Land of the Unexpected”. Today, this motto has changed from Unexpected to Expected when it comes to women’s lack of safety on public transport.
When women and girls have to wait at a bus stop, they are either sexually harassed by being touched or verbally abused using sexually explicit insults, or have their bags stolen. These assaults can occur on a daily basis. Working women and young schoolgirls are easy targets and at risk of being attacked.
I work with a non-government organisation called The Ginigoada Foundation in Port Moresby (the capital city) with an Office in Lae (our second largest city). We train people living in villages and settlements in life skills, adult literacy, first aid, and financial literacy. We have a multi learning centre (MLC) teaching courses like computer skills, accounting, front desk and reception, hospitality and tourism.
Why does this happen? I have lived and worked in Papua New Guinea for 38 years (I am originally from England) and I have observed the way the country has changed since I came here for a twoweek holiday from Australia where I was living in 1981. PNG is blessed with abundant natural resources.
We also run two bus services to carry women and girls only. In 2014, our then foundation manager noticed that women standing at bus stops were finding it hard to board a bus in the mornings due to young men crowding the doorway, climbing into the bus through the windows, and taking up all the seats, causing women to be left behind. Women were subject to different forms of sexual harassment, had their string bags (Bilums) cut open with razor blades or stolen either at the bus stop, or on the bus itself, and no one would attempt to stop this from happening. These assaults also occurred on the streets of all our major centres.
Our cities are growing because of the number of settlements created by rural and other province people moving at a rate too fast for the government to keep up with. This in turn causes overcrowding, poverty, limited work, and growing crime rates. It is impossible for the common worker to buy or own his or her own home, as housing is too expensive.
The foundation manager created a new bus service called the “Meri Seif Bus” (Pidgin for Women Safe Bus). The first bus was painted purple (symbolic of International Women’s Day) and only picked up women and girls. It proved to be a big success and the women seemed very grateful that this bus service created only for them was free of charge.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 28: ISSUE 3 – NOVEMBER 2019
