Women and Poverty in Rural Papua New Guinea

In a dark, cold cave, a lonely young woman gives birth to her first child. The world outside waits to share the joy of her first born child who has to be a boy. But not just yet. She can’t show off her baby boy for at least three months after this dirty process, this disgusting process of giving birth. After three days of hard, long excruciating labour, her baby is finally born. She looks over at her newborn with tears of joy, only to realise her baby is a girl. She is overwhelmed, frightened, anxious, confused, lost at the thought of disgrace and shame for giving birth to a female first-born child. The girl grows up mostly with her grandmother who is fearless of what society believes. As elegant and intelligent as she was, her grandmother taught her the skills of hunting, gardening and laws and customs about death and dying, marriages and social relations. All basic needs were available through hard work. Hard work was everything. Sweet potatoes for every meal, grass-skirts for clothes, bush hut for shelter, fresh creek water from miles away, lots of wood for fuel, bush herbs for healing. There were no schools, no roads, no airstrips, no health clinics. But one thing her grandmother instilled in her changed the perceptions of the entire village to this day: "Go to school when you can and work very hard because you will see a bright light beyond this sacred mountain".

This is part of my story. Undoubtedly there are many similar stories of girls and women especially in marginalised communities. A significant body of literature¹ indicates that poverty and health are a vicious cycle, and most importantly that poverty is gendered. Being a man or woman has a significant impact on health and economic outcomes as a result of both biological and gender-related differences. In this story, poverty is not a situation defined by wealth and money as used by international development experts². Poverty is associated with vulnerability and deprivation. Poverty is a situation of denial of access to basic health, education and economic opportunities and services, which are a basic human right³. And the causes, underlying determinants and the long and short term effects of such marginalisation are created and recreated through a hierarchy of socio-cultural, political and structural determinants rather than a single dimension⁴.

Papua New Guinea is a patriarchal society. Gender bias and inequality exists in every sphere, deeply rooted in a socio-cultural belief that women are subordinate to men, and influenced by perceptions of women being the property of men. Gender based violence results from power imbalances; women have limited access and control over resources and income. This undermines women’s confidence and capacity for full participation in social, economic and political development. PNG’s high child and maternal mortality rates and low life expectancy at birth are amongst the worst public health indicators in the Pacific Region. The maternal mortality rate is 220 out of every 100,000 live births. In the rural sector one woman out of every 25 dies in child birth, compared to one out of every 35 in the urban sector. This is clearly associated with early marriages, anaemia, malnutrition and poor family planning which are rooted in poverty, illiteracy and the cultural obligations of women’s role in farming and reproductive work⁵. A study done in 2000 by Narayan and her team demonstrate that the experiences of poor people need to be given attention in any development policy and planning. The voices of women and girls are of particular importance because of their experience and patterns of diseases and access to available health care⁶.

I have been very fortunate to live my grandmother’s dream. I have completed a nursing qualification, a Health Science degree and a Master of International Development in Australian universities. However, I have joined Fulcrum Aid to work towards empowering women and disadvantaged communities so their voices are heard in dreaming a change of equality and of flourishing livelihood.

References

1 – See for example: Cammack, D 2008, Background paper for the chronic poverty report 2008-09: chronic poverty in Papua New Guinea, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, viewed 8 May 2011 (http://www.chronicpoverty.org/);  Jha, R & Dang, T 2010, ‘Vulnerability to poverty in Papua New Guinea in 1996’, Asian Economic Journal, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 23-251, viewed 26 May 2012 (online: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8381.2010.02038.x/pdf);  Kabeer, N 1994, Reversed realities: gender hierarchies in development thought, Verso, London;  WHO 2010, Papua New Guinea health partnerships final report: prepared for the National Department of Health, viewed 28 September 2011 (www.nacs.org.pg); and  World Bank 2004, Papua New Guinea: poverty assessment, viewed 20 October 2011 (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAPUANEWGUINEA/Resources/PA-Report.pdf).

2 - Booth, D 1994, ‘Rethinking social development: an overview’, in Rethinking social development: theory, research and practice, Longman, Harlow, pp. 3-41.

3 - Narayan, D, Patel, R, Schafft, A & Koch-Schulte, S 2000, Voices of the poor: can anyone hear us? Oxford University Press for the World Bank, New York.

4 – Baum, F 2008, ‘The New Public Health’, 3rd Edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

5 - WHO 2010, Papua New Guinea health partnerships final report: prepared for the National Department of Health, viewed 28 September 2011 (www.nacs.org.pg)

6 - Kabeer, N 1994, Reversed realities: gender hierarchies in development thought, Verso, London.