Women children and domestic violence in the Solomon Islands
The Women of Solomon Islands need to be protected from continuous domestic and sexual violence that is taking place in many of the communities through out the country.
Domestic violence in this sense refers to acts of violence perpetrated within domestic sphere such as “battering, incest, marital rape”.
Sexual assault refers to RAPE, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work and other violent acts occurring within the general community.
Harmful practices such as trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of buying and selling of women and children for commercial sexual purpose has been practised.
However, there is need for many of our communities to acknowledge and recognise that such practice existed.
Many women young and old continue to experience violence in the hands of male perpetrators, however nothing much has been done.
Compensation is one way of punishing individuals who take advantage of women, however it is not enough.
Compensation must not be considered as the only effective means of punishment in many of our communities.
The increase of Domestic violence in all its form in many villages poses a real challenge for the Solomon Islands Community and its government.
Women, young and old, can no longer protect themselves from the hands of their perpetrators.
Some occurred in the villages and places women called “HOME.”
In many cases sexual encounters happened between people that victims knew.
Increase cases of women being raped, a reported in the local media, is an indication that women have to be very careful wherever they are living in their local communities or in town.
Solomon Islands must not be content if such revelation appears in the media every week.
The local media has provided information on horrific cases such as the rape of a three year old girl and the rape of a 37-year-old intellectually impaired woman in the Western Province.
There are many more rape cases that are happening in other provinces, but went unreported.
Traditional communities can no longer protect women from any form of abuse except the law of this country.
The way the Law of this country protects women all kinds of abuse is not clear.
The local Media is taking a fundamental stand in its daily reports on “Violence against Women.”
The potential power of media and communications is to spotlight pressing issues of violence against women, changing attitudes, providing critical information and ultimately encouraging action to remove such violence from our homes and our neighbour hoods.
Media organisations must be helped in order to transform strategies to reach mass audience to have helped break the stigma and change of quite acceptance surrounding Domestic violence.
Media can help by touching the heart as well as the mind and can have a greater impact on people in profound ways and support and empower them to create change.
The government must consider the idea of investing in women and girls as a priority area in its policy.
The issue of gender development is a focal area to highlight among other government priority areas such as Infrastructure, Tourism, Agriculture, the Business Sector and logging.
The role of any government is to empower national women’s machineries to have the capacity to work on these issues.
It needs political will and commitment to effectively address domestic violence in all its form.
For the government to prioritise gender development in its policy shows that it has recognised the contributions of women to the economic development of this country.
The government needs to understand the needs and the issues of women by empowering gender based organisations in Solomon Islands so that work can reach the women population living in the rural area.
The government has the resources and as part of its role it must strengthen the existing establishments to implement the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) that was signed in 2002.
The responsibility of the government is to ensure that CEDAW is implemented.
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