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August 30, 2014

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UN eyes laws to shield Pacific women

THE United Nations yesterday called on Pacific leaders to enact laws that protect women as a first step in tackling the endemic levels of domestic violence in the region.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN Women, said governments played a key role in changing the regulatory and cultural environments that has seen the Pacific record some of the highest rates of violence against women globally.

“In the countries in the Pacific, the weak law enforcement and the fact that perpetrators often are not brought to book has probably created an environment for violence against women to go unchallenged, and for women to even accept it as their fate,” she said.

“The women who bear the brunt don’t even bother to report because they don’t expect much is going to happen.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was speaking in Sydney ahead of the UN conference on Small Island Developing States in Samoa from Monday, said it was important to “tell the leaders to play their part.”

“We have to help them to take seriously the overwhelming data and statistics that’s generated about the size of the problem in their own country and in the world, as well as the impact it has on future generations.”




 

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