Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694859870649.pdf (Australia)
Committee Secretary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade PO Box 6021 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 17 July 2020 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the Pacific Introduction The Joint United Nations Country Teams in the Pacific, comprising heads of United Nations Agencies, Funds and Programmes covering fourteen countries1, welcome the opportunity to present this submission to the Human Rights Sub Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade given the role of the United Nations in ensuring member States respect, protect and fulfil their human rights obligations.
In order to best support the outcomes of the Inquiry, members of the United Nations Pacific Strategy (UNPS) Outcome Group 2: Gender Equality, have compiled the submission in close consultation with its membership.

The Outcome Group 2 represents fifteen agencies operating in the fourteen countries.
The United Nations Pacific Strategy (UNPS) Outcome Group 2: Gender Equality is responsible for the inter-agency coordination and technical support associated with implementation of the United Nations Outcome on Gender Equality to ensure coordinated and collaborative approaches across United Nations programmes and protect through information sharing, knowledge management, UNPS Outcome monitoring and joint programming/joint initiative development.
Outcome Group 2 is Co- Chaired by UN Women and UNFPA with membership drawn from relevant United Nations agencies, Funds and Programmes.2 United Nations Pacific Strategy (2018-2022) Outcome 2: By 2022, gender equality is advanced in the Pacific, where more women and girls are empowered and enjoy equal opportunities and rights in social, economic, and political spheres, contribute to and benefit from national development, and live a life free from violence and discrimination.
The United Nations works with governments, regional bodies, and civil society across the fourteen Pacific Island Countries and Territories to empower women and girls and to build inclusive societies.

Ensuring the elimination of discriminatory policies and practices in all aspects of life and working towards achieving gender equality benefits individual women and men, families, communities, and countries.
The UN advocates for joint legal and policy reforms and educational programming in the Pacific that promote gender equality, women’s and girls’ empowerment, and respect of women’s and human rights in an effort to introduce the population and young learners to concepts of equal 1 Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomo n Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu 2 FAO, ILO, IOM, OHCHR, UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, UN Women, UNDP Pacific Office, UNDP Multi-Country Office Samoa, UNESCAP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, WMO 1 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 opportunity and treatment of women, fairness, respect of bodily integrity, and freedom from stigma and violence.
The Submission canvasses all the areas of inquiry including: (1) the role of Civil Society Groups in the Pacific; (2) Key Figures and Groups which advance the human rights of women and girls' in the Pacific context; (3) Engagement of these groups with the Pacific Step-Up; (4) Effectiveness of Australian overseas development assistance programs in supporting human rights of women and girls; and (5) Key Recommendations.
The role of civil society groups in Pacific Islands in responding practically to domestic, family and sexual violence, and other human rights issues such as gender equality Twenty-five years after the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Pacific Platform for Action, gender inequality remains a major barrier to Pacific societies reaching their full potential, a cause and consequence of which is gender-based violence against women and girls.
Over the last decade, prevalence data from across the Pacific region has been collected and analysed providing a wealth of information contributing to advocacy and programme intervention efforts.
As highlighted below in the map of Asia Pacific, the lifetime experience of partner violence ranges between 25% in Palau to 68% in Kiribati, which is twice the global average.3 3 UNFPA, https://asiapacific.unfpa.org/en/knowvawdata 2 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 Civil society groups in the Pacific play a key role in responding to domestic, family, and sexual violence, and other human rights issues.
Most importantly, non-governmental organizations in the Pacific, such as the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, Vanuatu Women’s Crisis Centre, Tonga Women and Children’s Crisis Centre, Solomon Islands Family Support Centre, Chuuk Women’s Crisis Centre, Women United Together Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Kiribati Women and Children Support Centre have been at the forefront of working to eliminate violence against women and girls.
These organizations provide a range of services but predominantly crisis counselling as well as provision of, or referral to, legal, medical, and other practical support services for women and children who endure or who are survivors of violence.

Furthermore, civil society have carried out national surveys on intimate partner violence in Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu with technical support of UNFPA.
More recently, the hybrid Demographic Health Surveys (DHS)/Domestic Violence (DV) module/Multi Indicator Cluster Survey were conducted in Samoa, Kiribati and Tonga in close collaboration with civil society organisations.

Civil Society Organisations were closely involved, for example in Kiribati, with the provision of safe and ethical collection of data.
That is, the Kiribati Women and Children’s Support Centre worked with Government and UNFPA in the design and implementation of the Support Plan, a key component of the DHS DV module, which ensures availability and provision (where required) of counselling support and information to women interviewed as part of the survey.

Fiji national Government (Fiji Bureau of Statistics) will be working with the Fiji Women’s Crises Centre, to undertake a Domestic Violence Survey in 2021.
The leadership of the civil society groups in violence against women data prevalence is indicative of the strength and extensive support of these organisations in the national context.

In several Pacific countries, women’s groups and non-government organisations have strongly campaigned for decades against all forms of violence against women and children and have been collaborating with governments to address this major social problem.
Across the region the problem has received more than 30 years of attention through the work of non-government organisations, principally, advocacy, research, public education, victim counselling and training, including of males in male dominated institutions such as the military, the policy, corrections services and with male staff of the civil service.
However, over the last five years there has been greater collaboration between governments and civil society to address violence against women and girls, largely as a result of the significant investment in building the evidence based for the prevalence of violence and the consequent impact upon the wellbeing of countries.
These include collaboration between government and non-government organisations in information, education and awareness raising activities, review and implementation of laws, facilitating expeditious and supportive procedures for victims/survivors, carrying out social surveys on the prevalence of gender-based violence, as well as addressing trafficking in women and girls and cybercrimes such as gender-based bullying and stalking.
Since 1992, across the region, the Pacific Network Against Violence Against Women comprising 13 countries and 40 non-governmental organisations, aided by an advisory group, has been working to end all forms of violence against women and girls.
The Network comprises independent national non- government organisations set up by women leaders to provide counselling and other support to women victims of VAW, advocate for legislative and policy changes, and mobilise public awareness and support for ending gender-based violence at national level.

It meets every 2 years and while the 60 participants in the meetings are mostly women, there are some male advocates who are also involved.
The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre is the chair of the Network.4 4 http://www.fijiwomen.com/news/media-release/fwcc-convenes-flagship-pacific-meeting-on-ending-violence-against-women/ 3 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 The collaboration among governments, non-government organisations, United Nations and donor partners have resulted in protocols and training packages and multi-sectoral referral for service providers responding to violence against women.
Several Pacific Island Countries have also reported that gender-based violence training programmes and sensitisation regarding victims and survivors of violence against women have been instituted for police and judicial officers in partnership with the civil society organisations.

The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, for example, has been involved in these programmes in Fiji, Vanuatu and Tuvalu.
The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement has also published numerous reports in close collaboration with Government which provide a critical analysis of the state of women’s access to justice and the justice responses.5 In some Pacific countries, the Ministries of Health are supporting the training of health workers such as clinicians and nurses to ensure women presenting at health facilities are received by staff who have been trained in clinical management of rape and response and referral for sexual violence and intimate partner violence.
It is a critical component of the training that health staff are linked with relevant referrals to other specialist and multi sectoral services as part of the response.

Partnerships with civil society organisations to ensure safe and effective referral to and from health services is a critical component of the work of civil society organisations.

This has been strengthened through multi sectoral coordination bodies which serve to maintain minimum standards and protocols in referral.
These include the End Violence Against Women Taskforce in Fiji and Safenet in Solomon Islands and Kiribati as well as the End Violence Against Women Taskforce/Protection Cluster in the Federated States of Micronesia and in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
The participation of the civil society organisations in the multi sectoral coordination bodies alongside Government, including Ministries of Health, has been critical in ensuring multi sectoral and survivor centred approaches for women who are survivors of violence.

Civil Society Organisations are also strong leaders across the Pacific in leading communications and advocacy campaigns.

This is particularly evident in the key events in the Ending Violence Against Women annual campaigning calendar.
Of note, is the leadership of the civil society organisations, in partnership with government to raise awareness around ending violence against women as part of the 16 Days of Activism.

That is, each year the 25th November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and marks day one of the 16 Days of Activism.
Each year, from 25 November to 10 December, World Human Rights Day, the 16 Days of Activism campaign calls for action against one of the world’s most persistent violations of human rights – violence against women.

During the 16 Days of Activism, civil society organisations around the Pacific unite to raise awareness about gender-based violence, challenge discriminatory attitudes and call for improved laws and services to end violence against women for good.
Increasingly civil society organisations are also leading Black Thursday (a worldwide campaign to end rape and violence against women) in partnership with Government and Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP agencies).

Both the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat and the Pacific Council regularly support the campaign alongside United Nations and civil society organisations and Government (led by the Pohnpei Department of Health and Social Services).
As outlined above, civil society also actively lead the regional Pacific Network on Ending Violence against Women and Girls and engage in multiple regional and national gender coordination mechanisms, such as the Pacific Gender Taskforce (detailed below), Gender Technical working group, Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific Gender Working Group Broader Partnerships, Triennial 5 http://www.fwrm.org.fj/publications/research-analysis 4 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 Conference for Pacific Women Steering Committee and the EVAW Taskforce.
Their contributions in these mechanisms have strengthened: the preparation and engagement of Pacific delegations in regional and global intergovernmental fora on gender equality and women’s empowerment; regional technical reviews and reports, such as Pacific Sustainable Development Goal reporting and Voluntary National Reporting; best practices supporting the response and prevention of violence and service delivery; and emergency preparedness and response to meet the needs of women, men, girls and boys during emergencies.
For example, every year regular meetings are convened by the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS) with the support of the Gender Technical Working Group, comprising members from SPC, PIFS, UN Women, UNFPA, FWRM, DIVA for Equality Fiji, and the Shifting the Power Coalition, to support preparation of country gender focal points in Government and Foreign missions in New York on the outcomes document for the Commission of the Status of Women.
More broadly, the Gender Technical working group is a strong example of the partnerships with civil society organisations in protection and promotion of women’s human rights in the Pacific region.

Given the spectrum of membership, it also serves to support strengthened partnerships between civil society organisations, CROP agencies, United Nations and Government to enable strengthened and united advocacy efforts at the national level to support the respect and protection of human rights obligations.
Key examples including maintaining normative language across the Pacific on the Climate Crisis and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.

Civil society organisations also participate in humanitarian coordination structures including the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster (led by UN Women) and the Gender based Violence Sub Cluster (led by UNFPA).
This participation ensures that regional best practices, knowledge management tools and information sharing is inclusive of and oftentimes led by civil society concerns and priorities.

The key figures and groups which advance the human rights of women and girls' in the Pacific context There are multiple key figures and groups which have been instrumental in advancing the human rights of women and girls in the Pacific.
Non-government organisations and civil society organisations Non-government organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) remain a strategic partner for the United Nations in advancing human rights of women and girls because they play a key role in ensuring the accountability of Governments to respect, protect and fulfil human rights commitments.
In so doing, civil society organisations reinforce partnerships and provide strong local and community-based representation in national and regional advocacy efforts.

Most Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) have strong and long-established women’s NGOs including women’s rights organisations, many of which maintain strong reputations for supporting and advocating for the progression of women’s human rights.
There are a range of regional networks led by and supported by civil society organisations including the Shifting the Power Coalition (supporting localised and inclusive humanitarian action including women, peace and security objectives) and the Pacific Network Against Violence Against Women.

There is also the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement which leads the Young Pacific Feminist Alliance and the NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji.
While the latter is a Fiji based coalition, all are working in the provision of training and 5 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 mentoring of young women leaders to ensure ongoing and powerful alliances across the civil society organisations in the Pacific.

There are longstanding relationships in many Pacific Island Countries and Territories between established national women’s NGOs and governments.

These relationships are often mutually supportive partnerships.
Many women’s NGOs have also effectively engaged with governments at the regional level through SPC and PIFS processes, to deliberate on issues of common concern in the region such as sustainable development, climate change and oceans, and help set regional development agendas and strategies.
Women’s NGOs and women-led coalitions and networks have been centrally involved in working groups, advisory committees and processes that include: the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) Gender Working Group, Gender Technical working group, the Triennial Conference of Pacific Women, Pacific delegations at the CSW and CPD events.
The women's NGOs, through a range of coordination structures, are maintaining national and regional accountability to women's human rights including the right to be free from violence and sexual and reproductive health rights.

They are also active in a range of programmes including the Pacific Partnership on Ending Violence against Women and Girls, and the Spotlight Initiative.

Faith based organisations Faith based organisations are central to communities in the Pacific.
They make significant contributions to development and their inclusion as key partners ensures effective advocacy to support women’s human rights.

While advocacy of the United Nations continues through partnerships with organisations such as the Pacific Conference of Churches, national and community partnerships continue to be built into order to ensure that faith-based organisations recognise and promote women’s human rights.
The recognition that faith communities play an important role in Pacific society has led to the roll out of the SASA!

Faith programme in Fiji under the UN Women Pacific Partnership to End Violence against Women and Girls.
This work coupled with the appointment of a gender champion as General Secretary to the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) will enable strengthened partnerships in the future, including the upcoming development of a three-year strategy to support faith-based organisations in ending violence against women and children.

National Human Rights Institutions National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) play a crucial role in promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
While there are NHRIs (including Ombudsman institutions) in Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tuvalu, the CEDAW Committee recommended the establishment of NHRIs to several other PICs.

NHRI monitoring of the human rights situation on the ground can give valuable insight and advice to States about some of the most pressing issues for women and girls including the issues of women and girls with disabilities and marginalized groups such as the LGBTQI community.
At the international level, NHRIs already officially engage with UN bodies and mechanisms such as the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee).

Further, they submit information and parallel reports to other treaty bodies that cover gender equality and deliver stakeholder reports to the Universal Periodic Review which encompass women’s economic empowerment.
A key recommendation to ensure ongoing respect, protection and fulfilment of women’s human rights at the national level is the strengthening of NHRIs and their partnerships with civil societies to ensure Government accountability to their international human rights treaty obligations.

To date, these critical institutions across the Pacific require significant investment and support, including partnerships with civil society organisations.
6 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 Ministries of Education and Ministries of Youth Ministries of Education and civil society organisations, as well as Ministries of Youth across the region are supporting the integration of Comprehensive Sexuality Education into curricula for both school- based and out of school young people.
Comprehensive Sexuality Education is an important mechanism for transforming gender relations, gender norms, contextualising cultural contexts, prevention of gender-based violence, and importantly instilling in young people a strong understanding of choice, responsibility, agency, social citizenship, and the promotion and protection of human rights.
As such, the Ministries of Education and Ministries of Youth and Women, in partnership with the United Nations and civil society organisations, are key stakeholders in ensuring strong engagement with young people in raising awareness of human rights and ensuring accountability of their Governments to respect and promote women’s human rights.
For example, UNFPA is working closely with Ministries of Education and civil society organisations in Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, RMI, FSM, Samoa and Fiji to ensure standardisation of curriculums with international best standards and practices to achieve this objective.
The Pacific Community (Regional Rights Resource Team) is also working with Ministries of Education in Kiribati, RMI and Vanuatu to support social citizenship training for in school young people to ensure stronger understanding of their rights.

These efforts, combined, have the potential to transform the relationships of young people in the Pacific across genders to be respectful, safe, and built upon mutual respect and responsibility, promoting and protecting the indivisibility of human rights for all.
Ministries of Health Ministries of Health across Pacific countries are critical advocates for the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as part of universal health coverage.

The provision of SRHR services through the Ministries of Health ensures ongoing protection and respect of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

This has ensured the strength of Pacific language on the normative language used in Pacific wide outcomes statements and documents.
There is largely consensus across the Pacific of the use of normative language around Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) which was evident through the preparation for the Commission of the Status of Women key negotiating documents as well as through UNFPA supported SRHR advocacy at the Pacific Ministers of Health meeting in August 2019 and the subsequent UN High Level meeting on Universal Health Coverage in September 2019.
SRHR advocacy efforts also strengthened the political will of the Pacific at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD 25: Accelerating the Promise, held in November 2019, where seven Pacific countries committed to zero unmet need for family planning, zero gender-based violence and zero preventable maternal deaths by 2030.
National Statistics Offices As part of the 2030 Agenda, States explicitly reaffirmed their commitment to international law and emphasized that the Agenda is to be implemented in a manner that is consistent with the rights and obligations of States under international law.

They pledged to leave no one behind and for more systematic data disaggregation by sex, age, disability, rural/urban to help achieve and measure the goals.
Data, therefore, is a critical component to ensuring and understanding the progress of States in fulfilling women’s human rights.
In particular, the work of UNFPA in partnership with the National Statistics Office (including with the support of DFAT, under the Transformative Agenda for Women, Adolescents and Youth in the Pacific: Towards Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning) in the collection and analysis of data, including support for the census, Housing Income and Expenditure Surveys and the hybrid Demographic Health Survey domestic violence module/Multi Cluster Indicator Surveys (in partnership with UNICEF) and the Health 7 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 Facility and Supplies Readiness Assessments enables national Governments to determine progress against their agreed international treaty obligations as well as report against the Sustainable Development Goal indicators and Voluntary National Reporting processes, particularly in relation to key targets under SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing) and SDG 5 (Gender Equality).
Furthermore, key work is being undertaken to support increased administrative data collection including the mSupply system (to track contraceptive supplies), the Health Information Management System and the multisectoral gender-based violence administrative data systems (in partnership with UN Women, the Pacific Community (SPC) and University of Melbourne).
Combined, administrative data systems support an understanding of the trends in women’s access to services and enables an understanding of the way in which systems are working to support evidence-based programme design and systems of continuous improvement.

Further, and as outlined above, the strength of evidence in the Pacific of the prevalence of violence against women was a catalyst for significant and strategic investment in the region to end violence against women.
The National Statistics Offices then, are central to ensuring the availability of credible data to support advocacy efforts and accountability mechanisms to ensure progress towards fulfilment of women’s human rights.
Academic Institutions Academic Institutions, including the University of the South Pacific and its growing support towards developing human rights courses, research, and academic papers, play an increasing role in the field of human rights through human rights education, human rights research, dissemination of knowledge, and outreach to other actors including NHRIs and civil society.
That said, there is a need for effective partnerships between academics, governments, CROP agencies, development partners and the private sector to conduct studies, gender analysis, and participatory research to generate knowledge on a range of issues, including the causes and social and economic impacts of gender-based violence, and strategic approaches to address harmful social norms.
Engagement of these groups with Australia's Pacific Step-up The Australia Government’s Pacific Step-Up, announced at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in 2016 and highlighted in Australia’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, is one of Australia’s highest foreign policy priorities.

However, the Step-Up focus on the Pacific is largely dedicated to infrastructure, which although having a gendered dimension, is only one component of the larger agenda in working towards women’s human rights more broadly.
Australia DFAT’s support to gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Pacific comes largely through the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Support Unit (Pacific Women) and bilateral agreements including the Transformative Agenda for Women, Adolescents and Youth in the Pacific: Towards Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning.
Development partners working in the gender equality space have limited engagement with Australia’s Pacific Step-Up and may benefit from more systematic engagement, particularly with regard to United Nations engaged in bilateral partnerships.

However, there are a number of fora through which engagement would be possible, all of which have been highlighted in the preceding sections.
These included the Pacific Gender Taskforce (informally referred to as the ‘Gender Coordination Group’), whose membership includes United Nations, development partners, Council of Regional Organisations (CROP agencies), civil society organizations, and a broader group of partners working on gender across the Pacific, with focus on advancing gender 8 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 equality and the empowerment of women and being more effective in delivering services to Pacific Island Countries .
The Pacific Gender Taskforce is Co-Chaired by UN Women and the Pacific Community and meets regularly in Fiji with regional partners.

This is supported by the Gender Technical Group (led by the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat with the participation of UNFPA, UN Women, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, DIVA and Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development).

In addition, there are gender coordination mechanisms in Pacific Island countries that operate at various states of functionality.
For example, in Kiribati, the UN Joint Presence agencies meet quarterly with development partners as a means of increasing coordination of support to assist Government coordination efforts to address several development issues, including progress towards fulfilment of women’s human rights.
Finally, the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster and the Pacific Gender-Based Violence Sub Cluster, is a further forum through which regional CSOs, development partners including DFAT, international and national non-government organisations and the United Nations come together to support the spectrum of protection (including gender based violence and child protection) responses within the broader humanitarian coordination architecture.
This group also meets specifically to support the north Pacific (Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Palau) coordination of development partner programmes in responding to and preventing gender-based violence.
The effectiveness of Australian overseas development assistance programs in supporting human rights of women and girls The proceeding section highlights the effectiveness of Australia’s development assistance against a number of areas of women’s human rights including: (1) Women’s political participation; (2) Women’s Economic Empowerment; (3) Ending Violence Against Women; (4) Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights; and (5) Climate Change, Disaster Preparedness, Resilience and Humanitarian Response.
Women’s Political Participation Women across the Pacific have the legal right to fully participate in local and national decision making, yet the region, overall, retains the world’s lowest levels of women in parliament at just 8.8%6 and is home to three countries that have no women in their national parliament.

Progress is being made, however.

In 2016, President Hilda Heine of the Republic of Marshall Islands was the first woman elected as President of a Pacific Island country.
In March of the same year, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in Samoa following an election, during which temporary special measures were applied at national level for the first time in the Pacific.

Further, 2019 saw its first woman Attorney General, Linda Simiki Folaumoetu'i.

Most recently, the Kiribati Parliament made history with MPs voting in the country's first female Speaker of Parliament, former Opposition member Tangariki Reete.
Across the region, there has also been a slow but steady increase in the number of women standing for parliament and in the overall number of votes for women candidates.

To address the chronic under-representation of women in politics in the Pacific and to strengthen the voice of women leaders in governance issues, the UN Women works jointly with UNDP to ensure transformative programming in the areas of women’s political empowerment and leadership through 6 Pacific Women in Politics.
This figure excludes Australia, New Zealand, and French and US territories.

9 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 two projects, Inclusive Governance of Natural Resources for greater social cohesion in the Solomon Islands (IGNR) and Women in Leadership Samoa (WILS).

The Women in Leadership Samoa project is DFAT funded and is demonstrating success.

In line with lessons learned, comprehensive programming is implemented along the entire electoral cycle.
With UNDP leading the work in the region on constitutional and electoral frameworks and arrangements, political party strengthening, and political institutions and parliamentary support, UN Women is building on its programmatic experience in the region to support a cadre of women leaders interested in running for office and/or leading at the community level, as well as working to change the social norms determining how women are perceived as leaders.
UN Women supports 130 women leaders, candidates and aspirants to engage in political life and fifteen organisations to engage in community awareness programmes and national campaigns.

Recommendations to advance Women’s Political Participation: • Increase the number of women in national and sub-national parliaments and legislatures, in customary institutions and in senior decision-making positions in government.
• Set appropriate targets for the representation of women, men and marginalised groups across the key decision-making areas, and consider adopting temporary special measures, where appropriate, to increase women’s representation in legislatures.

• Work with women, particularly the most marginalised, to amplify their voices and support representative organisations to negotiate with national, sub-national and local government and private sector bodies.
• Promote a safe and enabling environment for all civil society actors, with a specific focus on women human rights defenders, and more equitable access to resources for grassroots, local, national and regional women’s organisations and CSOs to support women in asserting their economic rights.

• Encourage women’s participation and leadership in trades unions, organisations for informal workers, employers’ and business organisations and professional associations.
• Promote women’s influence and agency by supporting the capacity of special interest groups, such as market vendors, to develop their bargaining power in economic areas.

Women’s Economic Empowerment Although extreme poverty was declining prior to COVID-19, hardship and vulnerability are on the rise in the region.

Multidimensional poverty is high across many PICTs due to geographic remoteness and lack of access to basic services.
Women are more vulnerable to hardship and poverty due to socio- economic contexts, labour force discrimination, migration, a lack of property rights, heavy responsibilities in the household and the community, and subsistence farming, particularly in Melanesia7.
Particularly in the context of COVID-19, many workers in tourism-related services who are living just above the poverty line are now facing an elevated risk of falling into poverty.8 The formal labour sector, which in the Pacific is dominated by the public service, extractive industries, fishing and commercial agriculture, is limited so large parts of society rely on the informal economy.
At an aggregate level, PICTs are estimated to have the second highest rate of vulnerable workers of 7 The State of Human Development in the Pacific, 2014.

8 Tateno, Y & Bolesta, A.

2020.

Policy Responses to COVID-19: Addressing the impact of the pandemic on tourism in Asia Pacific Small Island Developing States.

UNESCAP.

https://www.unescap.org/resources/policy-responses-covid-19-addressing-impact-pandemic- tourism-asia-pacific-small-island Accessed 26 May 2020 Tateno, Y & Bolesta, A.

2020.
2020.

Policy Responses to COVID-19: Addressing the impact of the pandemic on tourism in Asia Pacific Small Island Developing States.

UNESCAP.

https://www.unescap.org/resources/policy- responses-covid-19-addressing-impact-pandemic-tourism-asia-pacific-small-island Accessed 26 May 2020 10 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 all developing country groupings9.
Although the informal economy in the Pacific is often undervalued, its contribution in some PICTs is as high as 50% of the average GDP, providing self-employment and livelihoods to more than half the working population10.

In most PICTs, women usually perform a greater share of unpaid care and domestic work, which limits their availability for formal employment.
Census data collected across the Pacific between 2009 and 2011 showed that women on average are less represented in paid employment than men (32.4% compared to 48.5% respectively).

More recent data shows a lack of significant improvement in the subsequent decade.

11 Women have lower participation rates in non-agricultural labour despite near gender parity in completion rates of primary and secondary schooling12 .
On the other hand, women are over-represented in the informal sector, where most work is low-paid, part-time and unregulated, labour rights are unprotected, and job security is vulnerable to economic volatility13.

Subsistence farming, in-shore fishing, and market vending are some of the areas in which the over-representation of women is the largest with women representing, for instance, 75-90% of market vendors in Melanesia14.
Women’s participation in agricultural and marketing is vital to food security across the region and should be invested in as a high-level priority, including rapid scaling up on market infrastructure, seed funding for micro entrepreneurs and cash transfers.

There is a need to accelerate investments in the informal sector to improve protections, enable women to expand micro businesses and to ensure effective operation of informal sector workers during the COVID crisis.
Development partners such as UN Women and UNDP are supporting women’s economic advancement in the economy in Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands through the Markets for Change program (M4C), a multi-country initiative that aims to ensure marketplaces in rural and urban areas of Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are safe, inclusive and non-discriminatory, promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Recommendations to advance women’s economic empowerment include: ● The provision of investments in growth sectors to incentivize increased women’s participation (such as ICT, green jobs, agriculture and natural resources).

Investments in affordable care options and in protections for informal sector workers.

● ● Provision of finance for women-led small and medium enterprises.
● Extend work in value chains across all sectors, ensuring that women are able to move up the value chain and do not languish, where they currently are, in the labour intensive, low value work.

● Expand finance to informal workers via government backed guarantee to Banks.

● Ensure cash transfers are made available to market vendors and to those that have lost employment, alongside other safety nets such as food basics and rental guarantees.
● Expand access to domestic food markets and ensure these can run safely, particularly in the face of COVID-19.

Investment of approximately 40 million is required in infrastructure across the Pacific which will help governments adapt post COVID-19.

9 United Nations Pacific Strategy (2018-2022).

10 Australian Aid, Pacific Regional Youth Employment Scan, January 2016. http://www.plp.org.fj/wp- content/uploads/2016/05/PLP_Pacific-Region-Youth-Employment-Scan_Final.pdf; Asian Development Bank (ADB).

2016.
2016.

Unlocking the Economic Potential of Women in the Pacific.

Manila: ADB; 2014.

“The Pacific’s Employment Challenges.” Pacific Economic Monitor: July 2014.

11 ADB (Asian Development Bank) and Pacific Community.

2016.

Gender Statistics – Pacific and Timor-Leste.


Manila: ADB 12 UNDP Sub regional programme document for the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (2018-2022), DP/DSP/PIC/2 13 ESCAP et al The State of Human Development in the Pacific: A Report on Vulnerability and Exclusion in a Time of Rapid Change 14 Partners Improving Markets pilot project report.
11 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 ● Support provision of sexual and reproductive health commodities, information and services by way of outreach and mobile services to women in the markets.

● Further investments should be made in subsidized childcare.

Ending Violence against Women and Girls As highlighted above, the prevalence of violence against women in the Pacific region is up to twice the global average in some Pacific countries.
Following the publication of the prevalence studies, Pacific Leaders officially acknowledged the gravity of the situation and committed to enact legislation to protect women from violence and to progressively implement a package of essential services for survivors15.
Significant progress has been made with support from the United Nations and development partners as well as civil society organisations and the Pacific Community (SPC) in the adoption of legislation and policies to protect and prevent violence against women.

In eleven out of the fourteen Pacific Island Countries (not including Papua New Guinea) domestic violence is criminalised and protection orders provided as a civil remedy for survivors of violence.
Gaps remain, however, between legislation and policy endorsement and implementation.
UN Women, through the Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls (Pacific Partnership)16 which is supported by DFAT, New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and the European Union (EU) is working with Government and CSOs in comprehensive multi sectoral response and prevention of violence against women, with a focus on supporting the adoption and implementation of laws, policies and plans to prevent gender-based violence and to strengthen access to quality services.
In Fiji for example, UN Women is the technical partner to the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation in developing the National Action Plan to Prevent VAWG – the first country in the Pacific to embark on this, and only the second in the world after Australia.

In Solomon Islands, the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs have developed a Domestic Violence Counselling Guideline.
Further, support for multi sectoral coordination and protocols has ensured coordination and collaborative approaches across Government and civil society organisations in Fiji, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati and more recently, Vanuatu.
UNDP is also working to address the elimination of violence against women and girls in Fiji by strengthening capacities of justice actors, in particular, the police, Legal Aid Commission, Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission and the Judicial Department, to effectively address and respond to cases of violence against women and girls, including adopting digital solutions to improve accessibility of justice.
In supporting response to violence against women, health sector responses to gender-based violence remain relatively weak.

Health Facility and Supplies Readiness Assessments which have been conducted by UNFPA in partnership with Ministries of Health, in Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Kiribati highlight that no more than 4% of health facilities can provide a response to gender based violence to a minimum standard.
Given the high level of outreach of health systems and the interface with communities, investment in health systems will be one of the single most transformative interventions to both respond to and prevent gender-based violence.

The DFAT supported UNFPA Transformative Agenda for Women, Adolescents and Youth in the Pacific: Towards Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning while not a programme 15 Pacific Leaders’ Gender Equality Declaration.

August 2012.

Rarotonga, Cook Islands.


16 The Pacific Partnership is a EUR22.7 million programme, funded primarily by the European Union with targeted support from the governments of Australia and New Zealand and cost-sharing with UN Women.

The programme has three outcome areas being jointly coordinated by the Pacific Community (SPC) Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT), Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (Forum Secretariat) and UN Women Fiji MCO that is also leading overall programme coordination.
More here: https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/countries/fiji/ending-violence-against-women 12 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 supporting response to survivors of violence at its centre does operate to strengthen health system responses to ensure that women who are survivors of sexual violence have access to emergency contraception.
Across the Pacific, harmful social norms dictate discriminatory attitudes and practices which curtail women’s bodily autonomy including their right to be free from violence.

These social norms are rooted in deeply held beliefs that there are “justifiable reasons” for husbands to use physical violence to “discipline and control” their partners.

The normalisation of violence compounded by the stigma and shame associated with reporting violence makes reporting and seeking assistance difficult.
In order to address social norms in both the prevention of violence as well as increasing help seeking behaviours, sustained investment will be required.

This requires investment in understanding the norms which drive behaviour and attitudes to enable the shaping of evidence-based initiatives that challenge harmful gender norms, gender-based violence and discriminatory practices, and that promote equality and the human rights of women and girls of all diversities.
Recommendations to fulfil women’s right to be free from violence: • • Expand programme support with Government partners and civil society organisations in the north Pacific (Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Palau); Increase and target investment in health system response and prevention to gender-based violence, including mobile and outreach services (particularly post COVID-19), structural and systems’ level response and prevention to violence and increased demand for health services.
• Sustained focus on the evidence base to capture effectiveness of prevention programmes to support taking prevention programming to scale.

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Universal enjoyment of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and fulfilment of reproductive rights are essential for the health and wellbeing of women, adolescents and youth as well as for gender equality, women’s empowerment, women’s participation in the economy and for overall poverty reduction.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights embody the ability and agency of each person to make decisions about their sexual and reproductive rights and to do so without fear, punishment, violence, stigma and exclusion.
The ability to decide freely on the number, spacing and timing of one’s children is a fundamental human right, which was asserted in the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action in 1994 and reaffirmed at the ICPD25 Summit in Nairobi in 2019.17 At the national level, lower fertility rates decrease population growth rates and make achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development more attainable, more affordable and more sustainable.
Investment in sexual and reproductive health services, notably family planning, is one of the most cost-effective investments for sustainable development.

The reality is, however, that six of the 14 Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) have a growing total fertility rate.
Ten PICTs are now experiencing growing adolescent pregnancy rates from 62 to 85 per 1000 adolescent girls recording births, contrary to the global pattern of decreasing rates which is 51.18 The region not only has low Contraceptive Prevalence Rates and some of the highest unmet needs for family planning compared to global averages, especially for adolescents and youth, but also indicators that have been relatively static over the last 20 years.
Previous surveys point to challenges 17 United Nations, International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (1994) and United Nations Population Fund, Accelerating Promise: Report on the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 (2019) 18 http://www.spc.int/ndmi/ 13 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 that include: poor quality of services; variable SRH supplies availability and accessibility; weak governance mechanisms to translate existing policies into effective sustainable actions; and limited capacity to implement strategies and plans.
Further, modern contraceptive uptake is challenged by myths, misconceptions and/or misinformation and misinterpretation of side effects.

DFAT’s investment in the Transformative Agenda for Women, Adolescents and Youth in the Pacific: Towards Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning has provided the much needed support to enable transformative change in the lives of women, adolescents and youth across the Pacific, including people with disabilities in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga.
The objective of the programme is to move unmet need for family planning towards zero.
This is being achieved through a range of strategies including: 1) increased support of information, commodities and ensuring family planning services are available at government health service delivery points in the 6 countries, 2) generating increased demand for SRH/FP services through community engagement and comprehensive sexuality education and 3) by providing an enabling policy environment to support people’s access to quality SRH, including contraceptive choice.
Given the increase in adolescent pregnancies in the region, the programme places a particular focus on adolescents and youth seeking to break the cycle where a pregnant, adolescent girl leaves school, may enter into early marriage and is unable to fulfil her potential due to poverty and exclusion.

Significant investment is also focussed on demand generation at a localised and community level to increase access to sexual and reproductive health services for women and young people.
This requires investment in understanding the social norms which dictate women and young people’s bodily autonomy and the attitudes and practices which prevent full enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

This is particularly the case for young people and adolescent girls for whom significant investments must be made in providing services in the right way and at the right time.
A strengthened normalisation of SRHR services through programmes, including Comprehensive Sexuality Education for in and out of school young people (including wrap around support for girls, boys and parents) is critical in order to ensure increased access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
A key gap also remains in the investment of women’s cancer policies and services which was a common concern expressed by civil society organisations and Government partners during the 2020 Pacific preparatory workshop in Fiji for the Commission on the Status of Women and review of Pacific progress against the Beijing Platform for Action +25.19 A recommendation arose requesting increased protection from cervical cancer by extending coverage of the vaccination against HPV, two strains of which cause cervical cancers, has also been a challenge in the region.
The vaccines are costly and access to them by Pacific Island states has only been attained through substantial donor support, aided by strong lobbying with development partners by the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat.20 In the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the vaccination program, which is advised for girls and boys between 11 and 12 years, has also met resistance in the outer islands from parents not consenting to their daughters being vaccinated.
This is particularly critical for the RMI given that the population faces ongoing nuclear illnesses occurring within the lifetime of the cohort of population exposed to fallout radiation in 1954 from US military weapons testing, among whom excess cancers are estimated to have totalled 530, within an expected total of 6,130 cancers.21 19 SPC, Beijing +25: Review of Progress in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action in Pacific Island Countries and Territories, October 2019.
20 https://www.forumsec.org/cervical-cancer/ and https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/50282/50282-001-rrp- en.pdf 21 Committee on the Rights of the Child, Third and fourth periodic reports of States parties due in 2010 - Marshall Islands, 23 February 2017, CRC/C/MHL/3-4: 23.
14 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 Recommendations to support Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: • Strengthened primary and secondary prevention of cervical cancer as well as early identification of other women’s cancers.

• Sustained and increased investment in the evidence base to identify social norms which dictate women’s bodily autonomy and strengthen demand generation and access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Climate Change, Disaster Preparedness, Resilience and Humanitarian Response The Pacific region is among the most vulnerable in the world to the effects of climate change, extreme weather events, and natural disasters.

Vanuatu and Tonga are ranked respectively as first and second countries in the world most “at risk” from natural disasters while the Solomon Islands ranks fourth22.
As predominantly coastal dwellers, Pacific Islanders are highly susceptible to sea level rise, threatening the existence of atoll nations such as Kiribati, RMI, Tokelau and Tuvalu, and low-lying communities in other Pacific Island Countries such as Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

Indeed, an individual person living in a Pacific Island Country is found to be three to five times more at risk than those in other parts of the region.
Evidence shows that due to pre-existing inequalities women and marginalised groups are disproportionately impacted by disasters.

Global research has shown that women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die or be injured in a disaster.

In a disaster or emergency, women also face increased risks of sexual and gender-based violence; unequal access to humanitarian assistance such as food and shelter; loss of economic opportunities; and increased workloads.
There is a growing emphasis in the Pacific on preparedness and a need to strengthen the link between humanitarian preparedness and response to broader development efforts.
This includes strengthened National Disaster Management Offices to ensure centrality of protection (including women’s human rights), coordination systems (across the humanitarian development and climate change governance structure), mainstreaming of women’s rights across the spectrum of humanitarian and development responses to strengthen resilience to disasters.
Limited capacity persists at a national level to support protection of women’s human rights during emergencies as highlighted in recent disasters.

Similarly, experience has demonstrated that women’s machineries and civil society organisations are often excluded from disaster preparedness and response mechanisms and lack the technical capacity to engage.
DFAT’s current support to UN Women enables coordination of the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster, building community resilience to disaster in the Solomon Islands, localisation of humanitarian preparedness and response through support for civil society organisations (Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund) and enabling women to withstand disasters through provision of prevention, preparedness and response systems.
UNFPA leads the Gender based Violence sub cluster supporting coordination and collaboration across development partners, civil society organisations and international and national non-government organisations.

This coordination role ensures strong support for standard setting and knowledge management across the Pacific region.

UNFPA is also supported by DFAT through the Regional 22 World Risk Index 2018.
15 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 Prepositioning Initiative which ensures the provision of reproductive health commodities and dignity kits to the most vulnerable women during emergency responses.

UNFPA has ensured the provision of commodities and dignity kits as the frontline of response for women post Cyclone Serai (Fiji 2020) as well as Cyclone Harold (Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga 2020).
This is an extremely effective programme as it ensures a high level of flexibility as well as rapid response, as commodities are strategically prepositioned.
Further, increased focus on ensuring reaching women with disabilities has resulted in six national action plans between the national organisations affiliated with the Pacific Disability Forum and the International Planned Parenthood Federation member associations which has supported the more recent procurement and prepositioning of disability dignity kits specifically designed for women with disabilities.
There remains a gap in establishing an evidence base to determine the vulnerability of women and girls across the Pacific to the impact of climate change, as well as measuring the impact of current resilience building programmes.

While there is broad understanding that the climate crisis is likely to contribute to increased levels of domestic and family violence as well as increased maternal mortality, the rate of increase is not yet well understood.
Such an evidence base can support targeted provision of support and services to enable increased resilience to climate change.

UNFPA and the Pacific Community continue to work with a range of key stakeholders including the NDC Partnership, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, for example, to ensure integration of gender outcomes as part of the Nationally Determined Contributions commitment (under the Paris Agreement) to a Gender Action Plan.
In addition, even where the evidence is clear, there remains a gap in supporting Governments and CSOs in the provision of sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender-based violence response and prevention services to reach those communities which are most vulnerable.

Recommendations for protecting women’s human rights in disasters, including climate change: • • Investment in vulnerability mapping for women and girls to ensure targeted response and prevention.
Increased technical assistance to integrate gender responsive climate action (including sexual and reproductive health and rights) into national priorities in adaptation to climate change.
• Strengthened National Disaster Management Offices to support mainstreaming of gender and protection of women’s human rights across all sectors of humanitarian response, including the engagement of protection cluster members in all disaster assessment teams and across all phases of preparedness, risk, response and resilience.

Recommendations for further support Where possible, recommendations have been integrated into the immediately preceding section.
In terms of approach however, effective programming in the Pacific that is gender led, sustainable and empowering cannot be achieved quickly through short-term projects.

The United Nations in the Pacific welcomes DFAT’s long term view to gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Pacific and investments such as the ten-year $320 million (AUD) commitment under the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development programme.
It is critical that development efforts empower and build upon Pacific initiated and Pacific led mechanisms to ensure the highest level of ownership and sustainability.

This approach requires investment in localisation to build and strengthen capacity and institutions as well as building sustainability planning into programmes.

Furthermore, investment in women’s participation in programme design and implementation is critical across all areas of development, and not limited to gender equality programming.
Finally, programmes must ensure high levels of accountability to 16 Inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the PacificSubmission 30 human rights to ensure that compliance with human rights-based approaches in programme interventions.

The Pacific presents a unique context where the impacts of climate change start to conflate humanitarian and development programming.
It is critical, in all facets of programme implementation that the changing context within which programmes are implemented is taken into account.

Pacific women will continue to bear the disproportionate impact of this changing context and widening inequities will become increasingly evident over time, requiring a responsibility upon us to address the rights of women and girls as a priority.

Gender equality and women’s human rights are key drivers of sustainable development.
It is critical to accelerate actions to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment so that all women and girls, of all diversities, develop their full potential, are entitled to enjoy their human rights, and contribute to build a resilient Pacific islands community where no one is left behind.

The United Nations Country Team extend their gratitude to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for the opportunity to provide this submission.
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