Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world, with studies indicating that one in two children is chronically stunted, a condition from which they can never recover. The reasons are complex. It’s rarely a question of hunger, rather a lack of critical nutrients in the first 1000 days … Continue reading
About 10 years ago, when I started writing about PNG and women, I got an encouraging email out of the blue from one Elizabeth Reid. I confess, I had to google her – only one of the most mighty (and modest) feminist wayfinders of the ’70s and beyond. She was Gough’s “supergirl” but has been … Continue reading
This week on ABC Radio National I have a story up on the documentary program Earshot that I’ve long wanted to tell. It’s about how Maria von Trapp – yes, as in How-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-Maria/The Sound of Music – washed up on a PNG island with several of her singing tribe; how her stepdaughter (she was called … Continue reading
A confronting story from Bougainville, PNG, where I have often reported on the crisis of maternal deaths (second highest in the Asia Pacific after Afghanistan). The news angle here the landmark case around the jailing of a couple for the termination of a pregnancy. But the background context is about the tragedy deaths in childbirth, … Continue reading
A different take on Mother’s Day: In Papua New Guinea, where maternal deaths are amongst the highest in the world, 44 per cent of women of fertile age and in a relationship report an “unmet need” for contraception. That means they have little if any capacity to space, delay or stop having babies. My story for … Continue reading
This is a modified extract of my longer Lowy analysis (see below) published by The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald and featuring the photographs of my colleague Vlad Sokhin. It focuses on a single, shocking event in a village outside Wewak late last year – the rape by police of a teenage girl – … Continue reading
In this long analysis published by the Lowy Institute, I draw on recent interviews, my older notebooks, and the expert insights of PNG commentators, specialists and anthropologists to explore a range of questions around the endemic violence against women in Papua New Guinea. My principle concern is to explain to a wider readership how, and … Continue reading
