The Permanent Parliamentary Committee on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) held a meeting yesterday, discussing their agenda for the year 2023. They have agreed to utilize the powers bestowed upon them to ensure that the Government has proper laws, policies and institutions in place to empower women and making sure that women and girls are safe from gender-based violence (GBV).
The Chairman of the Permanent Parliamentary Committee on GEWE and Governor of National Capital District, Powes Parkop said, “I want to make sure that our Committee wastes no time investigating how the Government is delivering for the women and girls of our country. We have been given a powerful mandate and we need to use it to shine a light on the issues that need attention if our women and girls are to live safe, peaceful and prosperous lives. This is what our founders wanted when they included the principles of equality and non-discrimination in our Constitution. All MPs and government officials must all aspire to implement those principles in all that we do.”
The GEWE committees agreed to hold their first inquiry in Parliament from the 24th to 26th of May 2023, in Port Moresby. GEWE Chairman Powes Parkop clarified that the inquiry will look at how the government is addressing GBV and SARV as well as call for government officials to explain whether the government’s existing laws, policies and institutions on GEWE are in place and functioning properly.
“We will hold our first public hearings from 24-26 in May and will call officials before us to explain what concrete actions they are taking to help the women and girls of PNG. We expect officials to explain to us how they will develop a new national GEWE policy, that will plan and budget for initiatives to empower women and girls. We also want to know when and how the government will develop its next CEDAW report,” Parkop said.
“We will also continue to be very focused on addressing GBV and sorcery accusation related violence, building on the work of the Special Parliamentary Committee on GBV. We anticipate calling agencies like the Department for Community Development and Religion and the various justice agencies to explain how they have implemented previous recommendations calling for improvements in crisis response and access to justice,” he said.
The Deputy Chairman of the Committee and Governor for East Sepik Province, Allan Bird supported his chairman stating that, “the role of our Committee is to elevate the issues that are important to women and girls into national discussions. Before the Special Parliamentary Committee on GBV’s work in the last term, our Parliament had hardly used its committees’ powers as a check and balance on government. But the GBV Committee showed how Parliamentary Committees are supposed to work by holding officials to account, in public. That kind of public transparency and accountability is critical to ensuring government resources are better used to promote women’s rights.”
