Minister for youth, Religion and Community Development and Member for Lae, Loujaya Kouza, has spoken out on the issue of two under aged girls from a village in the Jiwaka Province being used as part of a compensation payment.
She said, as a member of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) it is our responsibility to protect the rights of women and young girls.
As Minister for Community Development, the department which is responsible for the signing and honouring of the CEDAW Convention, a convention dedicated to eliminating all forms of discrimination and violence against women and Children, the Minister condemned the actions, and says she will be providing a report to the United Nations regarding the issue.
However she said her department will be carrying a 21 day advocacy arrangement to educate and carry out awareness to find out if all parties involved did agree for the arrangement to take place, and to inform them that this sort of practise is now unacceptable in society, even though it was done in the past.
She said at the moment they cannot treat the case as domestic violence because there was no violence involved, but it was more of a sex trafficking case, however there is no sex trafficking law in place in the country.
She said as a legislator they need to stop and provide actions and with the 21 day advocacy arrangement it was a good opportunity to advocate and come up with legislations to prevent such cases.
She went on to say that they should not only make laws to prevent such cases as this one, but as a whole package to deal with the sex trafficking going on in urban night clubs in the cities. The girls given as part of the compensation payment for the death of a teacher were aged 13 and 15.
