As we near the end of these 38th Independence Day celebrations my hope for the future is that PNG women will continue to rise up against sexual and domestic violence. Refusing to be hushed, and demanding change.
There is a real sense of challenge emanating from these voices which have been silenced for so long. With courage, conviction, and a sense of outrage PNG women are emerging from a world of pain, violence, subjugation and loneliness.
They are refusing to accept a world in which 60% of women have been raped and 75% subjected to sexual and/or domestic abuse. I am so proud to be working with some incredible men and women who are forging new paths through the tangle of cultural perceptions, and stripping the arguments back to fight for a normative societal framework which condemns violence against women and holds fast in its commitment to universal human rights.
See the bottom of the page for links to some of this incredible work in PNG. And as I wish you good night, what better inspiration than Maya Angelou:
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
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