Tongan women groups to fight government over anti-discrimination law
Updated
Women's groups in Tonga are refusing to accept the government's rejection of a United Nations convention outlawing gender discrimination. A coalition of five organisations is organising a nationwide petition protesting the government's decision not to ratify the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. The Tongan government says it already implements most of the convention anyway, but has concerns about how it might affect the system of land tenure and the line of succession to the throne. Dr Fred Sevele, Tonga's prime minister, has told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Tonga's culture emphasises communal and family responsibilities rather than individual rights, and applying CEDAW in full wouldn't be appropriate for Tongan society. But he insisted that women's rights are already fully respected in Tonga.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speakers: Dr Fred Sevele, Tonga's prime minister; Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, executive director of Tonga's national centre for women and children
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SEVELE: Mr Chairman our parliament recently considered ratification of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, known as CEDAW. Parliament voted not to ratify CEDAW because to do so would cut across our cultural and social areas that makeup our unique Tongan way of life. We take the ratification of international treaties very seriously, we did not want to ratify CEDAW as a matter of international convenience. We would rather be judged on our actions of empowerment of women than be eradication of convenience. And we make no apologies for our stance, we admit that there are issues to be addressed, but rather than ratify CEDAW we prefer those specific areas of concern for women in our own way, and we maintain that our women are among the most highly cherished, highly elevated and respected in the world.
HILL: Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, executive director for the Tongan National Centre for Women and Children says that statement does not reflect the reality that she's seeing. She says her organisation together with the Tonga Women's Congress, the Tonga National Council of Women for women and families and the human rights and democracy movement are organising a nation-wide petition to overturn the decision.
GUTTENBEIL-LIKILIKI: Well my immediate reaction is first of all his statement that Tonga does not want to ratify CEDAW because it does not want to be seen as ratifying as a matter of convenience. I mean that totally disregards the years of work and dialogue and democracy and lobbying around this convention by women's groups, by women's leaders in Tonga, is totally disregarding all the hard work that's been done over the past ten years. His statement that women are highly cherished in Tonga compared to other women across the world, I mean Bruce it's quite hard to stomach that statement, particularly where I am currently working as the Managing Director of the Tongan National Centre for Women and Children. If this statement was true why on earth are we seeing battered women on a daily basis? Why on earth are we dealing with rape cases, why on earth have we had four homicides out of six homicides in the first six months of this year directly husbands murdering their wives? Why on earth and why are we seeing so many child abuse cases, particularly amongst young girls? Where does he get this insane idea that women and young girls in Tonga are highly cherished compared to the rest of the world? It's ludicrous.
HILL: Well the government's rejected CEDAW, isn't that really the end of the matter? In politics you win some, you lose some, women's groups have lost this?
GUTTENBEIL-LIKILIKI: No, no, no I don't think we've lost it, I think this has just started the war Bruce. We're not going to need it, if they're going to refuse to listen to us as women's groups, then we're going to make them listen to us and unfortunately that's just the way we're going to have to look at things because if Cabinet is outright refusing to listen to our concerns, if they don't take into consideration the many years of hard work that we put into CEDAW, we will have to look at other means.
HILL: Well what are you going to do?
GUTTENBEIL-LIKILIKI: Well we're going to go direct to the top person, him or her. I mean the current King is not in the country but the Princess Regent Salote Mafile'o Pilolevu, we're going to go directly to her. And we're going to take it as a petition.
