Hawaii - On the law - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Lorna Omori Right now the laws in Hawaii are made to benefit only a certain sector of the population. It's only made to benefit very few people and mainly people with money, that control our government. We find that the laws are made only for the rich and they serve no justice for our people. Peo...

[covers] - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

On the family and traditional culture - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Kairabu Kamoriki In the Gilberts, we have in a family a father, mother and five or six children. The father's duty is to see that his family is safe and to fish, cut copra etc. The mother's duties include carrying all the family's worries. She must look after the whole family. She sees that there...

Tonga - On the family and traditional culture - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Tupou Fanua A family in Europe would mean just a mother, a father and the children. In Tonga a family is really what we call ‘toto’, those connected by blood. ‘Toto’, when literally translated, means ‘blood’ and it is ‘blood’ connection. Europeans have brothers, sisters, cousins, second cousins, ...

Cook Islands - On the family and traditional culture - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Mata Tuara From the time they were small babies, children were taught how to behave towards their brothers and sisters. Female children had to observe certain restrictions on their behaviour towards their brothers - they were not allowed to step on his sleeping mat, or dance with him in a traditi...

Rotuma - On the family and traditional culture - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Lavenia Kaurasi What the Rotuman woman is like today is really a lot of traditional attitudes or beliefs that have been handed down by generations to the young ones today. How does traditional culture fashion Rotuman women? Firstly, like other cultures it defines the sex roles of Rotumans, and ch...

Papua New Guinea - On the family and traditional culture - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Josefa Namsu I have been asked to come and say something about Papua New Guinea women. In our Papua New Guinea societies, I can page 15 say that our women do play an advisory role even though that may be indirectly done. Our women work in the gardens and basically they look after their children a...

Tahiti - On religion - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Ida Teariki-Bordes I want to ask a question to all the women from the other islands. A very important question in Tahiti is religion. Nearly everybody is religious, either Catholic or Protestant, or Mormon. The more important religion is Protestantism, and the Catholics coming after, Adventists n...

Micronesia - On religion - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Salvadora Katosang I would like to say that the Tahitian people are not alone in their struggles to stop the nuclear testing in Tahiti. This is the statistics right now – between 1946 and 1958, the United States had detonated 93 bombs of all sorts, including hydrogen bombs, on the island of Kwaja...

[section] - Fiji - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Esiteri Kamikamica Education in Fiji. I wish that the Permanent Secretary for Education in Fiji comes to talk to you because he may give a clearer picture than I will…! There are three hundred islands in the Fiji group and over one hundred are inhabited, including the ones some of us come from. A...

Answer by Esiteri Kamikamica - Fiji - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Yes, I do. But I find the way out is by asking relations to come, because I cannot afford to pay anybody. I once sat down and said to the girls: “Is there anyone here who has any relations who can teach us a good meke or dance?” The girls said: “We want to go away tonight and think about it and a...

New Zealand - On education - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Fana Kingstone We are here as women to look at ourselves and to ask ourselves: Why are we here? What have we to offer each other? What are we going to do as women of the Pacific area? I won't go through the education system that exists in New Zealand because it is here - it's right here - in the ...

Solomon Islands - On education - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Kuria Hughes About two-thirds of all children in the Solomon Islands go to school. Girls go into the education system about the page 36 same age as boys, at about six to eight years old. But twice as many boys go to school as girls. This means that most of the children who do not go to school at ...

On the media - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Lorna Omori Media is a powerful social force. Who controls it? As far as I can see, it is controlled by only a few people, a certain sector. In some cases, it's the government, in some cases, big businessmen of businesses that sell you images of what you're supposed to look like, what you're supp...

Tonga - On the media - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Konai Helu Thaman One of the media that really concerns me is, in the Pacific especially, the films. The movie industry is really affecting the South Pacific and no matter where you go or page 50 how isolated the village or the island is, somewhere, on a Saturday night, there's a movie. Some of t...

New Caledonia - On the law - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Dewe Gorodey The law is that of a society of prisons, truncheons, barbed wire, hand-cuffs, and chains. It was in the name of the law, that is, colonial law, that the land of my people was taken, under the pretext that we were savages. It was page 69 in the name of this same law, that the Kanaks w...

Cook Islands - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Poko Ingram A few of us are watchdogs. I am a great believer in running an honest government, a government who treats their people equally, regardless of their colour, religion, and political affiliation. I am also a great believer in the United Nations Human Rights charter, freedom of speech, wo...

Australian South Sea Islander - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Phyllis Corowa I represent a minority of South Sea Island people, descendants of the people who were brought to Australia as slaves during the period between 1860's and 1906 by the Queensland government. They worked for sugar cane farmers to establish the sugar industry in Queensland. They suffer...

Australia - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Margaret Briggs I don't consider myself as a political speaker but all I can speak about, and I consider myself an expert on it because I lived the way of life, and my people lived the way of life - I can only tell you about our conditions and the legislation of the governments that we have to ex...

Micronesia - Women Speak Out! A Report of the Pacific Women's Conference. October 27 – November 2

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection

Salvadora Katosang Micronesia - tiny islands, compose a unique and substantial part of the earth's surface north west of the equator and east of the Philippines . It has a land mass of about 700 sq. miles spread across an area which equals the size of continental United States , and is inhabited ...