Delivered on the afternoon of Monday 2nd July 2018, at CEDAW Session 70, United Nations, Geneva

I am Ruth Saovana Spriggs, reading this statement on Australia’s Extra Territorial Obligations in PNG and I am presenting on behalf of Voice for Change, HELP Resources, Bougainville People’s Research Centre, the emerging Hela Women Never Give Up in PNG and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) who submitted a joint Shadow Report to CEDAW for the review of Australia. 

 I am an academic, researcher and activist, from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (AROB – a former province of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea).

Thank you, Madam Chair.

 The Australian Government finances large-scale Extractive Industry Projects in PNG, which systematically exclude women and entrench male monopoly over decision-making and benefit flows. Women lose access to economic resources and status, increasing their vulnerability to violence.

Highly profitable, Australian Joint Venture Projects operating in regions with pre-existing high levels and extreme forms of gender-based violence and armed conflict are contributing to increased impunity for perpetrators and reduced access to justice.

Australia Aid programs advocate gender equality and deliver development assistance in health, education and justice sectors in PNG. However, neither these, nor Australian Corporate Social Responsibility Programs and Partnerships, address structural discrimination and substantive equality in relation to women, in the context of Extractive Industry.

Thank you again and good afternoon.

In the pictures: Kumudini Samuel, of DAWN’s EC, with Dr. Ruth Saovana Spriggs, Elizabeth Cox, and Shanthi Dairiam, from IWRAW-AP, strategizing and writing the oral statement to CEDAW.