Wall of Shame – Are Pacific Islanders aware of deaths due to gender-based violence?

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photo: Flickr

go through Nathan Rick*, Majuro

*This is the final post in a five-part web series focusing on the 15th Pacific Women’s Triennial Conference taking place this week in the Marshall Islands.

feature – The hastily erected walls of the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre are covered with the names of dead women, all victims of gender-based violence.

At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet four days into the triennial meeting, there are only 14 names on the board.

So where are the rest of the names?

Did these women die in obscurity; were their deaths buried somewhere in the garbage heap of the region’s collective memory?

Does the memory of their death cause them so much pain or guilt that the deputies cannot pick up a pen and write their names on the document?

Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports record the death of yet another woman.

Or has the death of women from gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of her husband, boyfriend, father or brother?

It was a predominantly female conference, with ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grass-roots representatives, with more than 200 women attending each day.

Improving the health of women and children is a central theme of the 15th Pacific Women’s Triennial Conference. This includes improving access to services and treatment for women who have experienced violence.

Gender-based violence was also a focus of the talks. Violence in the past, present and future leads to death.

Yet, three times a day for three days in a row, delegates walked past the wall on their way to coffee, lunch, friendly chat or bilateral dialogue, paying little attention to the names of their deceased Pacific sisters.

No names have been added to the wall since the first day when attendees were first urged to remember the dead and honour the women who lost their lives in a largely avoidable incident.

In Fiji, 60% of women and girls experience violence in their lifetime. Two in three have experienced physical or sexual abuse by an intimate partner, and one in five has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

This trend is common across the region, with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands reporting the highest rates of crime against women.

Delegates are aware of these figures. Unfortunately, these statistics are not new.

On the third day, delegates bickered over the nuances of language and the proper terminology to use in reviewing reports. Yet no one called for a minute’s silence in memory of those whose names were plastered on the walls outside the conference room, full of accusations.

When delegates leave the convention center after a meeting, they are unlikely to remember a single name on the wall.

The names and memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners and strangers who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame on the sandy beaches of Majuro Atoll.

*Nathan Rick is a veteran Pacific journalist. He is currently in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Pacific Women’s Triennial Conference.