News stories by Catherine Wilson, page 15

A new community justice programme being rolled out in Papua New Guinea’s vast village court system is bringing international human rights-based laws to rural communities and boosting the protection and empowerment of women and children.

Sexual harassment of school-going girls is one factor that may prevent this Pacific island nation from achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eliminating gender disparity in education by 2015.

While the number of women dying in childbirth globally declined by 34 percent between 1990 and 2008, that number doubled in Papua New Guinea over the same time period.

Papua New Guinea’s infamous track record on gender-based violence — with an estimated 75 percent of women and children experiencing some kind of violence, primarily domestic abuse — is poised to worsen.

An increase in sorcery-related violence and fatalities over the last decade in Papua New Guinea is generating awareness about the lack of development, economic opportunities, inequality and under-resourced health services in rural areas.

In the Kamanabe area of the rural Eastern Highlands in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a village gang has relinquished crime and is striving to contribute to the sustainable future of the local community with a honeybee income generating initiative.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), which has no national power grid but large river systems and abundant sunshine, renewable energy has tremendous potential to transform remote rural lives with clean and sustainable electricity.

Early morning on Jan. 24, in the remote Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, a massive landslide destroyed communities living below a quarry used by the country’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, operated by Esso Highlands, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil.

It was the decade-long civil war in the autonomous Bougainville region that inspired the founding of New Dawn FM, a community radio station recognised for contributing to the rebirth of civil society and development.

Although Papua New Guinea is known as a resource-rich country, 85 percent of the population depends on the informal economy for a living.