On International Women’s Day 2024, we bring you an edited extract from Dr Pamela Toliman’s contribution to the 2024 Ruth Bishop Address, presented annually by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security within the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I want to start by saying...
Category - Gender and development
Impacts of the Taliban’s ban on women’s work and education
Upon reclaiming power, the Taliban banned girls from schools above year six and women from work, with few exceptions, such as in the health sector. These regressive and stringent policies have exacted a substantial socio-economic toll, not only jeopardising Afghanistan’s relationship with the...
Intimate partner violence in Port Moresby: drivers and outcomes
Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects 80% of women in Papua New Guinea, a rate that may be the highest in the world. This blog draws on a sample of 152 cases (out of over 2,000 cases in total) maintained by the Royal PNG Constabulary Family and Sexual Violence Unit (FSVU) in Port Moresby for the...
What better data can tell us about Australian aid and women
In 2007, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer claimed that gender equality was “fundamental” in Australian aid’s efforts to lift people out of poverty. In 2023, Pat Conroy, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, wrote that he was “proud...
Do no harm: supporting Pacific women leaders
The Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, last month committed to a...
How Southeast Asia pioneered female leadership, and lessons for...
This is an edited version of a keynote address delivered at the 2023 Australasian AID Conference on...
Workplace harassment of women in Port Moresby: results of a...
In a recent survey of 96 employed women conducted by academics from the University of Papua New...
Shifting social norms might unlock women’s economic...
A 2020 study found that 87 per cent of young, married men in Saudi Arabia supported the...
Reforming care
Several factors contribute to low female workforce participation, hindering women’s economic...
Are all gender strategies created equal? Examining the new...
Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that the Albanese government would be...