Comments

Thanks for this article Cindy - very thought provoking, and timely. There is some work to be aware of: http://www.ligainan.org/ https://hamutuk.tl/en/ The challenge for DFAT is to build on the momentum of pilots, mainstreaming BI approaches into standard programming. I would hazard a guess that it is coming.... Ben

Could you provide a link or source? Haven't seen that.

All family and sexual violence is real family and sexual violence though. Yes there's clearly huge unmet need in rural areas of PNG and more solutions need to be devised and implemented to address that, but for the person being abused, they still need assistance and support, whether they are in a rural or urban setting.

They did arrest and bring in for questioning a Caucasian member of an Indonesian NGO because he didn't look Indonesian. He was released after the questioning.

MK good point. The family and sexual violence is not that serious in the workplace, its more than that in the rural village. The violence in the workplace is amount to loss of big money, that is replaceable, however, in the rural village its life -non replaceable. Bel Isi is urban, workplace related than rural-where the real family and sexual violence is born.

It’s good to know Bel Isi PNG taking such an innovative approach. I hope something can developed to address violence against women in rural areas, where it’s prevalent. Cultural norms (where women even accept that being hit for fulfilling her household duty is acceptable, for instance) facilities GBV. That is the difference between working class women and women in rural areas. Education women in urban areas not only have access to Bel Isi PNG but they are educated and can seek other alternatives. But, good initiative nonetheless.

Thank you for your valuable insight and clear explanation. By reading the article, it seems you have experience communicating with local people in Indonesia and didn't fall in local stereotype in mind by foreigner. I agree that communication should be improved and complaints can be managed accordingly and I think BNPB has acknowledge it. Your last paragraph is a little bit straight, but it's true 🙂 : "And for the rest of us, without any useful skills in disaster recovery to offer the good people of Palu and Donggala, we should just give money."

A really good piece, which makes the case for Indonesian sovereignty and competence in handling a most difficult situation. The shemozzle that was Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 was (perhaps) the low-water mark of such situations, as the good the bad and the ugly among foreign NGOs and agencies piled in to multiply the havoc.

Great comment David, thank you. Definitely needs to be better communication. And there is still a huge amount to do on preparedness as well. And unfortunately there's been some questionable decisions that may have delayed assistance reaching people. But this has been Indonesia's policy for a while, there seemed to be a bit of an expectation from some INGOs that they wouldn't actually stick to it and would just open the doors when the next big thing happened. So there's also room for reflection (and better preparation) for INGOs as well.

Thanks for this intelligent and insightful article. In effect what Indonesia did was say that we have our own disaster management system, running in our own national language, and if you don't know it, understand it and can work comfortably within it please don't come. Also then listing exactly what help they did need. This was what happened in Japan after the tsunami, what happened in China after the earthquake, and it makes sense. There can be no doubt though that this was not as well-communicated as it might have been, and that a lack of clear rapid mechanisms hindered critical aid that was needed and confused the entire national and international aid community at the cost of the affected community. What does this tell us? It tells us that Indonesia's decision to not request international assistance was their right and they exercised it, but that work needs to be done on improving communication mechanisms, MOUs and rapid request and approval systems, all of which are challenging and complex in a very hierarchical pillared society. There can be no doubt that Indonesian national response capacity is stretched with both Lombok and Palu, but also should be no doubt that trying to merge two very different coordination and response mechanisms may only add to the confusion. The other lessons that need to be learned are a) the need for disaster response plans for when local government is no longer capable of functioning and b) clear public plans for when something is beyond the capacity of BNPB and the military is called in, so both the military, government and civil society can be trained for this and c) most importantly an increased awareness that their is no such thing as a natural disaster, only a natural event, that results in a disaster of we are insufficiently prepared. Although there are many strange and dangerous natural events in Indonesia, as Palu has shown here are only three risks 1) town planning: that communities are allowed to live in areas with a high probability of being struck by severe natural events, without adequate mitigation measures in place; 2) that buildings and infrastructure are not adequately designed and built to survive the natural events they will face; and 3) that communities are under prepared and under trained to prepare for and respond to disasters when they do occur. Underlying all of this is a much more complex discussion about perceptions of risk, and each individuals role and obligation as an active participant in their own risk reduction. Indonesians are some of the most accepting people on earth. Accepting foreigners and their help, though this time within limitations, but also accepting risk as gods will, this may also need to change if other changes are to occur. Some bold decisions need to start to be taken to change paradigms and reduce risk and some improved diplomacy is needed to communicate those solutions to the outside world. I remain stunned that there are more than 300,000,000 million speakers of Malayu/Indonesian, and yet it is still not even an official language of the UN, and high level meetings continue to be undertaken here with inadequate or sporadic translation, with the expectation that Indonesian attendees will be able to cope... Imagine doing that in France, which is a an official UN language, with far less people who speak it. The Euro-centric approach to engaging in Asia needs to change and the localisation agenda needs to be taken seriously.

You can purchase a copy via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/My-Walk-Equality-Stories-Guinean/dp/1542429242

The issues affecting women in PNG, as expressed by a few courageous women and girls, are real. It all happens right under the noses of men but we seem to turn a blind eye to these issues. Everyone should read what's been expressed in this anthology, I'm in search of a copy myself.