Speech, E & OE

22 July 2009

Human Rights in the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges

Thank you Megan for your kind introduction.

I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today.

I'm delighted to have this opportunity to join Dr Helen Szoke and Kirsten Roberts in addressing this workshop this morning.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, and as a lawyer who has worked extensively in the Pacific, I am genuinely interested in the issues that are to be discussed.

In fact, my remarks today will encompass three of my greatest passions - the Pacific, the law, and gender equality-passions that I am sure will be shared by many in this room.

I need hardly remind you the Australian Government came to power determined to improve our relationship with our Pacific neighbours.

Prime Minister Rudd's Port Moresby Declaration of 2008 signalled a new basis for Australian engagement in the Pacific - one of mutual respect, and mutual responsibility.

Pacific Partnerships for Development will form the cornerstone of Australia's new approach - bilateral understandings with Pacific nations that will specify how we will work together on issues and priorities identified as important by both sides.

Together we are working on pursuing common goals in areas such as economic infrastructure, employment, private sector development, microfinance, health and governance.

Underpinning the partnerships is a move away from a "one-size-fits-all" approach to Pacific island countries.

It is a clear move to tailor programs to individual countries' requirements.

We want Pacific Partnerships to be flexible enough to reflect the cultural, economic, historical and political circumstances of individual Pacific states.

A guiding principle of the Partnerships concept is our respect for the sovereignty, leadership and ultimate responsibility of our neighbours for their own development.

The Partnerships approach, while not yet fully implemented across all of the countries of the Pacific has already resulted in substantial increases in development assistance in health, education, infrastructure, law and justice, and governance.

And we are continuing our work in the important area of support for human rights.

As you know, this can be a sensitive area.

As with our economic engagement a true partnership approach, based on open, frank, yet respectful dialogue, is crucial if progress is to be made.

As part of this dialogue, we have to come to our discussions with the shared recognition that no country has a perfect record on human rights.

Australia is no exception as for example our own history of dealings with Australia's indigenous peoples shows. It would be sanctimonious and counter-productive for us to lecture Pacific Island people often only too aware of colonial history and how racial notions of white supremacy often impacted on their forebears.

But we do support - and we are keen to do more to support - the furthering of human rights in the Pacific.

How can we accomplish this?

In some international contexts we face unproductive and divisive debates about whether human rights are somehow a "Western" invention imposed on the developing world.

Fortunately this has not been a significant barrier for dialogue with our Pacific neighbours. Almost all Pacific Island countries, as they seized independence, adopted legal systems that acknowledged the universality of human rights. Some, such as Papua New Guinea, gave their courts powers to enforce constitutional guarantees of rights and freedoms..

We can therefore focus on principles which are, on both sides of the table, generally understood to be universal in their application.

As outlined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, these universal rights include the right to life, liberty and security of person, to freedom of expression, and equality before the law. They also include the rights to food, work and education.

Many Pacific Island countries have ratified key human rights instruments in support of these principles. There is also a strong political commitment, at a high level, to address human rights issues.

In their Pacific Plan of 2005, Pacific Leaders' expressed their vision for human rights as, to seek "a Pacific region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the full observance of democratic values and for its defence and promotion of human rights".

Clearly then, the Pacific is not a blank canvas on which external conceptions of human rights need be drawn.

But, as I've said, no country and no region has a perfect human rights record. Sometimes there is a gap between the legal expression of people's rights and the actual circumstances they live in. The challenge is all the greater given that many people of the Pacific live their lives based more around custom than the modern legal institutions we associate with the nation state - a point I will explore further in a moment.

I want to now turn to two human rights issues in the Pacific that concern us - firstly, the situation in Fiji and, secondly, women's rights.

On any measure of human rights, Fiji's entrenchment of military government, the abrogation of its Constitution, and the curtailment of media and free speech are a major setback.

Since the December 2006 coup there have been four civilian deaths associated with assaults in custody, and several people have been injured. The release from prison, after the abrogation of the Constitution, of former soldiers who had been convicted and sentenced in connection with the death of a civilian is a worrying sign that we may be witnessing the growth of a culture of impunity.

In April Fiji's President implemented a set of Public Emergency Regulations that limit freedom of speech, expand police powers and curb media freedom.

Critics of the regime have been threatened, harassed, detained, questioned and assaulted.

Journalists continue to be harassed, censored and in some cases deported. News outlets are at risk of being shut down if they publish stories deemed negative.

For this reason, Australia is working with our partners in the Pacific, to support efforts to bring about a return to democracy in Fiji.

On 2 May, with the military regime in Fiji having failed to make serious preparations for elections by the end of 2009, the Pacific Islands Forum suspended the Fiji interim government from all forum meetings and events.

But that suspension and the 'smart sanctions' Australia has applied to restrict travel to our country by supporters of the military regime is not intended to operate to punish the people of Fiji. They are the innocent victims of this situation-it is their democratic rights the Forum wishes to see restored.

Consistent with that distinction Australia has maintained, and in fact has increased, the development assistance AusAID provides to Fiji, while suspending elements of the program that would directly support the military government, and Australia was one of the first countries to rally to Fiji's assistance to respond to the humanitarian crisis following recent major storm and flood damage.

We also stand ready to support a genuine, inclusive, timebound, independently auspiced process to assist a political dialogue within Fiji towards the return to democracy-an outcome we strongly believe should happen sooner rather than later.

Another area where there is much work to be done in the Pacific is that of women's rights.

Like women everywhere, Pacific women fare worse than their brothers across a range of indices, including health, education and economic achievement. It is important to put this in context. Only in the last half century have Australian women achieved what we now take for granted in terms of equality of opportunity.

When I was a young boy discrimination against women was deeply entrenched in our society. Australian women were paid less than men for the same work. Women who married lost their positions within our public service. Police treated domestic violence as a private matter, and access to maternal health services was much more limited, with obvious consequences for maternal mortality and morbidity.

Women in the Pacific region face many of the same issues. It is devastating, for example, that Pacific women continue to suffer extremely high rates of maternal mortality.

According to the PNG Demographic Health Survey, there were 733 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births in PNG during 2006, with the majority of babies not delivered by a trained health professional1. This compares with Australia's maternal death rate of just 4 in every 100,0002.

PNG's statistic has improved only slightly despite being under the microscope as a Millennium Development Goal.

This lends support to former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' Mary Robinson's recent statement that insufficient attention has been given to women's rights in the Millennium Development Goals process. She argued that a failure to focus sufficient attention on issues such as gender inequality and women's rights has undermined the achievement of the MDGs - as evidenced by the fact that the goal of reducing maternal mortality is the poorest performing of the eight MDGs.

The UN Human Rights Council has also recently recognised maternal mortality as a human rights issue, with a landmark resolution linking reductions in maternal mortality to the effective promotion and protection of women's rights.

Violence against women in our region is another particularly confronting issue. Violence against women constrains development by imposing costs on the healthcare, social services, justice and policing sectors and by obstructing women's participation in political, social and economic life.

The Pacific has some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. Research commissioned by AusAID3 last year shows that gender-based violence in Melanesia is severe and pervasive.

Pacific leaders, including Australian academics and human rights activists should be brave in speaking out on this hidden crime-just as Prime Minister Rudd has in pointing to our own challenge to face up to hidden violence against women in our country. The scale of the problem may differ and, as a result of the work of many brave women and men who have spoken out and pushed for change, Australia may have come further than some of our Pacific neighbours, but we still share a common challenge.

One important aspect of gender inequality in the Pacific may be seen in the interplay between traditional and modern ways of life. There is no denying that there are complex interactions between customary and modern law, and in Pacific Island society, as it once did in Australia, traditional practices can often involve deep discrimination against women.

Examples include recognising traditional reconciliation as a mitigating factor in sexual offences and domestic violence cases around the Pacific and the treatment of women accused of witchcraft.

The Pacific Law Digest puts the matter this way.
The tensions between customary law and formal constitutional protections continue to be a source of conflict in all Pacific communities. The cases…tacitly acknowledge the contradiction between the traditional Pacific Islands and the 'modern way of life'. Many of those conflicts manifest themselves in tensions between the rights of women to equality…versus what is perceived by many to be their traditional status. This ambivalence resonates throughout the Pacific and sometimes has political repercussions, reflecting the sensitivities that are involved and the caution about concepts such as human rights4

That said there have been some important legal steps forward. In PNG in two cases In re Thesia Maip and In re Yongo Mondo the courts have ruled that breaches of custom cannot be used to justify the imprisonment of women and in Kiribati the court ruled in Nabuaka v The Republic that traditional reconciliation under custom cannot be a mitigating factor in rape sentencing, particularly when associated with violence5.

One critical intersection of custom and modern law is that of child marriage. In many parts of the Pacific girl children can be subject to considerable pressure to marry older men. Sometimes this is in conformity with traditional custom norms-but outside of custom some female children have been sold off as families in the modern money economy seek escape from poverty. In Fiji, in at least one development we can unambiguously welcome, the law is to be amended to make 18 years the minimum age at which marriage can be contracted for both males and females to prohibit involuntary marriages.6

But notwithstanding such important advances it is overwhelmingly clear that despite the existence of constitutions that guarantee equal rights to women, there still remains a gap between those rights enshrined in law, and what happens on the ground.

We can have all the legal protections in the world, but if there is limited enforcement or practical support, then what is the benefit?

The key in the Pacific, as elsewhere, is to make legal frameworks work for the people they are designed to protect.

And this is where I believe the work of National Human Rights Institutions is crucial.

Through education, advocacy and capacity-building, National Human Rights Institutions can bridge the universal rights reflected in our constitutions, and the rights that transform every day lives.

National Human Rights Institutions remind individuals, communities and governments of their responsibilities.

Further, they help them fulfil them.

In doing so they help build societies where women have the right to express themselves without fear of violence and where children have the right to the education.

We need to improve access, resourcing and effectiveness, and overturn attitudes which accept the infringement of human rights as a given.

For these reasons, the Australian Government is a strong supporter of efforts to establish and strengthen national human rights institutions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Our contribution to the flagship Human Rights Fund was $4 million in 2008. .

This fund supports national and regional human rights institutions, particularly those in the Asia-Pacific.

Specifically, Australia has supported the Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions since its establishment in 1996.

The APF comprises national human rights institutions from the Asia-Pacific and its mandate is to support the establishment and strengthening of those institutions in our region.

It does so by providing a range of services, including training, capacity-building and creating networks to provide practical support, tailored to its members.

As one of its largest donors Australia has, to date, contributed around A$6 million to the APF, and currently provides roughly a third of APF's annual funding.

Australia is also working with governments, civil society and regional groupings to encourage the formation of other National Human Rights Institutions.

For example, a recent meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum Regional Security Committee addressed the issue of gender-based violence as a serious human security issue in the region.

The Committee reaffirmed its support for action to raise awareness of the sexual and gender-based violence, and its impact on the Pacific.

Australia is already contributing in raising awareness of the problem of gender-based violence, through providing core funding to the Vanuatu Women's Centre, which tackles violence against women and children.

We also strongly support the activities undertaken by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and we have encouraged OHCHR to engage more intensively in the Asia-Pacific.

Australia's contribution to OHCHR was $1.9 million in 2008-2009, with $400,000 earmarked for its regional office in Suva, Fiji.

Ladies and gentlemen.

To conclude, I want to reiterate that the Pacific generally has a solid legal platform on which to strengthen its human rights performance.

What is needed is practical assistance for this task, combined with frank dialogue on what are sometimes difficult issues.

In doing so we must never be condescending. No country has a perfect human rights record.

We and our regional neighbours need to work together to ensure that we articulate objectives, challenge injustices, and argue for the things that need to be done - without preaching.

We also need to continue to support the institutions that translate human rights commitments into practical support and protections.

National Human Rights Institutions have a critical role to play in bringing commitments made at the national and international level to bear on peoples' lives.

Operating, as they do, at the very coalface, they help strengthen the awareness and the observance of human rights in the Asia-Pacific.

They can and do help Pacific Island governments to better protect the rights of their people.

The Australian Government is there to support both Pacific governments and National Human Rights Institutions in making progress on human rights in our region.

In doing so, we can strive together to make a difference to everyday lives. Thank you.

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Media inquiries: Mr Kerr's office - 02 6277 4991

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