Blog 5- Violence of women in Papua New Guinea

Summary:

A Kickstarter campaign as surfaced in an effort to raise awareness of the domestic violence that happens all over the world, but more specifically in Papua New Guinea. The article discusses Helen Alphons and her struggle with domestic violence, to the point of losing her leg when she was in a fight with her drunk husband one night. Their child witnessed this horrific act and later Helen and the child fled, only to return to her husband (Alai) had died in prison. The Kickstarter project, called "Crying Mari," is intended to bring awareness to the issue of severe domestic violence and the way that many women are affected by this all around the world. It also seeks to show the strength and endurance that many women have to be able to stand up against their violent relationships and stop the violence. Because of this awareness that photographer Vlad Sokhin has brought to the world, police forces in Papua were then able to make an immediate arrest at a domestic violence call. In 2013 the president of PNG (Peter O'Neill) made a public apology to the women of PNG and began the repeal of the Sorcery Act, which was finally repealed in June 2013. In interviews following the release of "Crying Mari," Sokhin wrote that he "wanted to help every woman that he met, but he was just a photographer."

Analysis:

This article does a really great job of letting people know the importance of getting awareness out about domestic violence, as well as giving publicity to this Kickstarter video that was produced by Sokhin. One thing that was really significant about this article was the personal story that was shared about Helen Alphons and her story about her leg being cut off by her husband in a drunken act of violence between the two of them. This was something that I'm glad the article included because it made the acts of violence more real to the people reading them. It brought to the light the fact that there is obvious gender inequality happening in PNG, along with many parts of the world, because of the high numbers of domestic violence. One might wonder how these two concepts are related: gender inequality and domestic violence. The issue is the fact that women are the majority of the people reporting acts of domestic violence, and are, therefore, the most affected by these horrible incidents. Because of the male-dominated society in which these events are occurring, women are the ones being harmed.


http://womennewsnetwork.net/2014/03/04/kickstarter-women-survival-papua/