PACIFIC – In celebration of International Women’s Day this week, women around the Pacific region have gathered together to stand up for change.

The global theme of Be Bold For Change prompted many women advocates in the Pacific to heed the message by calling on their respective governments to push for more inclusivity and gender equality for women in all sectors.

In Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila more than 200 women took part in a march calling on the government to make International Women’s Day a public holiday to celebrate women.

Jenny Ligo lead the committee who organised the march said they were particularly calling on the government to support the inclusion of more women in parliament.

“This morning, we marched through the city and we shouted, ‘Be bold for change! Go! Go! Go!’ We want to show, to let people know that women have to continue to stand strong and that we have achieved a lot of things and there are a lot of things yet to achieve.”

The call was echoed throughout the Pacific region, whose countries hold some of the lowest levels of representation for women in parliament around the world.

In Tonga women gathered to draft a “roadmap” to help increase women’s representation in parliament.

Women’s advocate ‘Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki says the roadmap will be presented to the prime minister’s office on Friday.

“At the last general election in 2014, although we had the largest number of women female candidates standing, no women got in.

“Fortunately enough in the by-election that we held last year, we now have one woman in parliament from Vava‘u.

“But again, in saying that, we feel like we’re going to continue with the same pattern if we don’t do any particular measures to increase the representation in parliament.”

Women across the Pacifc also called for change in other areas such as gender based violence and equality in land rights.

In many parts of the pacific, only males are entitled to own land. And the region has some of the world’s highest rates of violence against women and girls.

Nicolas Burniat, the deputy representative at the Pacific office for UN Women, says the Pacific is a very difficult place to be a woman.

“Women of the Pacific are strong, they carry their countries and their islands on their shoulders but it’s still a very hard place to be a woman from the fact that the region has some of the highest rates of violence against women in the world.

“They have some of the lowest levels of representation in parliament for women in the world.

“And of course, women are much less likely to be formally employed by men.”

Tonga’s Guttenbeil-Likiliki says policy alone is not enough to affect change. She believes change needs to start in the classroom and in local community groups, helping to change the mindsets of the next generation.

“We need to have stories and textbooks that children read that promote gender equality which if they’re not experiencing it at home, at least they’re learning about it in the classroom.

“At different levels, at different stages of children’s development and young peoples’ development, we can start influencing and changing attitudes.”

Burniat says it’s important for Pacific governments to recognise the valuable contributions made by women to their economies.

“You know about 75 per cent across the region of market vendors are women. They make a massive contribution to the economy of the region.

“Whether it’s because they pay their market fee, that really is one of the main sources of income for municipal councils where you have market, but they feed the population – food security.

“Their contribution is valuable. And often these women market vendors are actually the only bread earners of their family when they come from remote communities.”

In 2012 leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum made a declaration to focus on gender equality and to help lift the status of women in the Pacific.

Burniat says that while there has been slow progress since the declaration, there is still a long way to go. - RNZI