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In this special Women in Politics series for the Australia-PNG Network, the Lowy Institute's Jessica Collins sits down with prominent women from Papua New Guinea to discuss the deep-seated challenge of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea in the lead-up to its national election.
8 April 2022
Theresa Meki
In this special Women in Politics series for the Australia-PNG Network, the Lowy Institute's Jessica Collins sits down with prominent women from Papua New Guinea discuss the deep-seated challenge of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea in the lead-up to its national election.
In this first episode, Jessica speaks with Theresa Meki – an expert in Papua New Guinean women’s political representation – about the experience for women trying to enter politics in the country, where no women are currently serving in the national parliament. They discuss the realities and challenges of campaigning, including how vote-buying and clientelism, traditional obligations, reciprocity, patriarchalism and legacy candidates contribute to the uneven playing field for female candidates.
Theresa tells Jessica there have been years wasted in between elections to work on the problem. “We only talk about women when it's election time … And I think that's the issue. There was a whole five years that more things could have been done.”
Join Jessica and Theresa as they take you through these issues and present ideas on how to change the nature of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea.
Featuring
Jessica Collins
Dr Jessica Collins was Project Director of the Australia-PNG Network and a Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute.
