By Loretta B Manele
Today, Solomon Islands women continue to be underrepresented in decision-making roles.
Freda Tuki, minister for Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs (MWYCFA) stressed on this whilst speaking at the first day of the International Women’s Day program at the National Museum Auditorium yesterday.
She said since 1978, only eight women have been elected to parliament and only 17 women have been elected to provincial assemblies since 1981.
Tuki stated that women’s voices are also missing from many decision-making boards and commissions and only 7% of women hold senior management roles like CEOs.
She added that only 23% of women are business owners with most of them being in entertainment and catering sectors.
Tuki mentioned that these issues are not just at the local level but also on the global level.
Moreover, she said the biggest barrier to women’s economic empowerment is their over-representation in unpaid care and domestic care.
“In the Solomon Islands, women work nine hours more than men on unpaid care work.”
She highlighted that Solomon Islands women have proven and played vital roles as peace builders and contributors to peace-building and conflict resolution, however are often unrecognized.
“The changing landscape of how women and girls experience peace and security, particularly in the context of increasing global shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, online harms and climate-induced conflicts disproportionately affect women.
In times of crisis, women, especially those in rural areas, take on additional burdens, including caregiving, managing sanitation and food security and helping their families cope with health challenges, including mental health.”
She emphasized that despite these challenges, women’s resilience and ability to adapt must be acknowledged and supported.
Tuki said to move forward, we need to change the way we have been doing things and that is to now act quickly and focus on making real, meaningful changes.
“We must commit or reaffirm our commitments to accelerate action through supporting policies that give women more opportunities to lead and make decisions, adopt affirmative actions to address the historic barriers women face in decision-making roles, including in earning, accessing and benefiting from natural resources.”
Tuki highlighted that in our homes, workplaces and communities, we can also accelerate action by speaking out against violence and harassment.
She also took the opportunity to thank both past and present governments for taking important steps to promote gender equality.
“Some of our key achievements include rectifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2023 and launching a related policy, conducting the Equality Insights Rabbit Study in 2022 to better understand poverty and inequality, expanding services for victims of gender-based violence to the provinces, the Solomon Islands government being one of the only governments to have both a Women’s Economic Empowerment National Action Plan and a National Women’s Financial Inclusion Strategy in place, and the development of more sectoral policies that support gender equality.”
Whilst officially opening the 3-day program, she announced the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy 2025-2030.
“I have the honour of announcing, on behalf of the Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs, the passage of the Ministry of Public Service, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy 2025-2030.”
Tuki furthered that this is a testament to the vision of the government to ensure the principle of non-discrimination, equal treatment and opportunities are practiced for the well-being of women, men and persons with disabilities employed in the public service and essentially a catalyst for people-centred development and gender mainstreaming across the public sector.
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