The 20 days Human Rights Activism campaign will come to its conclusion today with the commemoration of Human Rights Day.
Members of the new Parliamentary Committee on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) commended the Government for awarding 13 NGOs financial grants that will enable them to do more work to address gender-based violence (GBV) across the country. The committee has also called for more government action.
GEWE chair and Governor for NCD Powes Parkop is pleased to see the Government making good on its promises to take more action to address GBV and sorcery accusation related violence as an immediate priority. He added that previous GBV Parliamentary Committee used their reports to Parliament to call for more Government funding for NGO prevention and crisis-response services.
“The 2023 National Budget has now been tabled in Parliament and I am very pleased that it again includes funding to address GBV and SARV through Government grants. I now want to the Department for Community Development and Religion immediately progress the establishment of the National GBV Secretariat – something that is more than five years overdue!” the governor added.
He said that they need to recruit highly qualified GBV experts into the Secretariat who will be able to effectively drive efforts across the country to work with provincial governments and NGOs to tackle the scourge of violence that is damaging PNG.
Governor Parkop said it is anticipated that another round of grants will be made available in 2023, subject to funding being released by Treasury. The new Parliamentary Committee on GEWE intends to keep a close watch over DFCDR’s administration of the GBV funding provided from the Government Budget.