“I was married to a man who was violent,” recalls Bioua Tokatiti. “Now I’m divorced from him. I don't want to live like that, the way he treated me. I want to advocate to stop violence against women and girls here in Kiribati.” Bioua is part of the Strengthening Peaceful Villages project in the capital of Tarawa. She supports community focal points in Betio to create pathways for referrals to end gender-based violence. Bioua teaches women how to avoid and even defuse violence in their community,
“We're missing a lot of data, so we’re strengthening that area,” says Ansiela Ioane. “We need to improve the recording of domestic violence cases. We prioritise those cases, our initial action is to explain their rights and help them get to safety.” Ansiela is the officer in command at Bairiki police station. She leads a team of 58 with just 3 women. The station has just two laptops to process data. The team that handles gender-based violence cases uses one of them in an effort to improve reporting, identify trends and accelerate processing of paperwork for court cases.
Ramaua Tebau works at the Kiribati Women and Children Support Centre. The centre offers counselling and legal services for survivors of domestic violence. It is a critical node in a network of support for survivors of gender based violence. Ramaua answers the phones and she says women are sometimes in distress. She stays calm and just helps them come in and get the support that they need to get to a safe place and access critical services like counseling.
Teretia Tokam, Executive Director Kiribati Women and Children Support Centre
“Domestic violence, gender-based violence is a big issue in Kiribati. It has to do with gender in equality and the acceptance of violence by women. Our communities are all patriarchal. It’s likely that men rule men are the main focus in society, and they make decisions, and so when men don’t respect women when men only think about themselves, that’s where the issue comes up because they they don’t recognize the value of women and they don’t they recognize the importance of women’s contribution to the community.”
“We focus on women who are survivors of gender based violence, and their children we provide counselling case management. When a woman gets beaten up, she’s been injured and needs the hospital, we accompany her to the hospital. If she needs support to get to the police to log complaints, we also provide that support to her. If she needs a protection order, we apply for the protection order before the police and before the court. We provide legal information and represent women in court.”
“There was nothing before the Kiribati Women and Children Support Centre. The only place where they could ask for help was the police. Most women were afraid they didn’t want to go and see the police or even go to the government ministries to get support. Only when cases were very serious that’s when people would go find support.”
Inspector Eribwebwe Takirua, Coordinator for Domestic Violence Child Protection and Sexual Offense Unit
“Most of the victims are female so when they talk to a male police officer, they may not be very comfortable, telling them all about their problems and issues,” says Eri. “Talking to a female, same gender can be more open, we can get more information and that can make a change. Sometimes it’s hard for police officers to handle cases of domestic violence because people believe that it’s a private issue and that police should not be involved.”“More women are aware of their rights and where the services are available. They know that domestic violence is a crime and they are aware of the places that can protect him from that violence.”
“There are a lot of women out there, in the rural areas and they don’t know that there are services available that can protect them from violence. In the rural areas, those police stations are far away, and they don’t have transportation. They cannot access a means of communication or transport to reach the police.We have special constables in every village where they can report to them. But the constables on the outer island some of them are not fully equipped because they didn’t go through the all of the training on handling cases of gender based violence.”
Taree Takinoa, Strengthening Peaceful Villages
“There were some youths who were drinking and being violent and making everyone uncomfortable and afraid,” recalls Taree. “I wanted to help. Through my involvement in this program I started to talk with them, and I started to involve them in the activities we were discussing power and how to control the power. We talk to them about violence and how to be in balance,
“I started to notice how they were changing themselves. It’s a change in myself that I try to practise every day in my life so myself and my kids are happy and respect each other.”My neighbour was drunk and he started shouting at people in my neighbourhood and he picked up a stone and it hit my other neighbours car and broke the mirror. The man that owned the car was mad and he started beating the young man.
“I ran with them, and then I said to people to ring the police. I went straight to the man and I knew he’s my neighbour, and he knows me and I held him back. He wasn't drunk so I will get him to stop because he knew me and he listened to me and he moved away.”
“It’s really important for community members to understand the role this was so important in helping the community. We are there, we are the first ones to see the incident on the spot and we can help. Everyone in the community needs to work as a team so that we can have peace in our communities. We can respond and not wait for something to happen. We have to prevent it before it happens.”
“Sometimes we ring the police and it takes so long we ring and ring and ring and sometimes they can’t come. It’s so important to have the community there. They see the things happening.”
Tematang Kamarie, Y-PEER
Tematang leads the peer-to-peer awareness program to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies in Kiribati. Through discreet and friendly, one-on-one chats, women like Tematong help girls in Kiribati avoid the stigma and barriers to access essential reproductive health supplies in a conservative cultural context where religious leaders condemn birth control.
Pauline Beiatau, Attorney General
“Cases that consist of circumstantial evidence, we find it difficult to prosecute. We don’t have in Kiribati, the police don’t have forensic evidence. In those cases we end up in acquittals. with the pathologies, we don’t have a cause of death, so it’s very difficult to prove a case without that which consists of circumstantial evidence where we don’t have any witnesses.”
“The lack of resources is a problem. We still don’t have those essential tools. We have had the same problems for the last 20 years. We have raised our voice to the police. What we do is prosecutors as we prosecute cases based on the evidence. It’s for the police to do the investigation for them to have the tools. Through the Police, powers, and duty act We are trying to oblige the police to get those tools. Sexual offenses are always the highest in Kiribati every year. We still need to do more work on it because we don’t have a database officer, a database officer would give us more ideas about the causes of these offenses.”
“Women are the victims of violence, they can understand better the suffering of the victims. Women can provide more justice, they can understand the law and they can understand the experience. They can merge those two things, and then the outcome will be better.”
Erimeta Barako is the leader of the women's congress of Kiribati. She also leads AMAK, which is part of the women’s resilience to disasters network. Her office is filled with old sewing machines that she restores and hosts training for women on how to set up businesses. Erimeta works to empower women. She has been a feminist activist for equality for the last 30 years. Erimeta has a dragon tattoo on her hand, and when asked about her family, she said that she never wanted to get married because she didn’t want to become a man’s property.
Sister Kateia Teanako, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Crisis Center
“It’s a short term shelter that we run for women and girls who need shelter from the problems that they face at home like domestic violence.”“We’ve been challenged knowing that people are suffering at home. Some run away to relatives, but when there are children, they don’t get support from the relatives. We have a shelter, and many women have gone there since we started.”
“Sometimes it’s sudden the fight happens and they have to run away and they have nothing when they come here. Some of them have black eyes or they’ve been traumatised by the physical fights. When they arrived they are hungry. The children are hungry. They need a shower and a bath. They arrived , sometime late in the night, at 1 or 2 am.”
“The sisters welcome them and give them change whatever they have from the parish from families they give them change your clothes, shorts and pants for the kids. The sisters believe in giving compassion and caring for these people who are hurt and traumatised.“Sometimes the women want to share with the sisters. The sisters listen to them with compassionate care. That is what we believe in giving compassion to those who need it.”
Esther Tamoa Nabuti is a counsellor for survivors of gender-based violence at the Kiribati Women and Children Crisis Support Centre in Tarawa. “We have to help them in counselling,” she says, “Especially women who feel down or suffer abuse from their intimate partner.” Esther helps survivors with psychological support and connects them with police to organise a safety order. “At first I felt nervous dealing with survivors of violence, but now I feel confident,” she says. “Everyday women come with violent stories and we have had training so we can help them. The training helps us cope with the intensity of this work.”
Tuuta Nakibae, Strengthening Peaceful Villages
“The program had a huge impact on my life. The training and just being part of the program has changed the way that I see things in the way that I talk about them.
Strengthening Peaceful Villages has changed my life. I can see that I am more respectful with people and more positive. I can respond now to other people when they have issues and something happens. It's not good to go and talk with them.”
Tetiro Semilota, Chief Justice
“The major barrier is culture where family issues like violence in the family could not be told outside the family. These are considered taboo matters as it will bring shame and embarrassment to the family.”
“One of the main causes is the lack of confidence that one has in order to open up. The lack of support to women victims and their children in terms of legal fees, homes, school expenses etc. if support is provided, they will have confidence to report the violence against them.”
“Most women, especially the unemployed, could not report the violence as they fear losing the financial support that they normally receive for themselves and their children. Justice could not be afforded to them if there is no report of the violence. We need to change the mindset of our people. This is not easy and a lot of work needs to be done. Women should be empowered spiritually and mentally to be able to realise their importance in life.
“At the same time, women should also value the importance of men in their lives, their homes and their communities and to compromise each other for a stable and peaceful home. The best solution is to support women who are victims and their children financially in EVERYTHING until they are able to stand on their own feet. Women must be trained to be independent by finding paid jobs and setting up small businesses. If the government can give them this financial assistance, then women will have the confidence to report domestic violence to the police and the court.”
Tarota Bwebwetara, Senior gender-based violence, prevention officer, MWYSA
Tarota leads the national prevention program for gender based violence. She coordinates dozens of partners to deliver trainings at the community level in Tarawa and in the outer islands, her ”s work with communities, for women’s empowerment and education about rights, but also with men’s involvement in gender, based violence, prevention mechanisms, Tarota has been at the center of efforts to build better pathways to justice for women and girls in Kiribati.
Esther leads the Kiribati Red Cross society. The Red Cross model of building capacity in communities through youth networks is helping strengthen community-based activities and projects that are driven by the communities requests. Gender-based violence is often top of the list of what the community is concerned about before a disaster hits. Esther‘s work builds strengthen those networks the prevention of gender- based violence, but also the awareness about disaster, preparedness and vulnerabilities, risk assessment
Rooti Ioeru, Police officer
“Most of my family were police officers,” says Rooti. “They were always telling stories about what happened at work. Gender-based violence is a big problem here in Kiribati. It's considered a tradition that women should listen to their husbands. We’re having workshops now. I’m getting an idea of how to deal with cases of gender-based violence. We have a book that deals with the laws regarding how to deal with survivors or other community organisations to teach us how to deal with these cases.”
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