ncdc

City Sivarai

NCDC: City commits to global gender equality campaign

Parts of the city came to a standstill in March when thousands of residents joined NCD Governor Powes Parkop, his deputy Dadi Toka Jnr and United Nations Deputy Secretary General Amina Jane Mohammed, including others, to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8.

They made a commitment as a city and the country to promote gender equality and end violence against women and girls. Speaking during a stop-over at Hohola Burns Peak during the walk, NCD Governor Powes Parkop urged male city residents and other citizens nationwide to subscribe to high values so they respect women and girls as equal partners and stop inflicting gender-based violence and other forms of violence on them.

He said these values underpinned development. “The 2019 Human Develoment Index rates PNG as being 155 of 188. We are failing on all fronts including achieving gender equality and reducing or eliminating gender based violence,” said the Governor. They cannot get any better until men folks respect women and girls as equal partners and not second-class citizens, he continued. “We have lost our way. We have lost what is important.

It is not just bridges, schools, hospitals, and other developments that will give us a better future, it is what’s guiding all these infrastructure and services. Today, we must start to get our nation to see what is important. Promoting gender equality and respecting women and girls is what is important to secure a greater future,” he said.

He continued that out of respect, every day women and girls do everything for men and boys so it is about time they would reciprocate the treatment to the former. Women and girls, he said, were living in fear in homes, schools, offices and on the streets, urging it was time for men folk to stop it.