Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Noumea, New Caledonia, Friday, 5 March 2010 – On the occasion of International Women’s Day (8 March), the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) is encouraging governments and development agencies to incorporate the need for household and family level equality between women and men into policies and programmes in the Pacific region.

A new advocacy brief entitled Transforming Power Relations: Equal Status of Women and Men at the Family Level in the Pacific is designed to raise awareness of an often under-addressed sphere of power dynamics between women and men. It ties into the broader theme of this year’s International Women’s Day celebration: Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.  

The brief is based on a range of existing research and illustrates the extent of household and family level inequality between men and women and the adverse impact such inequality has on all other spheres of women’s lives. It also looks at the links between violence against women in the home and women’s ability to make important decisions including about their own health care, household finances and social life. It provides policy recommendations for lawmakers, the health sector, educators, land authorities, customary bodies, religious institutions and the media. These are based on international commitments to gender equality such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action.

Under CEDAW, countries are obliged to take measures to change social and cultural conduct and practices that are based on notions of the superiority or inferiority of either sex. This recognises that such notions directly contribute not only to human rights abuses but also to poor overall development outcomes.