WaterAid
Tackling Family and Gender Based Violence in Papua New Guinea
Prevalent but preventable - Family and Domestic Violence Family violence isn’t inevitable, yet it’s a common reality across the world. As part of our approach to Equality and Inclusion, WaterAid has taken a strong focus on preventing and responding to family and gender-based violence for our staff and partners, and in our programming. As well as our work with ESCOW, WaterAid Papua New Guinea (PNG) co-Country Director Jenny Mori (pictured) has been leading the way in responding and preventing family violence for our staff, partners, and the broader community. Jenny led the development and implementation of a Family Violence Policy and Procedure for WaterAid PNG, ensuring victims/survivors of
violence are supported in their workplace, their safety prioritised and connected with services. The team undertook training with the PNG ChildFund team, who manage the national family violence Tok Counselling hotline. Another innovative approach from Jenny was to team up with another organisation to create a Meri (women’s) text chat group, so women are connected and can share safety and security information, context updates and essential resources. This group has been a practical way to increase awareness of services and is an important part of changing the negative social norms that stop survivors getting support.
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