Helen Michael lives with her husband and eight children in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. The family live in a makeshift settlement where there is no running water or electricity. Their tiny one-room house is made of tin sheets and has a dirt floor.
Helen’s life changed forever in 2011 when in a random, violent attack she had her bottom lip bitten off by a male assailant. Her husband heard her screams and helped her fight off her attacker. They got him to the police station, but he was released without charge a few days later.
“I asked the police what has happened to this man and they policeman said there was not good enough evidence so they released [him]. So I just stood in front of the station and I cried,” she says.
Helen could not afford surgery to repair her injured face so every day she would wear a large bandaid on her mouth. It would sit across the hole where her bottom lip once concealed her lower teeth. That was until October 2013 when, with support from ChildFund PNG and Interplast Australia and New Zealand, she underwent plastic surgery to reconstruct her lip.
Despite her horrific attack Helen has not been silenced. “I don`t want violence against women today,” says Helen. “I want these women who are experiencing this violence to come out, and we can join our hands and we can fight for our women’s rights.”
Helen is now a well-known advocate for women right`s in PNG. In November 2014 she even spoke at PNG`s Parliament House against gender-based violence (pictured above).
Following the launch of the Stop Violence Against Women and Children in Papua New Guinea report last year, ChildFund Australia has continued to support advocacy efforts on the issue of family and sexual violence in PNG, and secured funding to implement a range of programs to prevent violence and support survivors. On 2 December 2014, ChildFund hosted an event at Parliament House in Canberra to encourage further effort, collaboration and investment in initiatives to respond to this issue. ChildFund invited a number of people to speak, including Philma Kelegai from The Leniata Legacy. Her powerful speech moved and inspired us, and we wanted to share it with you in this blog post. Philma’s speech was preceded by a video, produced by human rights photographer and author of Crying Meri, Vlad Sokhin.
On 6 February 2013, Kepari Leniata was stripped naked, brutally tortured, mutilated and burnt alive in a public place, witnessed by an entire village. A wife and mother of two, her hands and feet tied to planks. She was carried unconscious by a mob to a pile of tyres, she was dowsed in kerosene, thrown onto the tyres and burnt alive.
She was only 20.
The chilling story of Leniata’s ordeal sent shockwaves around the world. I opened up the Post-Courier around that time and the front page screamed into my soul. I could not fathom that such a level of brutality was possible in this century, innocent lives destroyed. Little did I know this was not an isolated incident.
Immediately following Kepari’s brutal killing, it was reported that a nurse in Lae was gang-raped in her own home, then a five-year-old was gang-raped in Port Moresby. This was unacceptable. I decided then that it was no longer ok for me to just exist. Enough was enough. People, young and old, were compelled into action.
Together with other centres in PNG and around the world, we organised a Haus Krai. The Haus Krai is a traditional period of mourning for a life lost. We not only mourn that life, we also mourn for the potential and the possibilities that life represented. We were in mourning for the many lives that were lost from such circumstances, including Kepari’s.
We marched through the streets of Brisbane, through Port Moresby, through Washington DC, through Lae and many other centres all around the world as a united voice against this horror.
Cassaundra Rangip, Mona Endehipa and myself, as young women, realised the urgent need to seriously address gender-based violence in PNG. We formed The Leniata Legacy.
The Leniata Legacy is an international non-profit organisation that operates cross-jurisdictionally between Australia and Papua New Guinea, primarily for the emergent cause of gender-based violence in PNG. Conservative research has found that two in three women in Papua New Guinea are survivors of some form of violence whilst 59 per cent are survivors of rape.
The Leniata Legacy is unique in that it is formed, founded and managed by Papua New Guinean women, in both Papua New Guinea and Australia. The Leniata Legacy is the epitome of empowerment. To invest in the Leniata Legacy is to invest directly into Papua New Guinea. Our vision is the ERADICATION of gender inequality and gender-based violence in PNG.
We recognise the complexities of PNG’s socio-economic and law and order challenges, as well as our cultural setbacks, however, we believe this vision can be achieved.
