Aspiring women leaders told to do more in Solomon Islands

Transcript

A local female politician in Solomon Islands says women need take a greater role in their community if they are to stand a chance in the male dominated politics of Melanesia.

Joselyn Ipei who is a provincial member in Temotu secured her seat with an historic landslide victory.

Speaking at a recent workshop on the issue of female representation in parliament Joselyn says she puts her success down to the fact that she has been working since high school to help people in her community.

Koroi Hawkins has more

Only one MP in Solomon Islands' 50-member parliament is a woman and she is just one of three ever elected in the 37 years since independence.  The Registrar of the Political Parties Commission Calvin Ziru says women are receiving more moral and vocal support from the public during the campaign period but this breaks down at the polls.

CALVIN ZIRU:  This conference really about trying to understand the disconnect between the support for the idea of women in parliament and versus the voting and the casting of ballot papers in favour of women for female candidates and so we want to be able to understand why is that so under Solomon Islands.

Women from all over Solomon Islands attended the conference, many of whom had tried unsuccessfully for public office.  But one of them Joselyn Ipei had managed to secure a historic landslide victory in Provincial elections for Temotu.  She says the secret to her success is that she has been working to help people in her community since her secondary school days.

JOSELYN IPEI:  I believe that for us leaders or for us women to win elections to get attention from those people, we have to come down to their level. We have to be with them, we have to experience their problems their issues, the underlying issues. So that we can have some very strong and profound solutions to what those people need.

Also attending the conference were influential women from around the region including Fijian MP Salote Radrodro, the Assistant Attorney General of Samoa Loretta Teuli and Bougainville MP Francesca Semoso.  Ms Semoso, a former deputy speaker who had won in the inaugural Bougainville election in 2005, has just regained the seat after standing unsuccessfully in an open seat in 2010.  She remains an advocate of reserve seats for women, as a temporary measure.

FRANCESCA SEMOSO:  Women are needed on the floor of parliament, in that important decision making circle because that is where the laws are made that is where decisions are made that benefits people of any nation. And most importantly what has been lacking and what has been missing terribly on the floor of parliament around Melanesia around the Pacific is women representation that is needed.

Of 190 countries surveyed by the inter-parliamentary union last month, five of the ten countries with the worst record of women's participation in parliament are in the Pacific.  Four of them are ranked lower than Solomon Islands.