Tongan women may get right to register husband's land

Tongan women need protection - Siosaia Fatani
I gladly hereby am willing to offer my support tor Ms. 'Akanete Lauti and Ms. Imrama Jalal for their statements so eloquently expressed by them during a recent Workshop on Human Rights in Tonga. These statements are (i) 'Akanete Lauti said, “…….human rights provisions should be included to ensure people rights are protected…….”; and (ii) Imrama Jalal said, ” If people were to demand accountability from those in power, or insist on participating in governing its country, having an expanded Bill of Rights would allow people to do that.” In regards to these two statements, I would like to hereby present some past and present observations in Tonga to support what these two women are trying to advocate to the Tongans.

In regards to 'Akanete Lauti's statement, I too honestly believe that some of our human rights need to be “protected.” For instance, there are still discrimination and abuses of women in Tonga. They are still under-represented in Parliament, not holding too many leadership positions, and unable to hold and/or entitled to nobility and real properties. With respect to our culture and its implications, women do not have too much of a choice in decision making in family affairs. Also, women are still subjected to physical, sexual, and verbal abuses. These crimes are rarely reported to police. But if they are reported to police and prosecuted, the punishments usually are not severe enough to deter their repetitions. Therefore, 'Akanete Lauti is absolutely right when she said, “….human rights provisions should be included to ensure people rights are protected…….” I assume that there already are laws to protect the women from these said crimes, but I think that more provisions are needed for their strict enforcements to make them functional and more realistic.

And with regards to Imrana Jalal's statement, I again honestly believe that we the governed are really the Government and we therefore have a right to legislate the laws that do govern us. As Imrana Jalal said, “If people were to demand accountability from those in power, or insist on participating in governing its country, having an expanded Bill of Rights would allow people to do that.” Imrana Jalal is probably alluding here to the unjust distribution of power and unfair representation in the Parliament of Tonga. As most Tongans are well aware of, they practically have no voice in their Parliament. They have only nine representatives and the Ministers of the Crown and the Nobles collectively have 21 members. So anybody in his right mind would undoubtedly know that such an unfair distribution of power in the House would definitely impede passage of beneficial laws for the common good of the people. Therefore, I strongly am supporting some Constitutional Amendments to fairly distribute the power in the House to facilitate passage of good laws to do some good for the people.

In regards to 'Akanete Lauti's statement again, I want to bring up another human right that needs some attention. This special human right is the rights of the Disabled. These Disabled consist of the moderately and severely mental and physical handicapped adults and children in Tonga. I know that Tonga currently have some programs for these helpless people but it needs to do more. We must always remember that these people do have the same divine and constitutional rights as every other Tongans. They simply were born like that; they weren't as lucky as you and me. As I have observed, these helpless people are rarely or not provided with appropriate and beneficial special education to gain some kind of independence. They don't have too much accessible facilities for them in public premises. They don't have enough proper equipments; eg, wheelchairs, standers, and walkers. They aslo are not provided with sufficient and proper medical and dental care, theraputic services, nutritional, hygiene, and recreational.

I know that the above examples of human rights violations are common to all the countries of the world, but this is not an excuse to evade these problems.

Yours sincerely,

Siosaia Fatani - San Francisco, USA