New Tongan women for the 21st Century [1]
Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 12:00. Updated on Monday, February 8, 2016 - 10:57.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 15, no. 4, January 2001.
By Pesi Fonua
There was no looking back for Betty Blake after she accepted a challenge to help the women and children in Tonga who were being treated badly.
An experienced and mature educator, Betty was inspired after attending a church lecture on “The Women of 2000”, and she decided to attend an overseas course to learn more about women’s issues. That was four years ago and ever since then she has been holding workshops on women’s rights throughout the Tongan islands.
Betty is one of Tonga’s women’s rights activists who are confidently working toward turning their dreams of gender equality into reality by educating women about their rights, hosting legal seminars, publishing booklets, and offering legal advice to women who are in need.
The two most active organisations pressing for Tongan women’s rights are the Catholic Women’s League, with its president Betty Blake, and the Women in Law Association, headed by Teimumu Tapueluelu.
Betty, who has been working extensively with women in the villages throughout Tonga since 1996, is one hundred per cent sure that the first step for women to gain equality is for women to know their rights. She said that a questionnaire she distributed in 1996, before her first workshop on women’s rights in 1997, showed that women knew very little about their rights.
“In the questionnaire we urged women to tell us about their real problems at home. If they were beaten and what did they do about it?”
Betty said that the answers were very revealing. “About 95 per cent of the women who filled the questionnaire did not know their rights. They assumed that once they were married their husband owned everything they had, and therefore they had to be obedient, “and it is alright if he beats me because I am his wife.’”
And why was she beaten? “Because when he returned from work the meal was not ready, and his wife was at the neighbor talking.”
Betty said that most of the women she was dealing with had been conditioned to think this way and it was very difficult for them to break out of it and to know their rights, “For example, if a husband rapes his wife, the women argued that it was not a force then it was a rape. We debated and discussed over and over before they accepted that it was a rape, and therefore should be punished according to the law. But some still argued that “because I am his wife therefore he has the right.’ Some even said ‘you know he has already licensed me’, but when I explained, and it is clear, that marriage is a legal mutual agreement, then they all laughed. I said, remember you are not a truck or a car to be licensed for his privilege of embarking and disembarking. They all laughed.”
Poorly educated
Betty said that a majority of the people that she was dealing with were considered to be grassroots level.
The highest level of education that we have found in this group is Class 6 (primary school level, about 10-11). Of all the women we met during our seminars and workshop, I remember only one who was a school teacher, the rest were just staying at home.”
Betty believed that a high percentage of Tongan women did not know their rights. “Most definitely a majority do not know their rights. Even some people in our church disagreed, and did not think it was right for us to talk about women’s rights. I think the word ‘rights’, or ‘totonu’ was too harsh for their ears, to think that women were out seeking their rights!”
Betty said that after their first workshop in February 1997 and a second workshop in May, followed by a petition which they presented to parliament they still could hear some angry remarks from some of their church members, “We were not angry because we realized there is still a lot of misunderstanding of what we are trying to do, to make them complete women, and to stress that they have status and pride.
“We will deal with wife beating and desertion and all the other problems later. At the beginning it was difficult, but toward the end they came out saying thank you for the program, now we know we have a voice and rights.”
There are a number of long standing women’s groups, such as the Langa Fonua ‘a Fefine Tonga, which have the objective of advancing the life of Tongan women. But at the grass-roots level in the villages, where a majority of Tongan women belong, the Catholic Women’s League is tackling head-on the problems with regards to the rights of women for equal job opportunities, and changing their attitudes to be able to live a normal life in today’s world. Betty believed that other women’s groups would tackle the same problems in other sectors of the society.
Before Betty devoted her time to the teaching of Tongan women about their rights, she was working with the Ministry of Education as an inspector of schools. She was also running an educational program for women, was a member of the Catholic Women League, and had always been interested in women’s issues. Then in 1995 during the AGM of the Catholic Women’s League, she received her call when key-note speaker, Sister Dr Katyann Kanongata‘a, challenged them to reach out and help the women of Tonga.
Eye opener
“It was an eye opener for me. The title of her speech was, “The Women of the Year 2000”. She challenged the women of the church on what they were going to help the women of Tonga who were left by their husbands, and being treated badly. What were we doing for the children of this country–young girls who were pregnant, very young, they were abused by men and things like that.
“Dr Kanongata‘a found in her study that Tongan women were no different from women in other islands in the Pacific, they were still living in fear. They were still in their mother’s womb, they were still relying heavily on their mothers., they were not strong enough to be on their own and to deal with problems confronting them, in another word they had not grown into a complete woman. If we were complete women, being able to come out and to make decisions, we should have been able to minimize the problems that are faced by women and young girls today. Dr Kanongata‘a asked “If you are Christian women what have you done to solve these problems?”
Betty said she was highly inspired by the speech, and wanted to reach out and help Tongan women. What follows led Betty into a completely new world. She went on a course overseas and within two days the organizer of the course asked her to come back and run a workshop on women’s rights in Tonga. “This was in December (1996) but by March they put another proposal for me to run a program in Tonga, and I said yes. Then I thought it would be better to open it up for women from other churches, an idea that was strongly supported by the Bishop Soane Lilo Foliaki. I then resigned from the Ministry of Education.”
There was no looking back for Betty and ever since then she has been holding workshops on women’s rights throughout the Tongan islands and she has published and distributed literature on topics such as Custody and Access, Domestic Violence, Divorce, Separation, Matrimonial Property, Affiliation and Child Maintenance and Marriage.
A milestone of the work of the Catholic Women’s League was the opening of the Center for Women and Children on 20 October, 2000. The centre is a Ministry of the Catholic Women’s League available for everyone in need to use, and it is jointly run by the CWL and an Advisory Board which is made up of women from other women’s organisations and from government. The Patron is HRH Princess Nanansipau‘u.
Betty said that the centre offered a counseling service, and children were included. They were recognizing an increasing number of social problems involving children, particularly incest, a crime that was traditionally referred to as Hia fakamala‘ia, (a curse). Unfortunately, in the 21st century such old beliefs were no longer deterring incest, and Betty feared that it was on the rise. “We are dealing with a case right now, which is a repeat of what his father did to his own daughter,” she said.