Women in the countries of the Pacific still have a long way to go in achieving participation of women in decision making at the highest level, while other developing countries are already ahead in this regard, participants at the opening of the first conference of Tonga's university women heard this morning.

'Maximising Opportunities and Overcoming Challenges for Women and Girls' is the theme of the two-day conference of the Association of Tongan University Women (ATUW) being held from 18-19 September at the Janful International Dateline Hotel.

Dr Shirley Randall, Vice- President of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) travelled from Rwanda in Central East Africa to attend the conference. An Australian, she has also worked as a consultant to several countries in the Pacific in the areas of local body and political reforms.

"I have worked in the Pacific and there is still a very long way to go in the countries of the Pacific for the participation of women in decision making," she said.

"Rwanda has just had elections and now 55% of the politicians are women. It is a wonderful example that shows that you don't have to be a developed country to have women in parliament. Where there's 'Political Will' it can happen."

She said that a high level of women's representation was achieved through a 30 per cent quota for women in parliament required under the Rwanda constitution.

"Now we have legislation protecting children and domestic violence legislation that is the best in the world and important inheritance legislation in place. It makes such a difference to have women and men's ideas in decision making at this level," she said.

Higher education

In his opening address the Acting Prime Minister Lord Tuita noted that many of the women in the ATUW were pioneers in their respective fields in Tonga.

He said that women played critical roles in addressing the many challenges that confront our society and, "I hope this conference will encourage young women to follow paths of university education ... where higher knowledge allows them to take up positions of responsibility in society."

Educating girls

The keynote speaker Prof. Konai Helu Thaman, from the University of the South Pacific, said that in many Pacific families for women it is important to have the blessing of the male member or father.

"I am grateful that many families have educated their girls," she said. "How important education is, because it links to everything, to improved life expectancy, to health and to a better life for mothers and children."

But she noted that school-leaving girls tended to choose the roles their mothers and grandmothers chose, and that we might want to encourage girls to go into non-traditional areas, reciting her poem, "... So come with me sister, take the break, we cannot all go back to the land."

Highest level

Prof. Thaman noted that although there were a lot of Pacific women in informal politics, "but in formal politics I want women to take part in decision making at the highest level."

She believed there are still a lot of barriers and the most difficult were attitudes and perceptions. "We can't legislate for changes in attitudes and perceptions, you can only educate for those and you begin in the womb and it's a long term process to change the attitudes of men.

"Sometimes we are our own worst enemies because we don't support our women in their attempts to enter parliament.

"We need to look at how we are bringing up our boys; how we relate to our husbands because our children mimic us. We have to start with ourselves as mothers and teachers and need to look at what we are doing. We need to redefine and to interrogate the meaning of equality in our own languages."

Prof. Thaman said she believed that as Pacific women we need to re-imagine ourselves and our work, and to redevelop the models and benchmarks because these had been set by men.

"The way we look at women's issues we need to come up with our own frameworks and guiding principals and use those," she said.

Prof. Thaman, a Tongan, currently holds the UNESCO chair for Teacher Education and Culture.

The ATUW conference will be followed by the council meeting of the Pacific Graduate Women Network (PGWNET) on Friday September 19.