Tonga's rural communities challenged by declining remittances [1]
Saturday, March 3, 2012 - 21:00. Updated on Monday, September 9, 2013 - 18:40.
There is continuing hardship facing rural and outer island communities in Tonga, at a time when declining foreign remittances have reduced household incomes, a United Nations Commission the Status of Women, heard yesterday March 2.
Tonga's "National Statement" to the 56th Session of the Commission, said that Tonga is highly dependent on foreign remittances, and the decline of these, predominantly from the USA, "has reduced household incomes significantly, thus exacerbating the challenges of rural and outer island households".
The statement prepared by the Minister of Education, Women's Affairs and Culture, was delivered to the Commission by Polotu Fakafanua-Paunga.
In the statement the Minister said that the Tonga government has plans, "to introduce a social protection scheme, to mitigate increased hardships among the more vulnerable members of society."
This would come under the framework of a newly developed medium term national development plan for 2011-14, which included nine priority areas, including the better formulation and implementation of outer island and rural development programmes through local communities.
It was noted that rural women in Tonga "perform multiple roles as household and subsistence managers, income earners, and as active members of churches and community development groups.
"Their contribution to agriculture is in the form of unpaid work, and mainly to produce food for household consumption, therefore it is not captured by official statistics, because of its informal nature.
"In 2008, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Forests, and Fisheries created a division called 'Food, Women, and Youth Community Development', to support the development of women in their communities, notably through agricultural activities such as vegetable gardens."
The government believed that the new Tonga Strategic Development Framework, "will put Tonga on a firm path to improving its ability to meaningfully achieve the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and in the MDG Goal 1 and Goal 3 areas of Human Development ."
The Minister stated that the government had made several policy changes and legislative reforms relating to women’s rights, including:
- the Public Service Commission instituted a new policy to extend paid maternity leave from 1 month to 3 months for public servants (1 week is granted for paternity leave);
- in November 2011, Government approved to draft of a Bill on Legislation on Violence Against Women and Children, to be tabled in the 2012 Parliamentary Session;
- in December 2011, Government approved to conduct nationwide consultations to reach a consensus as a way forward to consider the ratification of CEDAW;
- in February 2012, the conduct of the first national joint Government – CSO / NGO consultation for Tonga’s reporting in October 2012, on the Universal Periodic Review;
- the Tonga National Study on Domestic Violence Against Women and a Community Radio for Rural Women, to be launched on 7 March 2012, as part of the national activities to mark International Women’s Day.
The statement said that, "Tonga continues to be supportive in many UN debates concerning the empowerment of women."