Leentje Kilipi, Papua New Guinea, works in a variety of areas focussed on the advancement of women’s rights, including education for young girls. She is a 2011 Coady diploma program participant. (Corey LeBlanc photo)

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Although she knows the challenges are many, Leentje Kilipi cannot help but smile when she talks about her home.
She describes the beauty of each province in Papua New Guinea – both scenic and cultural. With more than 850 languages, her paradise continues to honour myriad long-held traditions.
Modernization is reserved to the larger towns and cities. People continue to live in their traditional houses, she added.
Nevertheless, her affection does not come unconditionally.
“I love my country, but as women we are so thoroughly dominated by the men in our society,” she said.
“It is simple things. If a woman wants to buy a mobile phone, she has to have the permission of a man,” Kilipi added.
With that oppression comes alarmingly high levels of domestic violence.
Because of the size of the country, Kilipi said the justice system is not effective. Most areas use village courts, which are governed by magistrates.
“They have no formal training. The decisions they make are based more on customs and traditions,” she said.
Kilipi works with women to make sure they have access to services such as the district courts – the more formal court system in Papua New Guinea.
She added the challenges are many because the law is “not on the side of the women.”
Kilipi also focuses her work on helping young girls get an education.
“If you have a son and a daughter, and it comes to paying the [school] fees and they can only send one, they prefer to send the son,” she said.
Another challenge is the low literacy rates, with more than 85 percent of the population having no formal education.
“It takes one step at a time to get a lot of these things done,” she added.
She not only works with survivors of domestic violence, but also sorcery.
“They are the most vulnerable group in the community.
“If you are suspected of practicing witchcraft, when the next person dies – whether it is from a heart attack or car accident – they will come for you and they will torture you. They will cut off your limbs.
“They will do the grossest abuses of human rights,” Kilipi added.
She said it is a wonder how any of these women even survive.
“We have a survivors group with more than 300 women registered,” Kilipi noted.
The women cannot return to their villages.
“The children are brainwashed by the parents of the relatives of the father. They are told their mother possesses this devil, or black magic,” she said.
Kilipi also works with people suffering from HIV/AIDS and those in the LGBTQ community.
“I love working with all these people,” she said.

Many challenges

Kilipi said there are many challenges in her work, including donor agencies often having deadlines that are unrealistic.
“They fail to understand that, in order to progress, we have to understand the cultures and why people do what they do,” Kilipi said.
“I cannot just go into a community and say, ‘now, we are going to teach you about human rights.’”
She added everything has been internalized, so change cannot happen overnight.
“We have been influenced enough by the worst in the world. It has infected our culture to an extent [that is unbelievable].
“Most of it is good but the very bad ones are so bad,” Kilipi said.
She has been doing extensive volunteer work for more than five years.
“I love my job, but sometimes you just want to give up because we get attacked most of the time,” Kilipi said, with tears welling in her eyes, but strength and conviction in her voice.
“We live in a society where it is OK for your cousin to beat you,” she said, head shaking.
Nevertheless, Kilipi said “everything is not all bad.”
“I love my culture and my country, but there are certain things I am not blind to. I know what is happening,” she noted.

Worth the wait

Kilipi said her arrival at Coady had been seven years in the making. She has not been home in 25 months because she was working in Fiji with the United Nations, where it does extensive work with Pacific island nations.
While working there, her director sent out a request to 20 staff members, including Kilipi, to apply for a Coady spot.
She remembers the day – March 29 – when her acceptance letter arrived.
“I could not believe it. I locked the door to my office and starting to roll on the carpet,” Kilipi laughed.
“It was amazing. I still cannot believe it,” she said.
Her mother, a 2009 Coady graduate, took skills in the area of microfinance back to the Pacific nation.
“It is our golden project. It is like our raw egg – we make sure it does not fall and break,” she said.
Kilipi said it is amazing how options such as microfinance can make such an impact on women’s lives.
She said she has learned so much from those from other countries.
“It is incredible how their behaviour grows on you. You change and it also gives you a lot of time to think, including about what you are going to do when you go back home,” Kilipi said of the Coady experience.

Change will come

When asked about her first time in Canada, a smile sweeps across her face. “I like it here. It is so different,” she said.
Gazing out the window of Coady’s Riley Lounge, she comments on the homes lining West Street in Antigonish. She noted they would all be surrounded by fences in Papa New Guinea.
“If I was in a pub drinking at home, I would be classified as a prostitute,” she noted.
Kilipi said women cannot walk around at night in Port Moresby – the main city in her part of the country.
“Ninety-nine percent of women are victims or survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault,” she said.
The social problems are many, noting marijuana “grows like grass,” as she points out the window.
“Young boys are into it, and when they are under the influence of it they cause problems in the community.
“They rape women and children. They steal,” she said.
Nevertheless, Kilipi is optimistic a bright future will be there not only for women and children, but also the entire country.
“I may not live to see the change, but in 100 years time maybe all the girls will be educated.
“It burns my eyes because we are going to get there,” she said, wiping tears away.