UN HDI Report reveals status of gender disparities in Pacific
PACIFIC island nations still have a lot of work to do in order to bridge the gulf in the disparities in wages between men and women workers, a new United Nations report has revealed. In its 2015 United Nations Human Development Report released on 14 December, Fiji is the island nation with the largest gap: income per capita for men being US$10,592 compared to women’s Gross National Income per capita of US$4,274. That’s a gap of US$6,318.
Comparatively, the per capita difference in income of men and women in Samoa and Tonga was US$3,708 and US$2540 respectively. Vanuatu had a US$1,031 difference, while other islands like Solomon Islands and Vanuatu had only the per capita figure for men. Equally worrying is the figures on violence against women.
While Fiji, Tonga, Palau and Papua New Guinea did not submit figures, Samoa had the highest figure of 75.8% of women who had suffered some forms of violence at the hands of their partners. Kiribati gave a figure of 73% while Solomon Islands had 64% and Vanuatu 48%. On the global UN Human Development Index, Palau scored the highest among Pacific Island Countries….