Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in the Papua New Guinea Highlands: Technical Report

The workshop convened 11 participants from seven Highlands provinces, including representatives of women civil society organisations (CSOs), women human rights defenders (WHRDs), Women, Peace and Security (WPS) advocates, a ward councillor, a local government officer, and a police officer from a Family and Sexual Violence Unit. Participants were selected in collaboration with Voice for Change, a leading Highlands women’s rights organisation, based on their frontline experience responding to conflicts and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), demonstrated leadership in protecting women and girls, and active engagement in community-level prevention and response initiatives.

The report makes three key recommendations, outlining within each, practical measures required to response to the unique features of sexual and gender-based violence associated with local conflicts in the Highlands provinces.

a) Formalise partnerships through MOUs between CSOs, police (especially Family and Sexual Violence Units), courts, and community development offices to clarify roles, strengthen accountability, and enable resource sharing during local conflict situations. This requires a specific partnership designed and enforced during ‘peacetime’ in preparation for conflict periods.

b) Establish or strengthen “Rapid Response Teams” within police stations, linked effectively with frontline CSOs for survivor rescue and case referral, particularly in remote areas. While promising, the sustainability of such mechanisms remains contingent on staffing, funding, and operational capacity within police systems in cooperation with provincial government.

c) Integrate engagement with CSOs in state planning, budgeting, and implementation of violence against women action plan work so that government actors can be regularly informed of ongoing community-level activities, and mobilise resources for joint response in conflict situations.

a) Prioritise immediate access to healthcare and safe accommodation, recognising that in practice, access to these services remains uneven across provinces.

b) Enhance coordination of survivor referral protocols to reduce repeated interviews and retraumatisation.

c) Promote standard practices across provinces through shared training for police, health, and CSO actors on survivor-centred approaches and trauma-informed interviewing, while acknowledging that standardisation may be difficult in contexts with highly variable resources and institutional capacities.

d) Upskill police and local officials on gender, human rights, and confidentiality to address cases of misconduct and improve survivor-centred responses.

e) Engage community leaders and churches as accessible first responders and counsellors by providing targeted training and including them in reporting and referral networks, recognising their existing influence at the community level.

f) Reinforce existing laws and promote justice and accountability as a core component of response efforts, although participants’ experiences suggest that enforcement remains a significant challenge.

a) Develop a consolidated provincial database for SGBV in collaboration with the Highlands Human Rights Defenders Movement (HRDM), Highland based CSOs, community-based organisations (CBOs), and churches. Important to also consider the data ownership, long-term sustainability, and governance of such a system.

b) Build data management skills of CSO and government staff through training on recordkeeping, case documentation, confidentiality, and digital tools.

c) Institutionalise quarterly coordination meetings (through Provincial Gender-Based Violence Action Committees) to review and validate data before public release.

d) Develop a shared platform to share the database with provincial and national government departments (such as Community Development Offices) through structured data-sharing agreements, while ensuring safeguards for confidentiality and survivor protection.

e) Use data for advocacy and resource mobilisation, presenting evidence to government and donors to direct funding toward conflict-affected and high-risk areas, although the link between data and resource allocation remains contingent on political and institutional priorities.

f) Access to additional institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee, as alternative sites where reports can be received and validated to ensure a variety of reporting conditions and sources are being heard at the highest political levels.