Read the text and answer the following questions
Village life
Village life in Solomon Islands is one of abundant self-sufficiency. Villagers eat what they grow in their gardens. The rich soil of the volcanic islands allows for an excess to be grown.Villagers take this excess to market to earn some cash to acquire items that can’t be produced in the village. There is time for work, rest and community celebrations and activities. Often children do not attend school. Many families and young people are moving to the cities, losing connection with their clans and putting pressure on the availability of food and housing.
Everyone knows her or his place in the village hierarchy, and life is very structured.There are a lot of rules governing social behaviour. The chief makes the decisions for the village and people pay him a great deal of respect. Women often have little say in decision-making.
Some women are very concerned about the consequences of their low status, including their powerlessness in decision making and high levels of domestic violence. Let’s meet Miri who is working to improve the status of women in Solomon Islands.
Forestry and environment protection
Miri has trained as a human rights paralegal and is very concerned
about the logging of rainforest by large international companies. Logging is doing significant
damage to the environment.
In her clan, as is the
case across Solomon Islands, it is not acceptable for women to speak in public. Miri is the best educated in her clan and, because she works in the city, she has greater access to information than
the rest of her family in the village. When a large meeting was organised in her clan’s area to
discuss some proposed logging of the rainforest, Miri attended. Although it went against
custom, Miri wanted to speak. Miri asked the men for permission to speak. Because she
showed the men respect, they allowed her to speak.
She asked the meeting to consider not only themselves and their children but also their grandchildren and their grandchildren's children. She told them that any money they received from the logging companies would be spent in a very short time.
While the people present might benefit, their grandchildren would blame them for the ruined environment, the erosion and even for their contribution to climate change.
Some men who wanted to log were very angry at Miri for speaking. However, her father, uncles and brothers were very proud of her. Her father was crying as he told her he never knew that she was so brave to speak in public and so capable of speaking so convincingly. She had represented the family well.
Cultural change
Only a small number of women stood for government elections and none were successful. There is still a long way to go to improve the involvement of women in decision making.
Step by step the women of the Solomon Islands are showing that they are capable of doing many things that they had previously been excluded from. Others can see that the culture survives and even thrives with the greater participation of women.
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