Poverty in Port Moresby
p. 57 · Read in the full issue
Papua New Guinea has its poverty problems too with the burgeoning metropolis of Port Moresby, according to MHA Miss Josephine Abaijah. She should know what she’s talking about— she was formerly principal of Port Moresby’s Institute of Health Edu cation, and has studied nutrition education in India and South-East Asia .
Giving evidence before a Mini mum Wages Board hearing of a union claim for a rise in the city’s minimum wage of $8 per week, Miss Abaijah said that malnourish ment in young children in poor family settlements in Port Moresby was comparable with what she had seen in poor villages in India.
She quoted a local study which
showed widespread susceptibility to disease and deficiency among small children who were suffering from some degree of starvation.
It was impossible, she concluded, for a family to be properly nou rished, and to pay for other essen tials like clothes, rent, light, trans port, school and hospital fees on an income of much below $2O a week. “A family on $8 to $l2 a week will have some of its mem bers deprived and starving,” Miss Abaijah said.
“If the economy cannot sup port a general urban minimum wage of $2O, society must find some other method of caring for its citizens who are now starving and suffering.”