still await their

Region

Cook Islands women still await their moment

By Lisa Williams

When the former secretary to the Cook Islands cabinet passed away in April, the idea of a woman taking on the job for the first time was raised and adopted.

“The only trouble some of our minis ters would have had was minding their lan guage,” says one government official.

“And a woman around would be a good

thing.”

There has only ever been one woman MP in the whole of the country’s 30 years of self-government and she only lasted three months. Of all the official Secretaries to Ministries, only one is a woman, and the ministry is the Internal Affairs portfolio which handles so-called “women’s” and “welfare” issues.

Like a pyramid, the lower one goes through the ranks, the more women one finds. And like any other country, the Cook Islands is another example of the gender inequalities that exist in the workplace.

But the government’s begin-from-with

in start on addressing that imbalance has not been the only reason behind appointing a woman to take minutes and sit in on the crucial, highly-confidential discussions facing the nine ministers.

Government, managed and run by men with women filling the lower level ranks of typists, clerks and office-hands is anxious to look politically-correct to voters increasingly disenchanted with their lead ers as the country’s economic crisis peaks.

And grassroots Cook Islanders, normal ly a placid lot who have seen years of gov ernment mismanagement swept under the carpet, are not the only ones joining the

ground swell of discontent as pay-packets dwindle and jobs are harder to find.

Traditional leaders have been awaiting their moment to have a say from their tra ditional, marginalised position as onlook ers and token guests at official functions; now they want to have a voice, and they want that voice to be heard.

House of Ariki president and a para mount chief in her own right, Pa Te Ariki Upokotini has been amongst the ranks of women leading the uproar over the coun try’s current economic situation.

She has pushed the view, both in public to the international media and within the country to her mataiapo, or tribal elders, that the current government has led its peo ple to the economic brink.

“It has proven that it’s not capable of leading us under its current structure,” she says. “Government should have spoken to us of problems long before now.”

She says its time for government to develop the House of Ariki to the stage where traditional leaders can be a signifi cant influence, “and have a say on issues of

the day”.

“Times have changed now, we have to stand up and speak our minds,” she says of the dictum that traditional leaders stick to traditional matters and, like the churches,

keep out of politics.

“We are landowners - we’ve given lots of land to government for schools, church es and Crown use... I think it’s time for them to give us a say.”

And with most of the upper ranks of Ariki being women - all chiefs on Rarotonga are women and most of the outer islands chiefs are also women - Pa Ariki is not opposed to seeing a gender

balance brought to bear in parliament.

“With male MP’s, their priorities are machines for agriculture and expanding airports ,” she muses. “Women have been

changing nappies, feeding kids,, keeping

them from getting sick, and raising them as educated adults.”

“Without women in politics to talk on those issues, men and women in the House of Ariki can have a direct influence on that.”

And even as Pa fights for a say in gov ernment, another prominent ariki and major landowner, Tinomana Ariki Ruta Hosking is threatening court legal action if lands given to the Crown for educational use in the last 30 years are sold off under government plans to privatise its assets within the next three years.

So what has the prime minister and his colleagues to say to the irate arikil Very little - and not just because they have had more pressing matters to deal with.

Legally, the government doesn’t have to give its traditional leaders a say. In fact, when the House of Ariki was first set-up by government in the 1970’5, it was the former Pa, mother of the current Pa Ariki, who opposed the notion that the state was to set-up a body according her a recogni tion she had been bom with.

At the time though, the village elders and their ariki were being consulted on a regular basis by their members in parlia ment - so much that debate was often halt ed because members waited to refer the matter being discussed back to their peo

ple!

“I’ve been around long enough to see the whole process of government start up,” says one local resident. “And a common

The Gook Islands is another example of the gender inequalities that

block to anything in the house was mem bers standing and saying, T can’t say any thing now because I have to go back to my chiefs and see what they think’ - that’s gone by the board now”.

“Now, I don’t think they know what they’re doing at all,” he says.

It’s entirely possible that given today’s

scenario, the ancestral leaders would be clamouring for a voice as well, say the current House of Ariki.

“Traditionally, those who abuse the trust of the people are thrown out of the tribe and treated as outcasts, regardless of their status in society - be they ariki or otherwise,” Pa told a public protest rally over the 65 per cent paycuts for govern ment employees. “We want government to show the trust that we placed in them in 1994 (the last elections) was not in vain.”

Pa Ariki’s point on traditional leaders and elected leaders working together may well be the only way for women to inch

into decision-making.

The only Cook Islands woman to be a cabinet minister was Fanaura Kingstone, who for a short-lived time as the Overseas MP was a part of the 1983 government ousted when the country went to the polls twice in one year.

Now at the South Pacific Commission as the Women’s Development Adviser, Kingstone had bittersweet memories of her few months in cabinet, recalling to one reporter that it was definitely a “boys’ club” where she was rarely asked for her opinion and had to deal with condescend ing attitudes to women.

For Pa Ariki and other traditional chiefs from the Tinomana, Karika, Kainuku and Makea lines - all of them women, the time for the elected leaders to listen to those bom to title and land may well be while government is at its most vulnerable.

And even while she’s been personally attacked in the street for her views, Pa Ariki says wanting a say has nothing to do with being hungry for power or taking on the country’s troubled leader.

“I feel for my people,” she shrugs.

“And that’s the bottom line.” ■

exist in the workplace