Pacific women

The focus of the course run by the global advocacy group, the Women's Environment and Development Programme, or WEDO, is on preparing women to take a greater role in climate change negotiations.

WEDO's Bridget Burns said often women are shut out of the discussions.

She said the training aims to establish a body of Pacific women able to really engage in climate change negotiations in the international arena.

Smokers completed three questionnaires - one at the "baseline" entry to the study and the others after two of the Government's annual 10 per cent tobacco tax rises.

The quit-smoking rate, at 14 per cent, was the same for the Maori/Pacific and NZ European/other ethnic groupings.

Participants were analysed only in those two ethnic groupings, because there were few Maori and Pacific men and women in the study.

RNZ reports the public sector is the largest single employer of women across the Pacific but the research presented to a Commonwealth gathering in Apia on Wednesday shows they are significantly under-represented in the top jobs.

Papua New Guinea reported only 7 percent of its senior government roles were held by women but Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati were performing well with up to 50 percent, according to Nicole Haley of the Australian National University.

RNZ the call comes from the Pacific Women's Network Against Violence Against Women which represents policy makers and front line workers from 13 Pacific countries.

Representatives of women from West Papua attended the networks 7th meeting in Fiji last week and raised some critical issues and gaps in service delivery for victims of gender violence in West Papua.

The director of Tonga's Women and Children Crisis Centre, Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki said the network stands in solidarity with women from West Papua.

RNZ reports the region is often hit by natural disasters with major cyclones devastating Vanuatu and Fiji in the past 18 months.

Aleta Miller of the UN Women's Fiji office says women are more affected than men in the aftermath and should be included in disaster management planning.

But she said aid agencies often cast women as victims first and risk ignoring what is truly needed.

That is the message from the Pacific Community (SPC) as the region marks International Women’s Day today (8 March).

In line with the international theme for the day “Pledge for Parity”, SPC is calling for greater debate on ways of closing gender gaps in the Pacific and concrete ways of addressing them.

The Growing up in New Zealand study surveyed 5,664 women and tracks the development of New Zealand children from before birth till they are young adults.

An investigator for the study, Karen Waldie, says it is difficult to pinpoint why Pacific women are more susceptible to antenatal depression.

"A lot of the factors that came out in analyses had to do with things that you would think would be protective for that group, things like family cohesion and neighbourhood support but for Pacific people that doesn't hold true"