Helen Samu Hakena

Helen Samu Hakena of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, co-founded the Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency (LNWDA) in 1992 to help restore peace in the civil war-torn island. Women were at the frontlines, opposing the huge copper mine in Bougainville that led to a ten-year conflict. Helen worked at the most grassroots levels to ensure women were central to both peace agreements and development initiatives. 

Since 2013, Helen has been the mentor of Climate Justice Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) in collaboration with APWLD. Her action research investigated the impacts of climate change on women who became environmental refugees from Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, where the rising tides and increasing storm surges swallowed homes. These communities are the first climate refugees due to a government relocation plan that resettled them in camps in war-ravaged Bougainville. 

As a well-known women’s advocate in Bougainville, Helen has contested the elections in recent years. To this day, she continues to promote women’s rights at the local level despite attacks on women human rights defenders who are branded as witches. 

APWLD interviewed Helen in January 2021 and below is her story.

Becoming a feminist and women human rights defender

My negative experiences during the decade-long Bougainville Conflict, the largest conflict in Oceania since the end of World War II which lasted from 1988 to 1998, pushed me to establish the Leitana Nehan Women Development Agency (LNWDA) in 1992.

During the conflict, I became pregnant and gave birth prematurely in an abandoned bank. While I was fortunate enough to survive the event, I witnessed two other women give birth at the same time and die before my eyes. I still hear their screams for help. There was no health service available in Bougainville at that time, and my uncle was the only doctor we had access to. Later, he died of overwork. 

Witnessing other women die right before my eyes prompted me to act. I began by rallying my school friends, and then through them, we reached out to all like-minded women friends. All schools were closed at that time, so we travelled from village to village, initiating conversations about restoring peace.

Many women echoed our message because they all shared the simple belief that no woman should suffer what we were going through. Over the years, our network for restoring peace has grown rapidly. Today, we have over 1,000 volunteers who work throughout Bougainville for peace and awareness-raising in the communities. 

It is important to note that there was no government in place back then, and we were alone in the struggle.

Officially, I started the women’s movement for peace on November 8, 1992, a time when all authorities were too scared to make any move. It was women who pushed for peace in Bougainville. 

Over the years, our organisation has received the Millennium Peace Prize for Women and several other awards from the United Nations. I personally received the Individual Human Rights Award and Gender Excellence Award in recognition of my work during the Conflict.

Growing together with APWLD 

In 2007, I was introduced to APWLD at a conference. Since then, APWLD has consistently supported my participation in international conferences. I have also participated in APWLD’s capacity-building training, such as Climate Justice FPAR, and made lifelong connections with feminists from other countries through APWLD. With a strong network of feminist activists, APWLD links the regional network with international organisations. For example, women’s issues in Bougainville would not have been raised at the UN level without APWLD’s network.

APWLD provides a toolkit for feminist activists that can be used by both the mentor and young researcher in areas. FPAR is great for involving grassroots women in praxis-oriented research. We used it with the Carteret islanders to discuss climate crisis issues specific to the island. Government representatives were present to hear their voices. In this way, those affected the most by the climate crisis can share from their perspective, build connections among themselves, and reinforce their solidarity and movement. We have also been using the FPAR toolkit in other areas in recent years, including monitoring elections in Bougainville.

As a former Regional Council (ReC) member and Breaking out of Marginalisation (BOOM) Programme Organising Committee (POC) member, I hold APWLD’s Climate Justice programme and the BOOM programme close to my heart, because these are the two main issues we face in Bougainville. I was very impressed with APWLD’s efficiency and work culture. Rina, the former BOOM programme officer, communicated effectively and linked the members for collective sharing, learning, and action. 

As a result, I have actively participated in dialogue, seeing APWLD’s events and training as fantastic opportunities for building relationships and understanding. My biggest challenge in engaging in the BOOM programme is the unstable internet connection. The connection here isn’t very good. But APWLD staff members are always good. They would not leave us behind and would always check whether we were receiving their emails. When they didn’t hear from us, they knew exactly that the network was not working. Then, after some time, they would try to communicate again or call.

Pacific Islands are often forgotten as we are small countries floating in the ocean. Our issues, however, are quite serious. Global sea level rise will affect islands the most. We should be seen, heard, and included, and APWLD is one of the organisations that help make that possible. 

Building the feminist movement in Bougainville

Despite our success and the support of APWLD, women still face stereotypes that prevent them from taking on leadership roles in Bougainville. 

The government appears to be inclusive of women as evidenced by their representation in government. However, it is only a token of appreciation for what we have done during the Conflict. Women lack proper training and education and are not in decision-making positions. We must push hard for women to be included in education and training to give them access to skilled occupations and high-level decision-making positions. We hope to have more educated and experienced women so that they can better represent women’s voices and continue pushing for women’s human rights and gender equality.

Poverty is another challenge women face. Culturally, it is the women who are expected to meet the needs of their families and tackle any issues that may affect their families. Most Bougainville women depend on the ocean. However, the pandemic and climate crisis threaten their livelihoods. Economic and human development have been drastically slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in increased unemployment and a shortage of odd or temporary jobs. 

The rising global sea level is eroding our islands. Fishing grounds are now underwater and covered by big waves, making fishing and transportation between islands more costly and more dangerous than ever. As a result, we lose many women and children to the sea while others struggle in financial hardship. 

Also, women trapped in poverty are unlikely to provide better education and training to the next generation, as many mothers (especially single mothers) are not able to pay the school fees for their children. 

Women’s economic security is a major concern. Nevertheless, our women are taking initiatives to save themselves, for example, by setting up small-medium enterprises, and the government has yet to provide any assistance. 

Hence, we push for women’s participation in politics, although it is hard because we are unable to fund our candidates’ trips to meet and speak to voters. We also believe there is bribery involved that causes women candidates to lose. 

All in all, our work is making a difference. Women are becoming more aware of their rights. More are willing to report violence against them. In response, we built networks for intimate relationship violence survivors across Papua New Guinea. Women share their experiences on the networks. We have various referral pathways with the police, legal courts, and hospitals. We also founded the Human Rights Commission at the Autonomous Bougainville Government to advocate for women’s rights.

Ways moving forward

At the institutional level, I hope that APWLD will be able to assist us in tackling land and resource grabbing issues. Logging and mining companies are taking away our lands and forests without paying compensation or being held responsible for environmental damage. 

I also hope APWLD will come to the Pacific and run its workshops here, in which case, more local women and activists will be able to participate and learn. Furthermore, I hope APWLD will continue connecting us with international organisations like the UN, for example, by supporting Papua New Guinea which will be reporting on the Universal Periodic Review in April this year. 

We expect APWLD to train us. From the ground up, APWLD can teach us how to read a country report, how to incorporate it into a Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) report, and how to relate the 17 goals of the SDGs to human rights. We need more capacity-building training so that we can become stronger and cease to be disconnected.

I have some suggestions for movement building. I hope APWLD will continue promoting and strengthening its membership in the Pacific. New members are needed, as well as strengthening the relationship with current members from this subregion. It is very easy for the small islands floating in the sea to become isolated in their struggles, even though they face issues sometimes simply too large for them to handle alone. Assisting APWLD in this process would be highly appreciated by my organisation and me.

Second, we must help the next generations of feminists and activists grow. APWLD can play a key role in this. We need more mentors and trainers to teach FPAR to young women, Generation Next. We gather Generation Next quarterly for training and capacity building. We are very flexible and always design the training around their interests and needs. By training them as trainers, we can reach more and more young women. APWLD can support us in many ways by providing more trainers or training to our trainers, helping us raise funds, and inviting Generation Next to other countries for training after the pandemic.

I also hope APWLD will begin clustering members from the same subregion, as each subregion has distinct priorities within their respective movements, thus prioritising different issues in each subregion instead of focusing on a few issues for all subregions.