Abstract
The fiftieth anniversary in 1998 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights went almost without notice in Papua New Guinea. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of 1993 has strengthened the 1948 Human Rights provisions, especially its recognition of the right to development, a crucial factor for women in Papua New Guinea. However, the notion that women do have human rights has only begun to gain currency in the last decade. Titles of books, conferences and papers refer to the problem as women and human rights or, posed as a question, do women have human rights, as if to say women were somehow not human.1 The concepts of human rights, social justice and citizenship were introduced to Papua New Guinea with the imposition of the nation state 25 years ago. In 1972 the House of Assembly passed a Human Rights Ordinance which declared every person entitled to the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, whatever his or her race, tribe, place of origin, political opinion, colour, creed or sex.2
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Notes
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© 2001 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Dickson-Waiko, A. (2001). Women, Individual Human Rights, Community Rights: Tensions within the Papua New Guinea State. In: Grimshaw, P., Holmes, K., Lake, M. (eds) Women’s Rights and Human Rights. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333977644_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333977644_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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