One Papua New Guinea's mother’s journey from violent discipline to positive parenting

BY RASHINI SURIYAARACHCHI
UNICEF
POSTED 06/04/2018

Last year in Papua New Guinea, a group of parents came together to talk about a topic many people avoid: violence at home.
Martina was one of those parents.
She’s a mother of five children in the coastal village of Simbine.
 Like all parents, she wanted her children to grow up healthy, strive at school and pave a bright future for themselves.
 Just like many parents in her community, Martina used violent discipline to make sure her children did their chores and worked hard at school.
The young mother didn’t know the dark consequences of physical punishment: that children exposed to violence at home may have more difficulty learning, exhibit violent and risky behaviour or suffer from depression and anxiety.
Then Martina joined UNICEF’s Positive Parenting programme.
For six weeks, she came together with other parents in her community to talk about their challenges and learn new ways to discipline their children without violence.
Read, in her words, how Martina transformed her home from a place of punishment to a space of open communication.
“I used to hit them all the time.
“Before I received the Positive Parenting training, I used to try my best to look after and discipline my children so that they would listen to me.
“I would hit them when they made me angry, I would hit them when they didn’t listen to me.
" I used to hit them all the time. I thought that was the right thing to do at the time.”
“At the Positive Parenting training, I realised that children have their rights too.
"When our children start learning how to talk, it is important that we don’t discipline by hitting them.
"My responsibility is to guide them to do the right things and discourage them from doing bad things.”

Things are different in Martina’s home since she attended UNICEF’s positive parenting training. Now, her children can grow up safe from physical punishment. © UNICEF/Suriyaarachchi

“It is important that we don’t discipline by hitting them.
"My responsibility is to guide them to do the right things.
“I tried using some of the techniques I learned at the training and I can see some changes in my house.
" I see that my children listen to me more now and they do what I ask them to do,” says Martina.
And it’s not just her children’s behaviour that has changed - the training has also helped her relationship with her husband.
“Now when I raise concerns about our children to my husband he tries to help me address these concerns - something he rarely did in the past.
"For example, I told my husband that we needed to prepare our three-year-old daughter for school and he agreed to help me buy the things that she would need for school.
"That’s a big change for me.

Martina’s children Odilia (below) and Martha will now grow up in a peaceful home. © UNICEF/Suriyaarachchi

“The future I want for my children is that I do my part as a parent to look after them well so that they can get a good education, get a good job and look after me and my husband later on in life.
"I also want my children to become good responsible community leaders when they become adults.”

Violence can mark forever

Children who are exposed to violence in the home are denied their right to a safe and stable home environment.
Many are suffering silently and with little support.
Emotional and physical abuse doesn’t leave children as they grow up - it can affect them for life.
Children who are exposed to violence in the home are more likely to be at risk of:

• Emotional stress and developmental harm. Infants and small children are especially susceptible to impaired cognitive and sensory growth;
• Behaviour changes including excessive irritability, sleep problems, emotional distress, fear of being alone, immature behaviour and problems with toilet training and language development;
• Poor concentration and focus in class, trouble keeping up at school and barriers to academic achievement. In one study, forty per cent of children exposed to violence at home had lower reading abilities than children from non-violent homes;
• Personality and behavioural problems in the form of psychosomatic illnesses, depression, suicidal tendencies and bed-wetting;
• Developing substance abuse issues, juvenile pregnancy and criminal behaviour; and
• Creating violent homes as adults and parents. The single best predictor of children becoming either perpetrators or victims of domestic violence later in life is whether or not they grow up in a home where there is domestic violence. Children who grow up with violence in the home learn early and powerful lessons about the use of violence in interpersonal relationships to dominate others, and might even be encouraged in doing so.

Help children grow up safe

Every child has the right to grow up safe from harm.
Violence in the home shatters a child’s basic right to feel safe and secure in the world.
Children need the violence to stop.
In Papua New Guinea and other countries in our region, UNICEF is supporting parents and governments to create safe communities for children.
We’re providing emergency medical care and training community leaders to prevent and respond to violence.
75 per cent of children in Papua New Guinea say they’ve experienced physical violence but if we all work together with parents like Martina, a whole generation of children can grow up in safe homes.

FIFA Vice-President David Chung quits after audit raises questions

by TIM RÖHN and TARIQ PANJA, nytimes.com
April 6, 2018


The head of the smallest of FIFA’s six global confederations suddenly resigned on Friday, surrendering his seat on FIFA’s ruling council and becoming the latest senior soccer executive to depart the sport amid accusations of corruption.

David Chung, right, resigned Friday as the president of one of FIFA's six confederations after an audit raised questions about a multimillion-dollar construction project. Credit Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Photo by: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

The executive, David Chung, was the president of the Oceania Football Confederation, whose 14 members wield little power competitively or politically in FIFA. But Chung, of Papua New Guinea, had outsize influence as the most senior of FIFA’s eight vice presidents.

Chung cited personal reasons for his decision, but the announcement came as he found himself under mounting pressure to step down after an audit into a multimillion-dollar project to build a new headquarters for the O.F.C.

Chung’s exit, only days before the O.F.C.’s annual meeting and two months before the World Cup opens in Russia, raised unwelcome questions for FIFA about the probity of the leaders who run the world’s most popular sport. Chung had led the 14-member regional body, made up of New Zealand and a handful of Pacific nations, since 2010, when his predecessor was caught in a vote-selling sting by undercover reporters. In 2015, a broad investigation led by the United States Department of Justice revealed corruption was deeply embedded at the highest levels of world soccer.

O.F.C. members were planning to suspend Chung for a “gross dereliction of duty or an act of improper conduct” at Sunday’s annual meeting, according to documents and emails reviewed by The New York Times. That followed details in a forensic audit conducted on behalf of FIFA by accountants from PwC, and also reviewed by The Times, which raised the possibility of fraud and bribery in the construction project.

Chung did not respond to a request for comment. But he denied the allegations related to the construction project in a letter to a member of the O.F.C.’s board without providing details, saying he would only discuss the matter with his lawyer to protect his innocence.

FIFA issued a two-sentence statement acknowledging Chung’s resignation and quickly removed his biography from its website, before later confirming that the investigation had highlighted “potential irregularities in the construction process of the OFC Home of Football.”

FIFA said it has suspended its financial support to the confederation because of the issues raised by the review. FIFA typically pays $10 million a year to each of its six confederations.

Chung’s departure leaves the Asian Football Confederation as the only regional body to retain the same president as it did in May 2015, when the United States unveiled details of a sprawling scheme of corruption going back more than two decades. That case led to charges against the leaders of the two confederations based in the Americas. Internal investigations later yielded multiyear bans for the former leaders of FIFA and European soccer’s governing body, UEFA. Africa’s longtime president was toppled in an election last year.

The ousters of his peers left the Malaysian-born Chung as the most senior of FIFA’s vice presidents, a designation that carried with it a $300,000 annual salary and the position of first replacement for FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino.

Chung also was an enthusiastic early supporter of the joint North American bid to stage the World Cup in 2026, pledging his confederation’s collective support as far back as April 2017.

The audit of the O.F.C. started a year after Infantino’s election in 2016, after FIFA found discrepancies with the headquarters project for which FIFA, then headed by Sepp Blatter, had provided a $10 million loan. O.F.C.’s longtime secretary general, Tai Nicholas, suddenly quit in December, also citing personal reasons.

The audit found that Chung and Nicholas, without issuing a tender, had hired a company with no experience of the work required for the design of the project, which involved building offices, two soccer fields and other facilities in Auckland, New Zealand.

Investigators then found a series of close relationships between companies advising the O.F.C. on the project and picked to complete the project. All the companies were set up shortly before being awarded contracts, “with no track record of experience, and subcontracted their works to other companies,” an executive summary of the PwC report stated. It found that a separate company set up by Chung might have had links to one hired to work on the project.

The accountants suggested FIFA go to court to find out more. “Due the limitations in assessing the financial records of the external parties it is recommended to commence civil proceedings in New Zealand in order to get access to these records, substantiate or refute the concerns with regards to bribery and corruption this review has raised, and ultimately attempt to recover any potential losses from the third parties,” the report, code-named Project Gunemba, concluded.

Details of the investigation’s findings were sent to members of the O.F.C. executive board, leading the president of Tahiti’s soccer federation, Thierry Ariiotima, to email Chung last week to explain that he expected FIFA would “suspend you very shortly.”

“Based on the documents that I received which are compromising, I invite you to take the right decision in order to protect O.F.C.,” Ariiotima wrote. “As a friend, and FTF president, I sincerely believe dear president that the best decision would be for you to resign immediately.”

The president of New Zealand’s federation, Deryck Shaw, separately wrote to O.F.C. colleagues, telling them “there is very strong evidence to suggest there has been systemic corruption at the highest level within the OFC.” Shaw said he understood the PwC report also had been sent to New Zealand’s Serious Fraud Office.

FIFA declined to say if its ethics body was investigating Chung. That department remains one of the busiest at FIFA; when Infantino removed its two top officials last year, the officials claimed the move would affect “hundreds” of continuing cases.

© 2018 The New York Times Company.

Wafi-Golpu mine prefers to release tailings into Huon Gulf: Feasibility study

The Wafi-Golpu mine in Morobe prefers to release its tailings into the waters of the Huon Gulf, according to an updated feasibility study report released last week.

Tailings management 

Three types of tailings management options have been considered during the various studies undertaken since 2012, those being various terrestrial tailings storage facilities, dry-stacking and DSTP (deep sea tailings placement).
The study of 45 sites for terrestrial tailings storage options for the Wafi-Golpu Project has highlighted the following:

•  The required storage volumes would result in a large disturbance footprint over an area which can have  high traditional heritage and economic value, high biodiversity, and/or displacement of communities and their livelihoods;
•  The project area has high seismicity and complex geology, including active faulting, which could at some sites result in liquefiable soils. Complex design would be required to partly mitigate such factors, and that would carry high risk and high cost in both construction and ongoing operation;
•  The project area has high rainfall and large water catchment, which would require significant and costly water management treatment solutions. Any structure would contain very large amounts of water with commensurate risks;
• Due to terrain and geotechnical complexity, multiple storage sites and types of tailings management would be required for a life of mine solution; and
• The mining operation would be exposed to complex tailings operations, closure and rehabilitation risk and the residual risks for terrestrial tailing storage facilities would remain high in perpetuity.

The assessment on dry-stacking concluded that the risks of dry-stacking are essentially the same as a conventional terrestrial tailings storage facility.
DSTP studies have been conducted as part of the 2017-18 work programme. Oceanographic and environmental studies in the Western Huon Gulf to date have confirmed that area to be a highly suitable environment for DSTP.
 It hosts a deep canyon leading to a very deep oceanic basin with no evidence of upwelling of deeper waters to the surface.
The tailings are expected to mix and co-deposit with a significant, naturally occurring loading of riverine sediments from the Markham, Busu and other rivers that also are conveyed via the Markham Canyon to the deep sea.
Around 60 million tonnes per annum (mpta) sediment has been estimated.
The pelagic, deep-slope and sea floor receiving environment has a very low biodiversity as a result of the riverine sediment transport, deposition
and regular mass movements (underwater landslides).
 These same riverine sediments are expected to also bury the co-deposited tailings at closure and promote benthic recovery to pre-mine conditions.
Oceanographic studies have confirmed that a 200m deep outfall for the tailings disposal will meet the draft PNG Guidelines for Deep Sea Tailings Placement, prepared by the Scottish Association for Marine Sciences on behalf of the State of Papua New Guinea.
In the light of the factors considered in relation to terrestrial tailings storage, the outcomes from the study of 45 terrestrial sites and the outcomes of the DSTP study work undertaken to date, the updated Feasibility Study identifies the use of DSTP as the preferred tailings management solution.
Papua New Guinea has three existing active DSTP operations (Lihir, Simberi, Ramu Nickel), one permitted (Woodlark) and one closed (Misima).

Tribal conflict and trauma hamper disaster relief in Papua New Guinea

by Amber Schultz, smh.com.au
April 6, 2018

The children were receiving trauma counselling, playing games and doing puzzles at a UNICEF makeshift childcare centre following a month of devastating earthquakes in Papua New Guinea when the bullets started flying.
They were taking a break from the stresses caused by the February 7.5-magnitude earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks that have decimated villages and shattered communities in the Southern Highlands and Hela provinces, when a fight between two tribes broke out.

Children play with a carer in a makeshift childcare centre in PNG.Photo: UNICEF

UNICEF education specialist Simon Molendijk was with the children in Tari.
“We were organising an activity at child centre, making sure kids can have moments of happiness, keeping their minds off stress and worry,” he said.
“Then the shooting started.
"We had to keep them calm, put them on the floor to make sure they wouldn't be hit by the bullets.”
While the children were safely evacuated and returned to their families, Molendijk said the event represented an “ongoing emergency” in the region, hampering disaster relief efforts.

Falling rocks hurt five-year-old Douglas Jacob when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit Papua New Guinea on February 26. It is estimated 125,000 children are in need of help in PNG.

More than 180 people were killed after the initial earthquake on February 26, according to the Oil Search Foundation, a not-for-profit working in health and education.
The PNG Government estimates 270,000 people are in need of urgent assistance.
Of this, 125,000 are children.

Young earthquake survivors learn how to properly wash their hands and prevent illness, at a UNICEF-supported child space in Mendi, PNG.

However, a combination of landslides, flooded roads, and tribal fighting has made reaching remote communities difficult.
Local journalist Scott Waide said the fights were the result of a long-running feud between tribes, but few details were known about the nature of the conflict.
“They’re payback killings, payback for other deaths,” he said.
Waide said the latest fight erupted last week in Tari, where UNICEF was caring for the children.
Five locals were killed, two were minors.
Hela Governor Philip Undialu said the fights were a direct result of the earthquakes.
“The enemy tries to move to safer places. They come across one another and attack,” he said.
Undialu said 100 military personnel had been mobilised to help secure public safety in Tari.
Monash University politics and international relations lecturer Aleks Deejay said natural disasters often spurred conflict in developing countries.
"A big natural disaster can be such a sudden, disruptive event that if they strike in certain areas that are already experiencing vulnerabilities related to security they can ignite more serious conflict," he said, attributing conflict to the depletion of resources, disruption of public institutions and infrastructure, and migration.
Secretary General of the PNG Red Cross Uvenama Rova said tribal fights in the region were a constant ongoing issue, and had disrupted the communities' ability to help one another.
"The PNG way is to help your neighbour, but with tribal conflict, it is difficult to reach out to those affected," he said.
The Red Cross will on Monday assist the Koma, Tawa, and Denaria communities close to the earthquake's epicentre which have not yet received aid, delivering non-food items including mosquito nets, jerry cans, hygiene kits, medications and other necessities.
Amid the continuing aftershocks, the violence, overcrowded conditions and lack of necessities in temporary shelters, humanitarian organisations say they are concerned about the impact of disease and trauma in the wake of the destruction.
Before the earthquakes, children in PNG were already at high risk of violence and physical and emotional abuse, UNICEF reported.
“The behaviour of children has definitely changed [since the earthquake]. Kids are withdrawn, they don’t like to go out. The toxic stress affects them not only now, but also later in life,” Molendijk said.
UNICEF PNG representative Karen Allen said in a statement the organisation’s main concern was the psychological health of the children.
“Psychological damage among children should not be overlooked. It can have a negative impact on children’s brain development, mental health and overall wellbeing in the long run,” she said, adding  children who have suffered from trauma have an increased risk of delayed development, mental health disorders, depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide.
However, children are not the only ones impacted.
Oil Search's Stephanie Cous-Capmbell, standing second left, said women were at risk of violence within affected communities.
Oil Search Executive Director Stephanie Copus-Campbell has been based in PNG since the initial earthquake, and said she feared the worst for villagers' mental health.
“People are really, really, really distressed… they’re scared,” she said.
She said women were most at risk as their trauma was compounded by the risk of gender-based violence.
“There’s a lot of concerns for women.. Families are experiencing more stress and trauma, it’s an environment where violence is more likely.”
In conjunction with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Papua New Guinean government, Oil Search has established care centres for women and "waiting villages" for expectant mothers to give birth. It has also deployed two counsellors trained in trauma counselling.
The organisation had turned its attention from physical injuries to disease and psychological trauma in the wake of the destruction.
“We first assisted in injuries, but now it’s cases of disease. There’s diarrhoea, respiratory conditions, crowded situations," Copus-Campbell said.
“We keep hearing of more deaths.”
UNICEF PNG is currently setting up 26 child-friendly spaces to provide psycho-social support services for more than 14,000 children in the severely-affected provinces of Hela and Southern Highlands.
The organisation is in need of $17 million to continue its relief effort, providing clean water and sanitation in temporary shelters, as well as vaccinations, malnutrition treatment, and support for children to return to school.

Oceania President Chung resigns for personal reasons

by Greg Stutchbury, uk.reuters.com
April 6, 2018

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - David Chung has resigned as president of the Oceania Football Confederation, citing personal issues, the organisation said on Friday.

Chung, who was made a senior FIFA vice president last September, had been in charge of the confederation since 2011.
“David Chung, has resigned from his position effective immediately,” the OFC said in a statement.
“Chung, who has been at the helm of OFC since 2011, took the decision after much deliberation citing personal reasons.”
The OFC Executive Committee is scheduled to meet on April 8.
The OFC was not immediately available for further comment.
Malaysia-born Chung was initially temporarily appointed to the OFC presidency in 2010 following the one-year suspension to Tahiti’s Reynald Temarri for breaching FIFA’s ethics and confidentiality rules.
Chung was elected unopposed to the OFC role for a four-year term in January 2011 and then re-elected in 2015.
The 55-year-old, who is also in charge of the Papua New Guinea FA, has been embroiled in a struggle at home for the last 18 months with a breakaway body of rival soccer administrators.
Chung’s opponents have alleged that he had illegally excluded voters for their candidate John Kapi Natto in the PNGFA elections in 2016.
Chung has denied the allegations.
Last year, the rival administrators set up their own soccer federation, the Football Federation PNG (FFPNG), and a club competition, the National Premier League (NPL).
Neither is recognised by the OFC or FIFA.
“Players wishing to participate in this league should be aware they are playing for a club and a league not recognised by the PNGFA, OFC and FIFA,” former OFC secretary general Tai Nicholas said in a statement at the time.
“No club that participates in this league can qualify for any PNGFA, OFC or FIFA competition and players who are not registered with the PNGFA cannot be transferred to another club overseas or be covered under the protection of the FIFA and OFC regulations.”
The 12-team NPL, which attracted the country’s most successful club Hekari United, began last season and Kapi Natto told Australia’s ABC earlier this year they had plans to expand.
Only six teams completed the officially sanctioned National Soccer League last season and the playoffs were cancelled.

Papua New Guinea: Highlands Earthquake Situation Report No. 6 (as of 5 April 2018)

reliefweb.int | April 5, 2018

Highlights

• 270,000 people are in need of assistance across four provinces of Papua New Guinea’s highlands.

• 43,116 people (8,135 households) remain displaced in 44 locations and care centres.

• 80 per cent of health facilities are open, but almost 55 per cent have no water.

• Humanitarian operations in and around Tari, provincial capital of Hela province, have been suspended due to the rise in tension and outbreak of inter-communal fighting since 28 March.

• US$ 43 million has been mobilised from the private sector for earthquake response and recovery, primarily as contributions to government efforts.

Situation Overview

On 26 February 2018, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit the Highlands Region of Papua New Guinea (PNG), affecting an estimated 544,000 people in five provinces – Enga, Gulf, Hela, Southern Highlands and Western provinces, with Hela and Southern Highlands the most affected.
More than 270,000 people, including 125,000 children, have been left in immediate need of life-saving assistance.
The latest tracking figures available from the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) implemented as part of the Shelter Cluster response, indicate that 8,135 households remain displaced by the earthquake, or 43,116 people, across 44 locations and care centres.
These figures may change as new locations are assessed.
Many of those displaced and now living in the care centres and other locations will not return home and the communities are in the process of defining alternative areas to relocate.
Where housing has been damaged or destroyed, shelter materials and tools are urgently required as is training in their use. Community leaders and land owners have reportedly started negotiating land for the displaced families, to be completed through traditional land and family ties.
 Assistance strategies should support this process of resettlement where possible.
Landslides caused by the earthquake have negatively affected food security, with many root crops and family vegetable plots destroyed.
Damaged roads have also reduced access to markets and public services.
The earthquake has also caused new damming as well as resulting flooding in some areas.
Of 86 reporting health facilities in Hela and Southern Highlands province, seven in Hela and 11 in Southern Highlands have reported being severely damaged, and 26 and 21 respectively have no water.
While 80 per cent of health facilities in the affected areas are now open, many health workers have been affected by the earthquake and also require assistance. Psychosocial counseling for earthquake survivors affected by trauma and loss is urgently required, and Health Cluster partners are making efforts to train counsellors.
 Many children are reportedly afraid to return to their schools, even where school facilities are open.
The integrity of water sources has been affected and are not safe for drinking. Rainwater collection systems have been destroyed.
With limited access to safe and clean water, waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea are a significant risk.
An outbreak of dysentery affecting 25 people in Makuma, Ilallibu Pangia district, Southern Highlands province is suspected to be due to a contaminated creek.
Since 28 March, humanitarian programmes in and around Tari, the provincial capital of Hela province, have been suspended due to increased tension and inter-communal fighting.
Many partners have temporarily relocated humanitarian staff to other locations, including to the Southern Highlands provincial capital, Mendi, in view of the situation.
 Humanitarian partners aim to resume relief work as soon as the security situation allows.

Click for a PDF of the report

Exxon maintains PNG LNG restart timetable despite ramping up activity

by Carl Surran, seekingalpha.com
April 5, 2018

Exxon Mobil is sticking to its initial restart plan for its Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas plant in the second half of April, despite activity ramping up at the site, including the delivery of a cooling cargo and the imminent arrival of an unloaded project vessel at the facility.
Platts reports that the LNG carrier Kumul arrived at PNG LNG April 1, with the purpose of maintaining the temperature of the facility's tanks and loading infrastructure, and avoiding a lengthy re-cooling period once production restarts.
Also, the LNG tanker Papua is said to be heading for PNG LNG at close to full speed, possibly to be ready to load once an export cargo is available.
PNG LNG closed on Feb. 26 due to a 7.5-magnitude earthquake in the country.
Project participant Oil Search said earlier this week that its central processing facility, which also shut because of the earthquake and is integral to the operation of PNG LNG, has resumed operations.