By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Mar 5 2020 (IPS) – For 13-year-old Karen Semens, growing up on Pohnpei — one of the four main island states in the Federated States of Micronesia, which comprises of more than 600 islands in the western Pacific Ocean — the main challenge is being a girl.
“In our culture, girls don’t have the same rights and opportunities nor do they get credit and recognition for their achievements as boys do. This prevents us from speaking our minds. For example in family meetings, only men make the decisions. I would like all girls to be treated as equals and have a say in decision making,” the 8th grade pupil from the Ohmine Public Elementary school in Pohnpei, tells IPS.
Equal rights for the girl child, climate change, access to healthcare and education are some of the issues Pacific island children are raising at the 84th extraordinary outreach session of the Committee on the 1989 United Nations (U.N.) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) being held in Samoa’s capital, Apia, from March 2 to 6.