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<a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/papua_new_guineas_meri_seif_bus_program_provides_safe_transport_to_women_and_girls" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:blue">https://ssir.org/articles/entry/papua_new_guineas_meri_seif_bus_program_provides_safe_transport_to_women_and_girls</span></a></p>
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Website Link Includes 2 Videos.</p>
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<span style="font-size:16.0pt">PAPUA NEW GUINEA – “MERI SEIF” WOMEN & GIRLS SAFE BUS TRANSPORT SYSTEM</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black; letter-spacing:-.25pt">The women-only transportation program in Papua New Guinea is challenging social norms about gender by improving women's economic lives and securing girls'
education.</span></p>
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<a href="https://ssir.org/images/articles/Winter2020-FieldReport-Christy-Womens-Movement592x333.jpg" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:#AB1600; text-decoration:none"><img 0?="" width="681" height="383" id="Picture_x0020_1" alt="https://ssir.org/images/articles/Winter2020-FieldReport-Christy-Womens-Movement592x333.jpg" style="width: 7.0937in; height: 3.9895in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAME6O6pAAABEgAQACDHrhRDdXVMmxBn1qb94iI%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=zPeTR6kCck-0OtVDH8rdNVC9bsctfNcIfZeE9bC43Nqi-igaAfYQsRpKqSijzmnS3X9CcxxGpx0."></span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black; letter-spacing:-.25pt"></span></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; color:#AB1600; text-decoration:none"> </span></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; color:#444444"><a href="https://ssir.org/images/articles/Winter2020-FieldReport-Christy-Womens-Movement592x333.jpg" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#444444; text-decoration:none">A
Meri Seif bus is filled to capacity on International Women's Day in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. (Photo courtesy of Alexandra Christy) </span></a><span style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#444444; text-decoration:none"></span></span></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:#222222"> </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black; letter-spacing:-.25pt">By <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/papua_new_guineas_meri_seif_bus_program_provides_safe_transport_to_women_and_girls#bio-footer" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#B71800">Alexandra
Christy</span></a> - </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:#ABABAB; letter-spacing:-.25pt"><a href="https://ssir.org/issue/winter_2020" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:black">Winter
2020</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black; letter-spacing:-.25pt"></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">The pink and purple buses carrying women through the streets of Papua New Guinea's two major cities are as bold in purpose as they are in color.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">The buses launched in the capital city of Port Moresby in 2014 and expanded to Lae, the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea (PNG), in 2019. The women-only transportation program
began exclusively as a free-to-ride service called Meri Seif (“Woman Safe”) and, in 2017, added a pay-to-ride service called M-Buses.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:#C00000">The two bus programs have ensured that some 170,000 women and girls annually ride safely to and from work and school each day. This is a momentous step forward for a country
where, in 2017, more than 90 percent of women reported being sexually harassed or robbed of their daily earnings by men on public transportation.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“It's a worldwide epidemic,” says Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, who conducts research on college students and their sexual harassment experiences
in transit environments in 18 global cities. “Physical harassment—groping and touching—happens in crowded settings because men feel more emboldened. For many women, public transportation is their first #MeToo moment.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">Women-only transportation programs exist in more than a dozen countries. There are women-only subway cars in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, and Dubai. Women-only compartments
exist on trains in India, Japan, and Indonesia, among other Asian countries. Guatemala and Malaysia have also experimented with single-sex buses. More recently, women-only taxi services have emerged in New York, Paris, Grozny, and Lahore.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">In PNG, which the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/papua-new-guinea" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#990000">Human
Rights Watch</span></a> describes as “one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman,” Meri Seif shines a persistent ray of hope.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“When the buses came, it showed us that there are people who are willing to help women and girls in the city,” says Joanna Oala, a member of the UN Women youth group Sanap Wantaim
(“Stand Together”). “It gives us hope that change is happening.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">Nigel Mado, a young volunteer also in the Sanap Wantaim program, has seen a shift in female bus riders, which he attributes in part to Sanap Wantaim's on-bus trainings about women's
rights and where to get help. “What the bus really does is give women a voice, an avenue in which they can express themselves and say, 'We are not under men but equal,' and it sort of changes the ideas and concepts in some men in part of the country.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“I feel so safe when I get on the Meri Seif bus,” says Valerie Ulal, a university student in Port Moresby. “I can easily pull out my phone and listen to music and actually make
a phone call. On the private buses [public motor vehicles (PMVs)], the thieves just walk on, and when they see ladies holding their bags, they just grab them or threaten [the women].”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; color:black">The Road to Safety</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">In 2013, pastor Mike Field, then general manager of the Ginigoada (“Stand Strong”) Foundation, a job-training NGO in Port Moresby, could not bear the frustration of watching women
wait patiently at rush hour to get on the public bus to work.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“Every morning I would see the young men forcing themselves into the buses. They would jump through the windows, and the young women and the older women would have little or no
chance [getting a seat] at all,” he explains. “I found this really disconcerting, because at the Ginigoada Foundation we're working hard to give training opportunities to these young women, and we try and get them to work, and then [we] get them a job, [but]
they can't get transport because these young men just force their way into the vehicles.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">Field suggested to Ginigoada board member Dave Conn that the foundation pilot a free, women-only bus program. Conn agreed and encouraged Field to approach Powes Parkop, governor
of Port Moresby, to ask that the National Capital District (NCD) release one of its old buses to use for the pilot.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">Parkop, a former human rights lawyer, donated five retired NCD buses. From these, Ginigoada cobbled together one roadworthy vehicle. UN Women PNG, a local NGO, provided the initial
funding.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“Gender-based violence is a big problem in our country; in our city, too,” Parkop says. “But you can take only one step at a time. We cannot solve everything, but we absolutely
have power and influence to change the dynamics on public transport instantly.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">From 2014 to mid-2019, the number of buses rose from 1 to 11, the number of routes from 1 to 6, and the number of riders from 21,000 to more than 600,000. The Meri Seif free-to-ride
program also expanded, with two buses in Lae. The pilot was so successful that the Ginigoada Foundation started the M-Bus, a pay-to-ride program, to move the model toward financial sustainability.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“The trialing of the free Meri Seif buses was that it was intended to be a temporary measure,” Richelle Tickle, Pacific Women's PNG country manager, explains, “to prove the value
of this service as a commercial arrangement … and the value of taking security seriously on all public transport.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">As demand soared, the media spread word that Port Moresby needed more buses. The NCD donated two more; UN Women PNG, together with Pacific Women PNG, raised funds to purchase two
additional air-conditioned buses; the Hertz car rental company in Port Moresby (whose managing director was on the Ginigoada board of trustees) donated two more; and the Ventura Bus Company in Melbourne, Australia, donated four.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“I think what made me put a lot of energy behind this program,” explains Andrew Cornwall, managing director of the Ventura Bus Company, “is that I've been to Port Moresby previously
and understood how the people of Papua New Guinea helped the Australians [in World War II], and I just wanted to give back. It really got to me that women in this world are scared to go to work.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">This confluence of politics, programs, and people has made the women-only transportation a success. Rather than originating as the stand-alone idea of a single NGO, the bus programs
complemented other efforts in the country to address women's empowerment and gender-based violence.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">The continuation of the women-only buses has been integral to other efforts. The buses helped Ginigoada Foundation trainees not only attend its program but also get to and from
their subsequent jobs safely. Parkop had every incentive to help the program work, since his administration set out to end<br>
gender-based violence and empower women economically to build businesses and credit. And for UN Women PNG, the bus program augmented their Safe Public Transport for Women and Children program.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“It's about collective action,” says Brenda Andrias, a program specialist at UN Women PNG who focuses on safe public transport. “It's about getting all the stakeholders who have
some role to play in enhancing the safety of women and girls to make a stand.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif; color:black">Driving Through the Patriarchy</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">An unexpected benefit of the program has been the hiring of 10 women drivers. With funds from the Canadian government, which Ginigoada approached with a $15,000 proposal to train
women drivers, the foundation has trained close to 50 PNG women.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“I became a bus driver because in the city in Port Moresby, women are not safe to get around, so I decided that I would make a little bit of a difference in my community,” says
Gola Momo, one of the new drivers.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">The job, however, is far from perfect. “The biggest challenge,” says Momo, who does six runs a day, “is the male bus drivers [of the PMVs]. When we pull into the bus stops, they
are very mean to us and don't give us space to get in, and sometimes they scream abuse at us when we pick up the women.”</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">In response, UN Women trained more than 100 PMV drivers, crew members, and operators in 2018 about the importance of safe transport for women. The overall message to the drivers
was clear: If you had kept women safe on your buses in the first place, the city would not need women-only transportation.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">The future of PNG's women-only transportation depends on many factors, from finances to social acceptance. While some signs point to continued growth—the NCD is donating four more
buses, and a potential new donor is willing to add up to 25 buses for the Lae pilot—the program faces continued hostility from men, who have catapulted marbles through bus windows, threatened women drivers at knifepoint, and tried to force themselves aboard
the buses. While no serious injuries have occurred—each bus has two male security guards—safe travel around Port Moresby remains elusive.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">Sustainability is another long-term challenge. The Ginigoada Foundation, now overseeing the bus program, will phase out the original Meri Seif free-to-ride buses at the end of
2019 in both Port Moresby and Lae, and the pay-to-ride M-Buses will take over all routes. A shortfall of $50,000 per year exists between the cost of running the program (approximately $205,000 for drivers, maintenance, petrol, security, and marketing) and
the income from fares (approximately $157,000). Pacific Women PNG currently covers this shortfall, but their funding will end in 2021.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">Finally, an issue never far from the minds of those responsible for the program is the wish that the buses did not need to exist at all.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:black">“There's a certain irony, I know,” says Philip Priestley, the manager of the entire Ginigoada M-Bus fleet, “that at the same time we wish the buses didn't exist, here we are, scrambling
to get as many online as we can. But the truth is, we have a long way to go in PNG to combat gender-based violence, and until that is under control, maybe 30 years from now, we'll keep doing what we need to do to keep women safe.”</span></p>
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