Your Excellency Sujiro Seam, EU Ambassador to the Pacific
UN RC a.i., Mr Jorn Sorensen
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
I again extend a warm welcome to our guests who have travelled far to be here for the CRC Committee meeting and to join this commemorative event to celebrate the launch of the Spotlight Initiative for Samoa. Last year, we had launched on these same premises, the regional Spotlight program attended by Pacific leaders during the EU-Pacific regional dialogue. While we commend the initiative and give it our support, we underscore the importance of inclusive and meaningful engagement with the national stakeholders and the possibility of using our country systems to ensure a successful community roll out of this programme.
Samoa has not escaped the horrendous trends we are witnessing globally around Violence Against Women and children. Our own statistics reflect a dire need to address this problem. The culture of silence around violence and abuse must be broken and let us all respond with a resounding ‘enough is Enough’.
Distinguished guests, we reaffirm Samoa’s commitment to promote all efforts to address violence against women, the girl child and all children of Samoa. We are committed to advance actions that will ensure achievement and respect of women and young girls’ rights. We have set for ourselves a 2040 vision to transform Samoa to a higher growth path and bring to the highest standards possible our people’s socio-economic well-being. A vision that will be impossible to achieve without respect for the rights of women and girls and the promotion of actions that will create a pathway for women to become economically empowered.
There is much urgency to implement the outcomes of the many costly dialogues and consultations we have held before. It is our hope that this time, there will be a difference. And that there will finally be traction for the Domestic Violence enquiry carried out through the Office of the Ombudsman and National Human Rights Institution. We are appreciative of the financial support from the European Union and the United Nations partnership but do not count us out as passive beneficiaries.
We insist on being engaged from the design phase right through to implementation because only then can we be the agents of change to effect change for our people. We are all responsible for the safety of our women and our children and our statistics reflect we have much to do. Let us create space for all in society to play an active role in ending violence against women and girls. Let us act and transform our society into one where every woman and child can grow to their full potential, safely and happily free of violence.
