Sexual and gender-based violence in the Pacific Islands.

Abstract

The ICAAD team would like to especially recognize the efforts of our Advisor, Emily Christie, who is a Senior Human Rights Associate at DLA Piper in Australia. Emily provided her expertise on gender justice and international law over the entire course of developing the SGBV Sentencing Handbook. As one of the original authors of the first ICAAD publication covering gender bias in the judiciary, it was invaluable to have the continuity of Emily’s insights in this publication. We are grateful for her contributions. Additionally, we want to recognise two other ICAAD advisors: Erin Thomas, graduate student at the University of Auckland, for her research contributions identifying recent changes in Pacific Island legislation and ensuring the inclusion of local SGBV models/frameworks in the analysis; and Joanna McGibbon, former Gender Justice Consultant for UN Women in Fiji, for her input on some of the earliest versions of the Handbook. Finally, we want to acknowledge Cate Sumner, advisor to New Zealand Aid Programmer's Pacific Judicial Strengthening Initiative, for providing her expertise on access to justice and judicial reform in the Asia-Pacific region and helping to think through the scope of disaggregated data being covered in our case law analysis