We are failing women if a man still has the right to rape his wife

With cultures that blame them for what men do to them, women in Pacific countries are being abused.

We must speak out, writes Johanna Higgs.

I WAS on Rarotonga, the biggest of all of the Cook Islands — a small group of islands right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I had been trying to hitchhike to one of the nearby beaches and it was hard to get around.

“So what do you do?” The question came from the Cook Islander woman who had kindly picked me up.

“I’m an Anthropologist,” I told her. “I mostly write about women’s rights.”

She said:

“That is much needed here.

One of our…