Gender

PNG has a heavily male dominated society. Women are considered to be possessions of men, just as a pig or land is considered to be possessions. Although men are assigned the role of being hunters and warriors, the biological trait of having a penis is accepted as a sufficient reason for not fulfilling the duties of gardening and manual labor; thus, this is left as the responsibility of women, who tend to their responsibilities without question.
In establishing authority and control over women, men frequently beat and rape women. Every year, there are a 80 sexual assaults reported per every 100,000 people. This percentage is one of the highest in the world, and is even more striking when one considers that only 15% of the population of PNG lives in the urbanized sectors, where such reports are claimed.
Although it would be difficult to estimate how many sexual assaults there are over the entire population, looking at the makeup of the population helps put it into context. 40 percent of the population is under the age of 15, 56 percent between ages 15 and 65, and 4 percent over the age of 65. The 1997 total fertility rate was 5.4 children per fertile woman, with adolescent pregnancy a major contributing factor. Thanks to the prevalence of sexual assault on women, and the lack of birth control, not only is the population on track to double by the year 2020, the spread of HIV and Sexual Transmitted Infections is expected to increase exponentially.
When looking at all of this general information,. one must take it with a grain of salt, considering how diverse the country is when looking from one tribe to the next. For example, in most of the highland areas, women are taken advantage of not only by the men of their tribe, but also by those in surrounding tribes. Due to strict rules found revolving around incest, men from tribes consisting of only a few hundred people are prone to traveling to a neighboring tribe in the hopes of stealing a woman to make his wife. This action is not taken kindly, however, and most commonly results in either a reciprocal stealing of women, or even violent conflict between the tribes. Therefore, “Marriage in these societies, and the sexual relationships within marriage are always fraught with fear, hostility and anger” (Davenport 1997).
This is interesting to look at, especially when comparing this sort of society to that of the Dobo tribe. The Dobo live on a small island off the coast of the main island. The men of the Dobo live in constant fear of "sorcery" from their wives; Because they believe that they are particularly vulnerable during intercourse, Dobo men have to continually weigh their need for sexual gratification against the possibility of sorcery when they try to satisfy that sexual need.
These are two very different ways in which women are considered, but the possession value of women appears to be very similar in both.