I thank Viliami Tiseli and Sefita Hao'uli for their candid participation in debating the plight of Tongan women in the "arena of ideas." The CEDAW treaty only magnified how women are still discriminated against in 21st Century Tonga.
As unpopular as the headline above might be, we cannot deny that our public debate raises awareness and questions we Tongans must come to grip with sooner or later. We cannot stick our heads in the sand, like the Good Old Boys Club in the House, and wished the issue to go away.
Journalists like Mr. Hao'uli and myself will not allow the debate on the immoral and illegal treatment of Tongan women to go away. Unlike Mr. Tiseli, we must critically evaluate what the male-dominant politicians and government officials are force-feeding the public with.
I have 2 very simple solutions:
(1) Since Tongan men believe it is their "God-given right" to own land but women are denied the same right, what if women decided in unison to abstain from sex until the "hereditary tax allotment" law is changed?
After all, it is women's "God-given right" to decide with whom, and when they want to make love. There is no law which will sentence a woman to prison for abstaining from sex. Husbands have the same rights. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," isn't it?
Sadly, I fear for the current rampant domestic violent crimes against women will only increase. Male-dominant church leaders will call the idea the work of Satan, of course. But I call this law "immoral" and "discriminatory" to women, and not the teachings of the Savior.
One class of citizens is denied landownership while another class is entitled to it. It's a discriminatory feudalism system that holds women in "bondage" in a modern democratic, and capitalist society.
(2) The "hereditary tax allotment" law can easily be amended: Every 16-year-old females can also be entitled to the same rights as 16-year-old males have. Nobody has to give up any lands, but from this point forward, women will have the same legal rights to petition for landownership.
Land is the economic base of Tonga, an agricultural island nation. Discriminating against women in landownership keeps them "powerless" in the modern Tongan economy.
And Tongan men would always want the status quo to remain because they benefit economically from it, and their way of keeping Tongan women on a leash. Unfortunately, the aggregate economic value to society is lacking the positive contributions from half of the Tongan population.
