In Jiwaka Province, Médecins Sans Frontières and local women including survivor-advocate Janet Kilea are building community-based care, first-response networks, and referral pathways to address high rates of gender-based violence amid limited services and rugged terrain.
MSF trains village health volunteers as first responders, improving local access to medical and psychosocial care where state services are scarce.
Survivor-led outreach by women such as Janet Kilea creates safe spaces for disclosure and community conversations about root causes of violence.
PNG’s Highlands face structural barriers — remote settlements, limited roads, and underdeveloped provincial services — that restrict survivors’ access to support.
# What's happening In the remote Highlands of Papua New Guinea, women and girls face very high rates of physical, sexual and other forms of gender-based violence. Local humanitarians working with affected communities are combining clinical care, psychosocial support and community outreach to reach survivors where formal services do not reach.
# Who is involved Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is running programmes in Jiwaka Province that train and support village-health volunteers and local health workers. Janet Kilea, a survivor who now works for MSF, leads community conversations and advocacy with other women in mountainous villages.
# The scale and context Global health data cited in the reporting places PNG's estimated lifetime prevalence of physical or sexual violence against women at about 64 percent, compared with a global estimate of 31.6 percent. Jiwaka Province's population is roughly 344,000 and an estimated 60 percent of women and girls there experience some form of violence, according to MSF's local coordinator.
Geography and infrastructure compound the problem. Communities are scattered across rugged, high-altitude terrain with many areas lacking roads and regular state presence. Police, legal and health services rarely extend beyond major towns, leaving survivors isolated and services concentrated in a few locations.
# How the programmes work MSF's approach in Jiwaka includes training trusted community members as village-health volunteers who provide initial first aid, basic medical care and psychosocial support. These volunteers act as the community focal point for survivors to access care and referrals.
MSF also works to strengthen existing health facilities. Currently, the reporting identifies one family support centre operational in Minj town. That centre provides integrated services — medical consultations, first aid, psychosocial support — and makes referrals to legal and protection services when needed.
# Survivor-led outreach and community dialogue Survivors-turned-advocates are central to outreach. Janet Kilea uses her experience to create conversation spaces where women can discuss daily life and the root causes of gender-based violence. These conversations are framed to overcome cultural taboos and stigma that otherwise silence survivors.
MSF's community engagement focuses on safe, trust-based relationships. The organisation emphasises that village-health volunteers are ''the heart of the project'' because they are trusted and accessible within each community.
# Barriers that remain
# Immediate priorities
# What this means for readers The situation in PNG's Highlands illustrates how geography, limited infrastructure and entrenched social norms interact to restrict survivors' access to care. Community-based models that equip trusted local responders and centre survivor leadership can extend services where formal systems cannot yet reach.
# Closing point Local women and humanitarian teams are building practical, community-rooted responses that combine medical care, psychosocial support and advocacy. Those elements together create entry points for survivors who otherwise face multiple obstacles to getting help.
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