In the 2020 Vanuatu general election, six women won seats in the 52-seat parliament — the highest number in the country's history, but still just under 12 percent. It's a grim record by any international comparison. The 2002 election had one female MP. Progress has been real but painfully slow in a country that consistently ranks low on gender political representation globally.

The obstacles are multiple and interconnected. Traditional chiefly authority is almost entirely male. Campaigning requires resources and networks that women typically have less access to. In many communities, public speaking by women in mixed-gender groups violates kastom norms. In some islands, women cannot own or inherit land independently. The political parties, which are numerous and frequently fragmented, rarely prioritize women candidates.

The Vanuatu National Council of Women (VNCW) has been working since independence to build women's political capacity. Their training programs focus on public speaking, campaign management, fundraising, and understanding the political system. Women who go through these programs report that the skills are genuinely useful — not just for politics but for navigating every institution that matters.

A temporary special measure — a reserved seats quota — has been debated in Vanuatu's parliament multiple times. Male MPs have blocked it repeatedly. The arguments against are familiar: merit should determine election, quotas undermine democratic competition, the timing isn't right. Women advocates counter that the same argument was made to prevent women voting in the first place, and that structural barriers require structural solutions.

At the provincial and municipal level, the picture is somewhat better. Women have served as mayors and on local councils, and municipal politics tends to be more accessible than national-level competition. Building from local success to national candidacy is one pathway that has worked for several of the current female MPs.

Gender-based violence is a serious problem in Vanuatu, with surveys consistently showing high rates of intimate partner violence. Women's rights organizations have worked with the government to improve legal protections and support services. The Family Protection Act, passed in 2008 and amended since, provides some framework. Implementation in remote areas where kastom authority overlaps with formal law remains inconsistent.

Young ni-Vanuatu women in education and urban employment are a different demographic than the prior generation. They're more likely to contest leadership positions in their schools, churches, and workplaces. Whether this translates into political engagement depends partly on systems changing to accommodate them and partly on the specific choices individuals make about where to invest their energy.

The women who have made it into parliament have done so through persistence, coalition-building, and often by being extremely good at their jobs in a way that made it harder to dismiss them. That shouldn't be necessary. But it's the reality of where Vanuatu is right now, and the women working to change it deserve recognition for doing so in a difficult environment.