Pamuk na poofta : criminalising consensual sex in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The terms I have chosen for my title, pamuk [slut, prostitute] and poofta [gay, effeminate] are common pejoratives in Tok Pisin for those whose sexual practices are still criminalised in Papua New Guinea, one of the many former British Commonwealth colonies still maintaining this criminalisation. The English common law system was imposed on the colonies with little regard for the social regulation and belief systems of the colonised. The current burgeoning HIV epidemic in PNG has thrown a spotlight, not altogether welcome, on the sexual activities of these two criminalised groups, prostitutes and males who have sex with males. A growing body of behavioural research has focused on such matters as individual sexual partnering, condom use and awareness of HIV.

My thesis, however, has a different purpose. I chose the terms in the title to highlight a nexus which I believe exists between the criminal law and negative attitudes of society. At an international level, the argument has been put that decriminalising sex work and sodomy will facilitate HIV epidemic management, reducing the stigma and discrimination these groups encounter and making them easier to reach. My own experience of living and working in PNG has afforded me some insights into the problems encountered by these people. I undertook my research therefore with the aim of gaining deeper understanding of what effects the current situation of criminalisation might have on their social lives today, in the country generally and in Port Moresby the capital in particular, and whether these effects might provide evidence to support the argument for law reform.

Contra those who argue that if proscriptive laws are not enforced, they are harmless (the 'enforcement principle'), my research reveals that the existence of the criminal laws, although they might not be clearly understood, nevertheless underpins and legitimises high levels of stigma, discrimination and abuse of these criminalised groups. I turn to Foucault's theories of bio-power, sexual self-regulation and the deployment of discourse to understand the societal processes which lead to these effects. I study the colonial regulation of sexuality, the history of religious and medical discourses of sexuality, the development of a middle class and the broader effects of modernity in PNG. Through interviews, analysis of case law and the development of legislation, and textual investigations -surveys, studies and media reports - my research charts the ways in which opinions and attitudes to criminalised sexual minorities have evolved. I then turn to intersectionality theory, as developed through feminist legal study in the USA, to understand how narratives of those dominant in society have developed to construct these groups as abject and to support the continuance of their criminalisation. I conclude by surveying recent reforms overseas and canvassing the possibilities of reform in Papua New Guinea, in the light of efforts by the elites of PNG society to maintain and enhance their superior social position, concerns regarding the HIV epidemic, and a growing tendency to deploy Pentecostal and fundamentalist Christian doctrine to support the retention of the colonial criminal laws. Show more