Gender Violence & Kustom for Women Travelers

( I post again the questions I send privately to Ozziegiraffe a few days ago.
Ozziegiraffe, I really appreciate your advice :-)))))))) Thank you very much)

Hello salomon lovers!

First of all I would like to congratulate you for the great work you do in this forum. Amazing and real useful information!!! Thanks to this forum and the guys of exploringsolomons.wikispaces.com, I think I could learn a lot of this beautiful unknown country we want to explore! Together with my wife we are always looking for adventurous places to travel, far far away from mass tourism and 5 star hotels!!

I´m planing a 4 weeks trip to the Salomons in September 2013. We have simple objectives: discover the culture, meet friendly people, enjoy the untouched nature, make long trekkings and good dives, Thats the reason why i fell in love with the Salomons!

We are semi-experienced travelers (most of asia, central&lsudamerica and a few countries in africa), but the south pacific is new for us, and some information you get about the Salomons are conffusing us.
We would like to travel as backpackers principally around the Western province. And I would like also to spend 3-4 days in Malaita depending on what you tell us to do.

We had experiences in the past while traveling as backpackers specially in some islamic countries (not always women friendly). It was amazing, but sometimes you have to consider to many things in order to not offend local people or even to stay safe and my wife would like to be more "relaxed" this time.

It would be great if you could help us with a few general questions related to security that are important for us.

1. Gender violence
Violence against women is a Pacific islands-wide problem and is suposed to be prevalent and serious in the Solomons.

As far as I have read , with country-wide education campaigns against gender violence and as girls become better educated and women more aware of their rights in life, the problem is getting better than in the past. Althogh this, rape is stil not uncommon even within families.

• How can this affect us as travelers if we stay in remote villages in the western provinces?

• How high should be the degree of caution in Malaita villages?

• In your opinion, could be any danger of rape to tourists, like for example in Papua New Guinea?

2. Custom
We know the locals expect us to conform to their ideas of acceptable clothing.
Could you please correct this standards for women?

At the beach in lodges/resorts: normal western bikini top & bottom is fine.

At secluded beaches near villages: Bikini top but with boardshorts ? or better always swimming with sarong?

Outside the beaches: always covered with a sarong?

In general: she can never wear troussers or jeans? better always knee legth skirt ?

What about the standard for men? Can I just wear a boardshort at beaches? Or do I always need a T Shirt?

Can a foreign woman feel uncomfortable in secluded beaches?

For us its not a problem to take care and respect custom, We love to learn about it! But it is importatant for us to know if local men will respect my wife and dont treat her in an obscene way, only because she is a woman.
This is really very importat for us. If you have to exercise caution the hole time, you dont relax and enjoy, and at the end this are our holidays and we fly 40 hours from Europe!!.
Whats your opinion to this ?

Sorry for all this "typical european" questions you probably dont want to hear anymore!

I hope you can understand we need your experience to get the real mood of the country.
We are excited of making this trip!!

Thank you very much in advance!!

Hope to hear from you soon!!!

(sorry for my bad spanish- english. I tried to do my best! )

Edited by: ersamov

Gender violence doesn't usually affect travellers, not in my experiences in Solomons anyway. It's more a family thing.

Use your common sense in Malaitan villages, Malaita is very custom-bound but they are also very tolerant of a foreigner's mistakes. Just be observant and do as the villagers do, in most cases. Solomons is not PNG, rape isn't a huge concern for foreigners.

A woman must not wear bikinis near villages, that is totally against custom and is insulting to the locals, especially on Malaita. Women should swim with t-shirt and skirts, as shorts are not favoured either. Difficult, but you get used to it. She might get away with long shorts, i.e. knee-length or longer, but keep in mind that showing thighs is a no-no for women, just about all over the country. And bikini tops are frowned on. I think men can just wear boardshorts. Also be careful swimming at a beach close to a village, this could possibly be a "sand" beach where areas are separated men from women. A "sand" beach is the village latrine, so ask a local first about where you can and cannot swim. And do not use the wrong "sand" beach in an emergency, women must not use the men's beach and vice-versa - major tabu.

Local men will more than likely be very respectful towards your wife, and protective of the pair of you providing you haven't done anything to anger them.

Solomon Islands is my favourite destination, I'm sure you'll have a fascinating visit and it is pretty much a very safe country to travel through.

Hi Watsoff!

Thank you very much for the great explanation of the standards of dress. it is nice to hear from you and from Ozziegiraffe that the Salomons is a quite friendly country and that It is perfectly safe to travel on our own as backpackers. This is the first big point It was important for me to ensure.

Women should always swim with t-shirt and skirts? Boardshorts are still ok but it is honestly hard to imagine someone doing snorkeling by 28º water dressed this way.

Also in the Western Province which is less conservative than Malaita?

No probs to always wear skirt in the villages or travellling, but specially in coastal places where we will dive and snorkel its not so relaxing if you have to think about covering up all the time. And being only in exclusive expats resorts like Uepis is of course not an option for us.

I already see, I will need much more than great dives reviews and wild islands to convince my wife of doing the trip...

Thank you Watsoff for your help!

I would think that if you're staying at a dive resort, then regular bathing suits would be okay; I don't dive so I don't have any real info on that. Regular swim suits should be okay at the Boneggi beaches outside Honiara, as these are 'public' beaches even though there's a fee to use them. My advice was more to do with swimming at beaches by villages (all property is owned so no beaches are just free for you to swim from wherever you want) and bathing suits are not acceptable by most villagers. A woman can swim in long pair of shorts, in most cases, which is much more comfortable than a skirt, so I should think a woman can wear board-shorts for swimming. Yes, W. Province is less conservative than Malaita but they still don't like a female showing their thighs, hence long-ish shorts. I should think that these tabus on clothing wouldn't matter if you are diving from a boat, but again I don't know because I don't dive. Have a great trip, it's a fantastic country to visit.

It's interesting -I got so used to swimming in "clothes" while living in Solomon Islands that it has taken me forever to get used to wearing swimmers back here in Australia. I'm pretty sure the younger women who were at Maravagi with me were OK in their area in swimmers with boardies over.
In my "home" village in Malaita, which is a new, rather than custom artificial island, it is a little more relaxed, but anywhere else in Malaita, I would definitely be conservative.
If you are staying somewhere aimed at visitors in the Western Province, they will tell you what is all right in their area.
There was a bit of a fuss from the Boneghi villagrs a few years ago about expat women wearng brief bikinis on their beach, and not respecting custom. This was when Honiara was full or RAMSI advisors, who tended to go there every weekend.

Thank you very much Ozziegiraffe and Watsoff for your great help and comments.

You have provided me with great first hand information and I appreciate it really much.

It has been a quite exciting and difficult research, its a great country with not much information. For me this has already been part of the trip. To read and try to learn about a place you have never been and that is on the other corner of the planet, but somehow you feel attracted to. I love it!

Now we finally booked the flights and I am starting to define the route. As you said, the country is conservative, but there are places where we can be more relaxed if we want to. So the key for us will be to combine in the four weeks, great places in the western provinces to swim, dive and trekk ( Kolombangara/Tetepare/Munda/Nggatokae) with one week to explore one more authentic island. Probably Malaita, but why not Renell, San Cristobal or Santa Isabel?

Of course we would appreciate your great advices!!!!

Thank you again.

You might prefer Bellona to Rennel, it isn't so hard to get around (smaller island) and there are some beautiful beaches on Bellona. Try Suania Guesthouse - you can probably arrange something in Honiara at the Bellona provincial government office in Chinatown in Honiara. If it hasn't moved, that is. And if you do go to that guesthouse, please say hi to the owners, Barnabas and Millie, for me - Nadine (thanks). And the Tourist Bureau near the Mendana Hotel in downtown Honiara is usually super helpful.

Gah, I cannot type on thisold keyboard, I'm in Fiji right now. Have a great trip to Solomons, kiss the ground for me, ok? :-)) I also don't have my glasses, so can hardly see anything!

I have friends in Honiara with a homestay just out of Buala on a white sand beach in Isabel. If you are interested, [lease let me know. Rather than San Cristobal (uually referred to locally as Makira)l, Santa Ana slightly to the south, is culturally fascinating.

Re-reading this thread, I remembered an incident when I was returning from Malaita by ship. We pulled into the wharf across from Bilikiki, one of the Live-aboard dive boats. On the deck was an overweight middle-aged white man wearing very brief underpants and nothing else. (They did not even look like speedo-type swimmers). I saw the parents on board our ship move their children so they could not see him. One of our crew very quickly walked over and spoke to someone on Bilikiki, and the man quickly disappeared from the deck.
What does this say? Basicaly, it might be OK to wear brief clothing on a Live-aboard boat while away from towns or villages, but if you visit a village, or the town wharf, put some clothes on.
This man was NOT a pretty sight.