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Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Kiribati

top ten facts about living conditions in kiribati
The country of Kiribati, located in the equatorial Pacific, is made up of 33 atolls or ring-shaped islands. The islands are separated into three groups: the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands and the Line Islands. Of the islands, 21 are inhabited, but most of the population is settled in the Gilbert Islands where the capital, Tarawa, is located. The Outer Islands consist of six islands on the outskirts of Tarawa and the Phoenix Islands. Below are the top 10 facts about living conditions in Kiribati including causes and improvements.

Top 10 Facts about Living Conditions in Kiribati

  1. According to an assessment in 2014, it is estimated that 22 percent of people live below the poverty line. As people have begun to live a more urban lifestyle, the cost of living has increased, but there are few employment opportunities. The GDP per capita in 2018 was only $1732.30, equivalent to 14 percent of the world’s average.
  2. On average, only four out of 10 adults are employed in Kiribati. Formal employment is rare outside of the public service sector, with 75 percent of the labor force employed for services. Instead many adults often work in unpaid subsistence work, like subsistence agriculture. Some men become seamen, however, only around 4,000 jobs are available to people on the island making it an unsustainable career option.
  3. A shocking 70 percent of women have reported domestic violence by their partner and this gendered violence is considered normalized behavior in Kiribati. Female-led households are uncommon except in the poorest sectors of the country. Women are unable to leave their abusive partners due to limited economic opportunities for them. The gap is widest in middle-income homes with only 47 percent of women employed in the labor force despite 77 percent of men being employed.
  4. Education is free and compulsory for students aged 6 to 14, however, many children do not attend for the entirety. Between 2010 and 2013, the rate of students reaching Class 5 of primary school declined from 90.7 percent to 72.6 percent. Although these schools are free, families must cover costs for travel, uniforms and textbooks. So only one-third of all children finish secondary school and in general, the workforce of Kiribati is low skilled.
  5. Many people who live on the Outer Islands live a traditional lifestyle and rely on agriculture, fishing, cutting copra and selling crafts for financial compensation. However, the growing need for cash and the degradation of land makes these traditional means significantly less profitable. As a result, the average income for people on the island is $5 a day or the cost of a single pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in the United States.
  6. Due to poor eating habits and high poverty levels, Kiribati has a mortality rate of 54.6 out of 1,000 live births for children under 5 years old. According to the World Health Organization, malnutrition and the prevalence of communicable diseases, like tuberculosis, are the main causes of youth mortality. According to UNICEF, 34 percent of children suffer from stunting, a consequence of poor nutrition. Additionally, in a study from 2000-13, Kiribati had the highest tuberculosis case notification rate of all Pacific islands at 398 cases per 100,000.
  7. With an average height of six feet above sea level, high tides flood the islands of Kiribati for days on end. Especially during La Niña, Kiribati is susceptible to days of endless flooding that contaminates wells and drinking water. Flooding, followed by periods of drought, causes extreme water shortages affecting daily life and agriculture. In January 2019, there were reports of storm surges, strong winds and heavy rain on the main island of Tarawa. Floodwaters were slow to recede in some villages as a result of improper drainage throughout the country.
  8. In 2013, the Australian and Kiribati governments and the World Bank Group developed an economic plan to strengthen public financial management and the monitoring of public debt. Since then, the government was able to develop a financial strategy to improve the country’s 43 million dollar debt. Between 2015-17, the economy grew at an average annual pace of five and one-quarter percent, an improvement from 2000-14 when the economy only grew at an average annual pace of one and a half percent.
  9. Between 2017 and 2018, the Australian government provided an estimated 27.7 million dollars in official development assistance to Kiribati. Approximately 3.6 million dollars funded the government of Kiribati’s National Tuberculosis Program. The Australian government also helped 412 Kiribati workers gain temporary employment under its labor mobility programs.
  10. Starting in 2011, the government of Kiribati implemented a nine-year education improvement program to support the Ministry of Education, improve the quality of basic education and support reforms in the classroom. By 2014, 591 teachers had been assessed and/or trained under the program, around 1,500 primary school students were learning in rehabilitated classrooms and 32,238 textbooks and learning materials were printed and distributed.

These top 10 facts about living conditions in Kiribati intend to show a holistic representation of the impoverished conditions people endure daily. Lack of education, economic instability and few job opportunities make Kiribati a severely underdeveloped country.

Supporting legislation in the United States, like the Keep Girls in School Act, can help improve the lives of females in Kiribati and other underdeveloped countries by providing females with an education.

– Hayley Jellison
Photo: Flickr

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Australian Government on Economic Inequality & Poverty

Australian Government Addresses Economic Inequality and PovertyWith three million citizens living under the poverty line, Australia is in desperate need of government action to assist the economically downtrodden. The rise of child poverty is at the forefront of the poverty-related issues that the Australian government is currently addressing.

Among the millions of impoverished Australians are approximately 730,000 children who are not receiving necessary education, housing or financial stability. Thus, the Australian government is focusing on improving the nation’s current poverty situation.

According to Labor Leader Bill Shorten, tackling rising economic inequality is a “defining mission” of a future Labor government. With this in mind, the Australian government is working with hope and opportunity rather than frustration and fear.

Australia is in its 17th year of running the Household, Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA), which is a longitudinal study that provides important insight into the life courses of Australians.

Although HILDA has found that many households that experience poverty over a 10-year period only suffer poverty for about one or two of those years, about three percent of Australia’s population is living in persistent poverty. This percentage of the population is a great focus of Australian government assistance.

Additionally, HILDA shows a common theme between education and poverty. As expected, those who receive more education from higher quality institutions receive higher paying jobs while those who are not as educated tend to live below the poverty line.

When families fall below the poverty line, it becomes increasingly difficult to afford childcare and education for their children, which leads to a full circle of improper education and a lifetime of poverty. Single-parent families are at an extreme threat of poverty as one wage is unable to cover the doubling costs of childcare.

About 10 percent of the Australian community is at risk of poverty. In single-parent families, this number grows to about 20 to 25 percent. Since 2012, child poverty in single-parent families has increased every year.

By living in poverty, these children are unable to receive the same care and education that children from two-parent households are receiving, which puts them at a setback later in life.

The Australian government has recognized the suffering of these children, and immense efforts are getting put into protecting the welfare and economic assistance to families living in poverty.

– Kassidy Tarala

Photo: Flickr

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Australia’s Refugee System and the Nauru Detention Center

Australia’s RefugeeAustralia founded their offshore Nauru Detention Center for asylum-seekers on the Pacific island Nauru in 2001. It closed for a brief period in 2008 while the Australian government built detention centers on the mainland, but Nauru eventually reopened for refugee-processing in 2012.

Asylum seekers who arrive in Australia without a valid visa are transferred to either the Nauru or Manus Island Detention Center, where they spend an average of 445 days behind bars.

Australian law dictates that there is no limit on the length of time a refugee may be held in a detention center.

This militarized system of dealing with refugees is designed for the ease of processing on staff.  It is also easier to sell to other countries as “effective” rather than identifying and adapting the Australian refugee system to current changing global migration patterns.

Despite criticism that its refugee system is inhumane, the Australian government’s methods in their detention centers are often envied and copied by other countries, particularly because of the hostile mood toward refugees in recent years.

In contrast to Germany, which accepted over one million refugees in 2015, Australia placed only around 13,750 refugees in their Humanitarian Program in the 2015-2016 year.

Recently, the Nauru Detention Center, in particular, has come under scrutiny since the release of around 2,000 staff incident reports from the Center. These detail, among other things, sexual and physical abuse of refugees as well as self-harm among refugees.

In July 2015, there was an average of one incident of a refugee self-harming every two days. These “incidents” ranged from slashing wrists or overdosing on pills to self-immolation.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton stated in a press release that refugees lied about the incidents of sexual abuse at Nauru Detention Center and deliberately self-harmed in order to garner sympathy and speed up their immigration process.

Though the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has resisted holding a royal commission on the state of Nauru Detention Center, Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs called for immediate action on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, calling the Detention Center’s methods illegal and immoral.

Three non-governmental organizations have also petitioned the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse to investigate Nauru, based on the released reports of abuse.

Because the reports on the maltreatment of Nauru Detention Center prisoners were released so recently (first published by The Guardian on August 10th, 2016), there is no current information on whether the Australian government plans to close the detention center or allow it to remain open. There is also a dearth of information on what solutions the government will propose to fix the allegations of sexual and physical abuse to refugees.

Until the mistreatment of asylum seekers at Nauru Detention Center can be investigated thoroughly, proposed solutions are based on testimony alone. These solutions include improved living conditions, faster processing, and more visitations between refugees and any relatives/loved ones who live on the mainland.  An increase in healthcare, especially mental healthcare, for those living in the detention center is also a proposed solution.

– Bayley McComb

Photo: Flickr