ABSTRACT
Our chapter explores the appropriateness, or otherwise, of dominant framings of human rights for local use in Papua New Guinea. Both Kapul Champions and Igat Hope promote human rights for particular communities, whose members identify – at least at some times or to some degree – in respect of HIV status, sexuality or being transgender, so our discussion of rights necessarily involved issues of identity. Indeed, any analysis of human rights in Papua New Guinea requires a focus on identity. It is precisely because of the way Papua New Guineans conceptualise and prioritise their identities – HIV status, sexuality and transgender – that human rights are being localised, or indigenised, in the country. Papua New Guinea provides an interesting case study for the examination of these issues as they are experienced across the Pacific because Papua New Guinea has the Pacific's largest population of people living with HIV and has no tradition of a third gender.
