Cook Islands police Photo: RNZI / Mary Baines
Police from around the region have gathered in Pohnpei for a workshop aimed at improving how they deal with gender violence and discrimination against women.
The training is being run by Fiji's Women's Crisis Centre with more than 20 officers from the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, the Cook Islands and the Marshall Islands participating.
The Centre's Co-ordinator Shamima Ali says the two-week workshop will cover a range of issues including sensitivity, the dynamics of abuse and rape and the root causes of discrimination that can impact everyone, including police.
"The whole socialisation process that men and women go through force men into a stage, into as sense of entitlement, that they have rights over women, they can do whatever they want to and there are some social norms that allow for this. Those attitudes are taken into the police force and that is then how they respond."