Tell me a bit about this man.

He was punching me with his fist and he broke my ears.

The green house, we'll go in.

How many times do you think he raped you?

Almost all my life.

What type of people do you usually target?

Go!

INDISTINCT

I'd arrived in Port Moresby,

the capital of Papua New Guinea, 100 miles off Australia's northern tip.

This place is regularly voted the worst place in the world to live.

With one of the highest rape and sexual violence rates in the world,

perpetrators are rarely prosecuted.

But some victims are taking a stand.

Leah, can we go?

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Leah has taken action to put a restraining order against her husband.

He's basically been abusing her for seven or so years.

Hopefully, this is the end for you.

Yeah, to end violence.

Tell me a bit about this man.

Two weeks before I went into my labour,

he beat me at my workplace.

How badly?

I had black eyes.

He was punching me with his fist and it broke my ears.

I had bleed...er, with my eyes there was a blood clot

formed on this side of my eye.

Now it's time to show him that this is not OK, and today is the day.

I don't want my children to grow in this violent life.

I've got to end the violence now.

And I've got to tell my son and daughter that violence

against women is not acceptable.

The green house, we'll go in. That's the uncle's house.

Does he know we're coming?

It's going to be a surprise.

There's a lot of his family around here, and I'm guessing they're not

going to be very happy, so I don't know where this is going to go.

That's his mum? Yeah.

Hello, come.

Leah's husband isn't at home.

But his mother can legally sign the restraining order on his behalf.

It must be very difficult to have to do this. Yes, it is. But I've got to do it. I...

Yeah. Well done. Well done for being strong.

I have tears in my eyes.

It shows you how difficult it is to do something like this.

You know, this is this lady's family.

She's got kids with this guy.

And you have to basically go up against people you've known for years.

What do you think of her bringing the police here?

As a female, I think it's good.

It's good that she's...? Yeah, it's good.

The majority of the men, they have this mentality where they

think women must be just right underneath their feet.

Like Leah, two out of three women here

will suffer abuse or violence in their lifetime.

How big is the problem?

How many cases have you seen this year?

From January to May, we had about 6,000.

And those cases are the ones that are reported.

And...and unreported, try and imagine.

Why are so many women being abused?

How can I put it? It's a normal thing.

To any man in Papua New Guinea, it's a normal.

To hit your girlfriend, your partner, your girlfriend, your wife?

Yes.

I've been told that some of the worst perpetrators are the Raskols here.

That's the local name for criminals or gangs.

And I've been told that quite often, they use rape

as gang initiation for new members.

They've agreed to meet me, hopefully.

There's about seven guys there, all considerably larger than me.

Let's meet the Raskols.

These are the leaders of the 13 Casino Raskol gang.

They're notorious for robbing and raping,

and amazingly, they don't care about showing their faces on camera.

So is this where we're...we're speaking inside? Yes, yes.

OK. This is the way. We're going to wait there.

To win their trust, I have to try betel nut,

a psychoactive drug used all over Papua New Guinea.

Chew the whole thing? Yeah.

It doesn't necessarily taste very nice.

As you chew, you just spit it out. Oh, it's red. It's red.

I've just got to say, I am most definitely feeling different.

Sweating quite a lot. Yes. Yes. Yes.

What is that? It's um...yeah, yeah, yeah. It's quite... First time.

How long does it usually last for?

That is the cutest gun pouch I've ever seen. That is very small.

So is this literally, just a...it's a piece of pipe? Yes. It's just a piece of pipe.

Has everyone here taken a life?

With the betel nut coursing through me, I was feeling brave

enough to ask some tricky questions.

I heard that some gangs in Papua New Guinea,

as an initiation thing, you...

Some young men have to have sex with a woman,

kind of, like, rape a woman. Have you heard of this?

Yeah, yeah. How normal is that?

Yes.

Is that necessary? Do you have to do that?

It's quite hard to get my head around.

I've been told that in Papua New Guinea

it's reasonably common to occasionally belt your wife to make sure she's...

Have you belted your wife before?

What is a belting?

Like punch?

Have you actually shot her in the leg?

Really?

I mean, do you, do you, do you love your wives?

You mustn't love her.

If you kind of love your wife, why would you belt her?

Do you feel like you're bad people?

Carjacking is their biggest money-maker.

What type of people do you usually target?

Hello. I'm Ben. Very nice to meet you.

Are you the victim today? Are you the car driver? Yeah.

All right. Fantastic. Are you excited? I'll try!

All right. Shall we...?

I'll follow you guys, follow your lead.

So they're demonstrating to me how they rob women,

who they consider very easy targets, of their cars.

We have a gunman, we have a machete wielder and then we have a driver.

I mean, it's all fun and games now,

but it's absolutely terrifying if you're involved in something

like this, and it could end up with you losing your life very easily.

Is this the car? Yes. The car's coming.

That's the car.

Go, go, go, go, go!

Come on, out, out!

Shock! That is quite...

OK, I'm really shocked.

Are you OK?

It's really shocking, honestly. It's really shocking.

Quite scared? Yeah, it's really, like, real.

They said that they target women, like, exclusively.

Have you had something like this happen to you? Yeah.

Yeah, I did, before, once when I was driving.

Is it scary being a lady in Papua New Guinea,

cos things like this happen? Yes. Yes, it is.

That was pretty terrifying. Yeah, yeah, that was so fast.

Yeah. When we get a vehicle, we don't waste time.

Come here, Alex. Come here, Alex.

Yeah, I mean, that was quite the experience.

You know, it's all about being strong, being in control.

If your wife doesn't listen to you, you punch her in the face,

otherwise you're not a man, and that is depressing.

In the face of so much male violence,

it felt like women in Port Moresby were constantly under threat.

But there is help. Safe houses have been set up around the city,

where women can seek refuge from abuse.

I was meeting Susan.

She's been staying at this safe house for the last two months.

Does it make you sad, so many women go through the same thing?

Yeah, so many.

Most all of the Papua New Guinea women.

You honestly think it's nearly all women?

Yeah, because most of them, you know, just staying there.

They don't come out, they just stay there.

How long was he abusive for?

Er, we've been married since 2000

and then, all these years through to 2018, he's been abusing me.

What exactly was he doing to you?

He just cut my hand, see here.

Really? Yeah. 35 stitch.

So he slashed it? Yeah.

One time he chased me, and I ran. I jump off the window.

This leg has been broken, this one came at the back,

and the heel went through the front.

Like it's turning around, full revolution.

How many times do you think he raped you?

Almost all my life.

Almost all my life. Since we've got married.

Did his family ever say anything to him, to stop him?

No, they are afraid of him.

Everyone's afraid of him.

If they want to say something, he would just get up and say,

"Shut up, don't talk! That's my property!"

He'd actually say, "That's my property," about you? Yeah, as if he owns it, yeah.

He sounds like a devil. Yeah.

And it seems that one of the problems is that it's culture,

because people use it as an excuse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're talking about culture and customs,

most of the women are hurting themself.

Like they are in a cage, you see. There's nobody to help them out.

What are you planning to do now that you're at the safe house?

Going back to my village. Stay with my parents.

Find a decent job, look after my kids

and just live a normal life like everybody.

A free life, free from violence, and abuse and all these things.

I really hope... Yeah, I really hope that you get it.

I hope so.

This is one of our clients. She is 69 years old.

Very nice to meet you.

Yeah, so she's Marissa.

Because she's 69 years old - safe house, we don't keep

women over that age. It's not a nursing home.

It's not an old people's home. So we can't keep her.

And so I've explained all of that to her, Marissa,

so she's leaving today.

She had her son-in-law. Her son-in-law was really violent,

just physically abusing her.

Beating her up, so...yeah.

Do you know why? Why was he doing it?

He wanted to have sex with you? Yeah.

Not only having sex with her -

he's abusing her every day, belting her up, yeah.

Are you scared?

Is he looking for you now? Yeah.

Were you saying that he was abusive not just to you

but to other members of the family?

And he was abusive to everyone?

Thank you so much for talking to us. Really helpful.

They're taking her to a safe place today.

All right.

Yeah, I don't really know how to react to this.

It feels like they're kind of sending this old woman to her death.

She's terrified of this guy, who's not only been torturing her,

but he's been torturing the rest of her family, as well.

And here lies the problem, is that these safe houses can protect

women for so long, but there is always a point that they are going

to have to go back and in this case, she is literally going back to hell.

It was only five years ago that Papua New Guinea passed the

Family Protection Act, making family violence a crime,

punishable by up to two years in prison or a fine of US2,000.

It's given hope to women like Janet.

Her husband allegedly beat her three days ago, giving her a black eye,

so she fled her home.

Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Ben. I'm Janet.

Er, Janet. This is one of our complainants. Yeah.

Men is always the head of everything,

he makes the decisions, he takes, you know... He's in control of the

economy of the family, and everything else.

So he decides for the family.