Papua New Guinea's prime minister insists his citizens need to take more responsibility for their personal behaviour in order to reduce the scourge of domestic violence.
Doctors Without Borders this week warned the best it could do was "patch up" victims between incidents of abuse, saying a lack of safe houses in the country was resulting in a revolving door of repeat victims.
Gender violence rates in PNG are among the highest in the world, with 70 per cent of women experiencing rape or sexual assault during their lifetimes, according to Human Rights Watch.
PNG last year passed its first child welfare laws, but the legislation is yet to be certified and there have been long delays in creating safe house guidelines and vetting child protection workers.
Peter O'Neill defended the PNG government's actions during an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday.
His government had increased the number of police and aimed to have an officer in every village with a population of 500 people or more.
But people had to look at their own behaviour, he said.
"It must be community responsibility," Mr O'Neill told reporters.
PNG only has six safe houses, five of which are in Port Moresby.
Mr O'Neill acknowledged that women's shelters in PNG often came under threat from disgruntled husbands.
Getting more children - especially girls - into schools and educated for longer would help the country deal with gender inequality issues in the long run, Mr O'Neill insisted.
Instead of marrying young, more girls would instead have successful careers and better family lives.
"One day when I'm old and grey, some of these girls will be in power to run our country and they'll remember who educated them," he told AAP.
"I'm very proud of that."
