On the same night journalist Suli Suli and his wife narrowly escaped a potentially life-threatening taxi incident, another young woman—Andrea Faith Cadigan—was not so lucky. She was reportedly forced to jump out of a moving vehicle in an act of desperation, landing herself in critical condition and requiring emergency treatment at Gerehu Hospital.
Details are still emerging, but the fact remains chilling: Andrea’s story is not isolated. It fits a growing pattern of attacks, abductions, and violence linked to the informal and often unregulated taxi sector in Papua New Guinea’s capital. Each case underscores a central truth: Port Moresby’s urban transport network is not merely unreliable—it is actively unsafe for many of its users.
In this context, taxis have become a symbol not of mobility, but of vulnerability—particularly for women. Whether through abduction, harassment, robbery, or worse, the act of catching a cab is increasingly fraught with danger. And yet, for many residents of Moresby—students, shift workers, journalists, and everyday commuters—there is no alternative. The state’s failure to provide safe, affordable, and regulated transport has left a vacuum that is now being filled by opportunists and predators.
Andrea’s decision to leap from a moving car is emblematic of a profound breakdown in public trust. When citizens feel that their only option is to risk injury to escape, the question becomes not just one of individual safety—but one of national governance.
Who is responsible when taxis become tools of entrapment? Why are unregistered, untracked vehicles still allowed to operate on the streets of the capital? Why are drivers not vetted, licensed, or subjected to even the most basic regulation? And where is the accountability when public spaces are no longer safe for women?
The answers are unsettling. While the PNG government continues to roll out high-level policies around economic growth, foreign investment, and law-and-order reform, the lived reality of urban residents remains grim. Particularly for women and girls, public space is not public at all—it is contested, dangerous, and often hostile.
Andrea’s case, like Suli’s, also reveals the absence of real-time emergency systems. Her belongings were recovered not by police or emergency responders, but by a bystander. Her family was located through viral Facebook posts, not institutional response mechanisms. In a functioning city, it would not take a social media campaign to reunite a young woman with her family in a medical emergency.
That Port Moresby’s residents must rely on informal networks for emergency coordination, live location sharing for personal safety, and private security vehicles for protection is a damning indictment of the state’s inability to perform its most basic function: protecting its citizens.
There is no single fix to this crisis. What’s needed is a multi-sectoral response:
- Transport regulation must be drastically overhauled. All taxis operating in NCD should be GPS-tracked, registered, and display driver IDs.
- Police visibility and response time must improve—particularly along known risk routes like Erima, Wildlife, and 9-Mile.
- Gender-based violence prevention must be mainstreamed into urban safety policy—not treated as an afterthought.
- And perhaps most importantly, the government must invest in public transport infrastructure that does not leave citizens at the mercy of informal and unsafe alternatives.
Andrea’s story is still unfolding. But it has already said enough. It is a wake-up call for policymakers, law enforcement, and civil society. Public transport in Port Moresby should not be a roll of the dice with one’s life.
Until that changes, every woman who steps into a cab does so at her own risk.