Pacific's first woman president keen for others to follow in her footsteps

The number of women who hold high office in the Pacific are still few and far between, and despite the recent push for a female governor-general to be appointed in Papua New Guinea, the government there opted for another man.

But history was made in Samoa after elections last year, when Fiame Naomi Mata'afa was sworn in as her country's first female deputy prime minister.

And two months earlier in Marshall Islands, Hilda Heine was sworn in as her country's first female president, and the first woman to serve as head of state in any independent Pacific Island nation.

According to Radio Australia, President Heine says she hopes her success story is a catalyst for Pacific Islanders to pinpoint the underlying causes of inequality in their communities that often hold women back.