I have to agree with Metro Man Hardon! I met my now exwife up there, she was a teacher at the Goroka International School. That was in 1987 and things have gone A LONG WAY DOWNHILL SINCE THEN.
Whatever memories your future mother in law has of PNG are way out of date, and completely 1000% at odds with the reality that exists today.
I personally have knowledge of 3 white females that were raped and one murdered, these were people I knew not just stories I heard. There were many more stories of it happening to people I didn't know personally.
In 1987 my then fiancee and I were driving from Goroka to Kianantu and were stopped at a road block. I managed to reverse away up the hill before doing a wheels locked 180 degree reversal, jam it into gear and leave, they were shooting at us as this happened. We were just lucky that the rascals had not had time(or forgotten to) set up another vehicle to block our retreat, as was common. If we had not gotten away we had absolutley no doubt about the outcome, my future wife said if we were ever trapped shoot her before they got to her, she was NOT JOKING!
Our very dear friend was raped in her house at Goroka Teachers College. The Haus Meri had left the escape hatch in the floor unlocked so one of her wantoks could get in in the evening. While being raped, something her subconcious blocked out, she fired a flare at him and burned his face. Several days later he turned up at work, he was a security gaurd at the college! The police were called but did nothing after his wantoks threatened to come back and rape every female in the place if he was arrested and jailed! In case you're wondering why a house would have an escape hatch(common in PNG) it's so you can get out quickly in case of fire blocking your path to the RAPE GATE. A locked iron grill type door which is often used to seperate the sleeping part of the house at night.
Another person I knew, a female chopper pilot, was raped and chopped into bits in Lae.
The US Peace Corps stopped basing females in PNG in 1994. They had decided it was to risky even in the relatively 'safe' PNG Islands.
We were a young adventurous couple and were very lucky.
Do not take your new wife to PNG even if she says she wants to go. She is blinded by her affection for and desire to be with you, she has no idea what she is in for. Even shopping in big supermarkets in broad daylight will result in young black males coming up to her and saying "Hey misses...I want to F***K you!" regularly enough to scare her witless.
I would estimate that over 80% of PNG women have been 'raped' by the time they are 25, if you apply the wests definition of the act. PNG men, with very few exceptions, have zero respect for women and zero fear of the police.
Those white women still in PNG are either, as OZ states, much older(45+) and at less risk or have been in PNG so long that they are totally used to it and know how to stay out of trouble. They have developed a 'sixth sense'. The later group is tiny, the exodus of white women from PNG in the last 7 or 8 years has been MASSIVE.
Chuck.