Women in the Marshall Islands been supported by the United States, by religious groups and by other nations belonging to the Pacific Rim region since the 1960s. Women in the Marshall Islands Women in the Marshall Islands are women who live in or are from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, an island country that is politically a presidential republic in free association with the United States. Alternative appellations for these women are Marshallese women, Marshall Islander women, Marshalls women, and women in Rālik-Ratak (literally women "facing toward the windward" [i.e. "facing sunrise"] and "facing toward the leeward" [i.e. "facing sunset"]). Marshallese women are known
Apostolic Prefecture of the Marshall Islands was established as Mission sui juris of Marshall Islands, on territory split off from the then Apostolic Vicariate of New Pomerania (mainly New Britain, in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea). On April 5, 1923, the independent mission was suppressed, its territory being merged into the then Apostolic Vicariate of Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands. On April 23, 1993, Pope John Paul II split the former Diocese of Carolines-Marshalls into the Apostolic Prefecture of the Marshall Islands and the Diocese of Caroline Islands. In 2007, Father James Gould, apostolic prefect, resigned. Father Raymundo Sabio, a Filipino missionary, was chosen