A recently released UN Women report shows that NZ has the highest rates of physical and sexual violence in the OECD with 30% of women having ever experienced physical violence and 14% having ever experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner from 2000 – 2010. This is something we should be very worried about. Physical and sexual abuse by intimate partners is generally about power and control. It is often about men having a very negative view of women. There is no doubt that stress and alcohol play a role.
The consequences of this violence are huge. I have previously worked in the women’s health movement and I have seen first hand the depression, the loss of confidence and the other consequences that remain long after the physical injuries have healed. Children are also hurt by this violence in so many ways including fear and trauama from seeing their mother hurt. They can often learn and become caught up in similar patterns of abuse. I have also seen the guts and determination women muster to leave violent relationships and to rebuild lives that have been shattered.
We must do something real to change the violence that pervades our culture. Just to give a sense of scale – in 2008 the Police responded to 82,692 incidents involving some form of domestic violence. I find it appalling that at a time when reported violence is increasing that successful programmes like Child Advocates and Te Rito have been cut as has funding for residential services.
In contrast, earlier this year the Gillard Government in Australia announced a 12 year multi-million dollar framework for action to reduce violence. This unified strategy across agencies has cross party support. The strategy includes a major focus on prevention.
I don’t for one minute claim this is a new problem or indeed one that is unique to NZ. Last week I attended two meetings focussed on women on consecutive nights . In the first Marilyn Waring was speaking about the Solomon Islands and the second was a presentation by Ratna Osman from an organisation called Sisters in Islam. Both presentations referred to the significant problem of violence against women.
Violence against women occurs in all societies but I do worry about the scale of the problem in NZ. I think we need to do more to address this problem and reach some sort of consensus on what is needed. In my maiden speech I committed to working to on the issue of family violence. I want to acknowledge those who work in paid and unpaid capacities to try to prevent such violence and to deal with the consequences of such violence. Yours is an important and difficult job.
Women’s Refuge is one such group and last week Jacinda, Carmel and I made a small contribution by collecting for Women’s Refuge in Auckland.
What is the definition of physical and sexual violence for this report?
Yay, keep up the good work Carol!
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It is not only restricted to females, males are also the victim of sexual and physical abuse but it does not get the attention of the media or those in power. I recently had to help a male client who was put in hospital by his partner. I tried to seek help from the Police, Victim Support, Salvation Army and even ask Womens Refuge on who to reffer this person onto for help and support. None of the agancies contacted were able to help as they were not set up to deal with male victims.
Last month I was assulted by a female client and the Police decided not to lay charges. My lawyer was advised informally by the Police that if it had been the other way round, i.e. if I being a male had assulted her then I would have faced charges.
I am also the victim of sexual abuse by both males and females. I carried that secret shame for a number of years till I was encouraged to seek help. I tried and again there was very little support avaliable for male victims of sexual abuse and I was told by one medical professional that males cannot be the victims of sexual abuse.
Sweetd, the numbers are here http://tinyurl.com/3p86aqn (download the enormous pdf and it is Annex 4 near the bottom.
Can’t see definitions for physical and sexual violence though, and can’t find the document “UN Women 2011a” that it refers to.
Although I found our ranking surprising, I don’t find the prevalence surprising – it gels with my knowledge of the people I know. So, good on you, Carol.
Couple of things I think would help would be measures to disable abusive ex-partners from using the court system to terrorise those who are trying to escape from them. The Hague Convention seems a pretty perfect tool for an abusive spouse to make sure his victim never gets away, as does the Care of Children Act’s lean towards shared parenting. Good idea for cases where parents get along, but not where one is abusing the other.
If a mother runs a significant risk of losing the children altogether to an abuser through the courts if she leaves, its a pretty rational decision to stay with the abuser where she can provide them with some protection.
I need to see the definitions of sexual and physical violence used, and exactly how this information is gathered across all countries included in the study.
Are we comparing like with like, or is this just more sloppy sociology?
Definitions linked to statistics? But how can we wail and beat our breasts if we have to back up our research with methodology?
No, all we really want are some numbers we can point to!
Please, grant us the benefit of the doubt that we can actually cope with getting the full story, and we can actually make our own interpretations. Some of us are quite intelligent!
I think it’s great that some here want to see the facts behind the summary. It will be good that more people read the report. It will serve them well in the coming election to look behind sound bites and PR from parties, they like and don’t rather than just taking something at face value because it appeals.
Roswell
One reason the focus on women is because of work such as the womens refuge which started off small and self funded. Basically people who cared enough about something to help a category of people they felt were at harm. By definition and practice WR can’t deal with men, mainly because some of their work is in keeping certain men away from women they help and some women are in a state where any man frightens them.
Any person at risk is a concern for all of us, there are some mens groups and the mountain for them to climb is the same mountain WR began climbing a few decades ago.
I make the observation that when it was discovered boys were performing below girls in schools things were acted upon swiftly, which is great however the time it took from my mothers schooling days to my own, t begin to close the gap the other way is a lesson for us all. Two wrongs dont make a right.
Thanks for the requests for more information. A bit of background:
• UN Women was created last year (July 2010) by the United Nations General Assembly, it is the the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
• The report Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice is the first one of its kind and has been labeled the flagship report. It looks like a report like this will happen every 2 years from now on.
Thanks to Bea and Tracey who have responded to questions about the report and the statistics. Information about the report http://progress.unwomen.org/