Project: Women Against Violence

Address to fundraising lunch for Project: Women Against Violence.

Thank you to Shakti for the opportunity to speak at today's fundraising lunch to assist Farida Sultana in taking an important message to parts of the world where it may not be well-received by the powers that be, but is much-needed by those to whom it is delivered.

Allow me first to quote two men, who with their words provide context for what I want to say:

"There must be no impunity for gender-based violence. Let me be clear. What we are talking about is not a side issue. It is not a special interest group of concern to only a few. What we are talking about are not only women’s rights but also the human rights of over one half of this globe’s population … violence against women concerns not only women, but above all the rest of us.”
Sergio Vieira de Mello
(cited in UNIFEM 2003, p. 3)

"Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And, it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.”

Kofi Annan
Secretary General of the United Nations
(cited in UNIFEM 2003, p. 8)

Domestic violence occurs throughout New Zealand society and the overwhelming burden of this violence is still borne by women at the hands of men.

We should not be afraid to say this, even though there will be those who say we are being "politically correct" to do so. The evidence in New Zealand reinforces Kofi Annan's statement that domestic violence is a widespread and significant problem which occurs irrespective of age, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, religious, ethnic or cultural group, and stems from the complex interplay of many factors.

It has significant negative short- and long-term effects that undermine women’s overall well-being, impact on inter-generational outcomes and cause high direct and indirect costs to society, which is why we must all be concerned about it.

I first met Farida Sultana in Auckland where she had established a refuge support service for Asian women who she believed had needs that sat outside the mainstream. This was largely because of their vulnerable status as migrants without the connections we who are born here take for granted, and because for most of them their immigration status was entirely dependent on their abuser.

Shakti was the name of the organisation, and given that the word "Shakti" encapsulates the essence of power, force and feminine energy, it seemed an appropriate name for an organisation dedicated to empowering women.

It was Farida who highlighted that ethnic, migrant and refugee women faced significant additional pressures when trying to deal with domestic violence, including:

• language barriers;
• culture shock;
• lack of wider family support;
• homesickness, grief and a sense of loss;
• depression, loneliness and isolation;
• not knowing who to turn to;
• financial strain;
• different laws;
• stress within the family as partners and children adapt to new values and influences.

I would now like to interrupt my address to do some advertising for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, which is currently researching women’s experiences of protection orders under the Domestic Violence Act 1995. After describing the difficulties confronted by different ethnic women, this seemed the appropriate place to do so.

This research will contribute further to the development of a sound evidence-based understanding of women’s experiences of protection orders, and identify what improvements, if any, are needed to the systems around obtaining and enforcing protection orders.

It is critical that the diverse voices of women are reflected in this research including women from different ethnicities. If any of you know women who may be willing to be interviewed, I would like to encourage you to contact the researchers via the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. And, it just so happens that Catherine Hughes from the Ministry is here, so you can follow up directly with her. I understand the researchers from Waikato University are in Wellington next week.

I was an opposition MP when I visited Shakti and it was clear to me that more had to be done to ensure that these particularly vulnerable women were catered for, not only from a protection from violence perspective, but also from an immigration perspective.

From that time until today Shakti has grown into a well-respected organisation, which has been able to influence government policy in many ways. However, in my time as Minister of Immigration, the most significant of these issues was to address the serious risk women faced in being returned alone to a country where the very act of leaving her husband is regarded as a crime.

I am particularly proud that this issue has been addressed, and I am grateful to Farida and Shakti for persisting when the preceding government was not persuaded to make the necessary changes.

While there is still much to do to eliminate the impact of domestic violence on New Zealand women’s lives, how much harder would it be for women without access to similar advocacy and support?

We actually know what that was like because the establishment of Shakti in 1995 and their first refuge in 1998 identified significant under-reporting and a lack of engagement with refuge services amongst the Asian communities. I think the fact that Sahkti now provides services to 20,000 families a year confirms this view.

Farida is about to visit a number of Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Nepal) in order to build networks, to assess the current level of government and non-government support for victims of domestic violence, and to raise awareness among local women’s groups of the Women’s Refuge concept.

But at the same time I think we have to acknowledge that what Farida is doing is not without personal risk, because as I learned in developing the special domestic violence category in immigration, the message will be strongly resisted in some cultures.

But it is vital that the message gets through, which is why I am pleased to be here to support Farida on her new journey to bring the Women’s Refuge concept, which she has worked so hard to build for the benefit of migrant and refugee women in New Zealand, to women throughout the Asian region.

While I have asked you to imagine life without access to refuge and support services, which sadly is the reality for many women around the world, I would now like to finish by asking you to imagine instead life without domestic violence.

We can confidently predict that if women were free from violence, they would be less likely to require healthcare, which would free up resources in the health system for everyone.

Given the costs to women and their employers of the loss of income and work for employees affected by family violence, we can also expect that if women were not experiencing domestic violence, they would also be more likely to have a stable employment record, better career prospects and more capacity to participate in their workplaces and communities.

If children lived in non-violent homes, they would be more likely to stay in the same schools, more likely to do well in school and less likely to require healthcare throughout their lives for the mental and physical impacts of experiencing violent homes.

But most importantly, the death of a woman at the hands of a partner, or former partner, every five weeks would stop.

That is the reality of the impact of domestic violence, and it is as I quoted at the beginning, something we must all be concerned about. This is not an issue of women's rights; it is an issue of human rights.

And, we wish you well Farida as you take the knowledge and skills you have developed here to other places and we are glad that you are willing to make the sacrifices you do to support women who experience the reality of domestic violence. We wish you well. We are all with you in spirit and we look forward to your safe return.