White Ribbon Day 2007
Once again Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) will be supporting White Ribbon Day on 25 November to back the
International Day’s stand against violence towards women. White ribbons and posters will be distributed around CDHB
hospitals. Staff are being encouraged to wear their ribbons on Sunday and during the coming week.
This Sunday is the United Nations International Day for the elimination of violence against women. The NZ Families
Commission has recently put a significant amount of energy into raising awareness of this issue.
The CDHB has decided to broaden its approach to White Ribbon Day and speak out against violence towards all individuals.
“Family Violence is a health issue. The identification and management of family violence should be part of the role of
all health professionals. Women and children who are exposed to violence and abuse are much more likely to access a
broad spectrum of health services than their peers who have not been exposed to the same environment,” says CDHB Child
Protection Coordinator, Susan Miles. were just over 3,100 convictions recorded against men for assaults on women and a
2001 national victims of crime study showed that close to one in five women experienced sexual assault or sexual
interference at some point in their lives. Last year, police recorded 63,000 incidents involving family violence. New
Zealand is currently ranked 25 out of 27 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in
respect to child deaths from maltreatment.
Next week, the National Network of Family Violence Intervention Coordinators will be meeting in Christchurch for two
days to further discuss and plan implementation of family violence partner and child abuse programmes within their
respective DHBs. The 59 th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Paediatric Society will also be held in Christchurch next
week, which includes a one day workshop focusing on management of child protection cases.
For more information and a list of some of the events go to www.whiteribbon.org.nz.
ENDS