1 November 2012

Media Release

NCWNZ supports consideration of criminal charge for violence against women

“Judge Peter Boshier’s suggestion that there should be a separate criminal charge for family violence merits consideration,” National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) President Barbara Arnold said today.

“New Zealand has a high rate of domestic violence - of which the victims are overwhelmingly women. As Women’s Refuge Chief Executive Heather Henare pointed out on Morning Report today, we don’t know the true extent of it or have accurate information about it because of the lack of data being recorded.”

Barbara Arnold said that in July this year, NCWNZ raised this issue with the UN committee monitoring New Zealand’s performance in relation to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

“NCWNZ’s report to CEDAW, on behalf of non-governmental organisations of New Zealand, emphasised that violence remains the overwhelming concern of New Zealand women. Each year on average 14 women, six men and 10 children are killed by a member of their family. This violence is mainly perpetrated by men against women with 84% of those arrested for domestic violence being men. 90% of the women who seek refuge help report psychological abuse and 65% report physical abuse.

“Statistical collection by official sources such as police, health, and social services can’t be compared because of inconsistencies in definitions and data capture. We urged the CEDAW Committee to recommend that the Government statistically reports violence, disaggregated by gender and the type of violence suffered by women in New Zealand.”

Barbara Arnold said that the Committee took these concerns on board and has asked the Government, “...... to ensure systematic collection and publication of data, disaggregated by sex, ethnicity, type of violence, and by the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim; to collect data on the number of women killed by partners or ex-partners; and to monitor the effectiveness of legislation, policy and practice relating to all forms of violence against women and girls.”

“Judge Boshier’s proposal would not only enable the necessary information on violence against women to be collected, it would expose the perpetrators and make them accountable. NCWNZ therefore supports the proposal being given further consideration, ” Barbara Arnold concluded.

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