Shine wholeheartedly supports the recommendations of this report about ‘Men who use violence’, released today by the NZ
Family Violence Death Review Committee.
According to Shine Policy Advisor Holly Carrington, “There has been a lot of attention on the impact of the lockdown on
the problem of family violence. It’s important for people to understand that family violence is about the use of
coercive control over intimate partners and family members, and that the lockdown has simply created conditions where
there are more opportunities to control partners and family members, and less opportunities for those affected to get
help and support. But this has been a massive problem for a very long time and it’s not going to go away until we as a
country heed the complex and multi-faceted recommendations of this report about men who use violence.”
“The recommendations are complex and multi-faceted, because that’s what we are dealing with. The epidemic of intimate
partner violence in New Zealand is overwhelmingly men using violence and coercive control on intimate partners and
children, and it was not created in a vacuum. It is not happening because we just happen to have an abundance of men
with anger problems, or mental health problems, or any other individual pathology.
“It is happening because we continue to live in a society dominated by Western patriarchal beliefs and system responses
that have been imposed on Māori and other indigenous peoples through the process of colonisation.”
While Māori are disproportionately represented among the 97 men in this report who killed their intimate partners, there
is also significant representation of European, Pacific Island, Asian, African and men from other ethnicities.
“We agree that the only way we will see a significant reduction in intimate partner violence, is by providing services
for men who use violence that respond to the ‘whole person’ – not just treating men as a list of problems. This means
addressing past trauma, which for most men in the report, and most men that Shine has worked with includes experiencing
family violence as a child, and for many of these men this has been an intergenerational problem.
“And we agree that responding to the ‘whole person’ also means acknowledging and addressing the collective and
intergenerational trauma Māori experience caused by colonisation and ongoing structural inequities and racism. We cannot
continue to privilege Western ways of thinking and responding to violence, as these so often fail to address structural
inequities. So we also agree with the report’s recommendation to centre Kaupapa Māori approaches that reaffirm Māori
knowledge and practices which are key to improving the identity, health and wellbeing of Māori whānau, hapū and iwi,
“At a practical level,” says Carrington, “we agree that Aotearoa New Zealand urgently needs more and better services
that are available and accessible when these men need them or are ready to engage, not only in response to an episode of
violence. This report highlights that for most of the 97 men who had killed an intimate partner or ex-partner, there had
been numerous missed opportunities for various institutions and organisations to engage and support these men in a
meaningful way in order to move them away from the use of violence. What is needed is a whole system approach that
includes the education, health, justice and social sectors and that addresses not just individuals’ use of violence, but
importantly also the structural inequities that they, their families and whanau experience as unjust barriers to
wellbeing and a good life.
“Instead of a system that responds to one violent episode at a time with a narrow focus on that episode, we need to be
addressing the needs that men who use violence perceive as being core to their dignity and mana - such as housing and
employment. Supporting men in this way will help to break down barriers to engagement in a change process, so that men
are better supported while being held accountable for their violence, in order to create lasting change.”
At the same time, it is critical that any enhancement of services for men who use violence is not at the expense of
services to support adult and child victims of family violence.
“We also wholeheartedly agree with the report’s recommendation to ensure that professionals in all parts of the system –
education, health, justice and social services – have a far better understanding of the impact on children experiencing
family violence, as this is fundamentally where a pathway can begin towards the use of violence to intimate partners.”
“I know that many New Zealanders will struggle with the idea that patriarchy is alive and well in this country. But many
of the changes that people take for granted were in fact relatively recent. It was only in 1985 that rape within
marriage became recognised as an illegal act. And as the report points out, which agrees with the experience of so many
of our clients who’ve experienced intimate partner violence, today’s Family Court continues to make decisions that
prioritise a father’s ‘right’ to have access to his child over the rights of that child and mother to be safe from
violence and abuse.
Finally, the report makes an important point that our system responses need to stop putting all the pressure and burden
on mothers who experience partner violence to protect themselves and their children, and start including fathers in
their responses. This ‘father inclusive practice’ should focus on the quality of men’s parenting, and needs to
explicitly include respectful treatment of the other parent as an important part of providing safety and wellbeing for
children.