Every 12 days, a woman or child is murdered in New Zealand; a woman is murdered every six hours, in South Africa.

I met an interesting woman at Viviana, skeptic and disappointed in New Zealand's domestic violence services, or 'family violence, as they call it here, and the title was the alarming fact she told me. I replied with that little known and more alarming fact that a woman is killed in South Africa every 6 hours. There's always someone else,  somewhere else, who has it worse... I'm not sure if there is a higher femicide rate that South Africa's: does anyone know?

 

Viviana is not a member of the National Collective of Women's Refuges, the equivalent to Scotttish Women's Aid back home, for the following reasons that Membership Rules dictate (however I can't seem to access them from the website so I go by the worker):

• refuges can only house women for 2 weeks only 
• refuges do not accept women with additional support needs
• volunteers run refuges with few paid staff

She said they also are fundamentalist feminists, lacking a grounding practical application of their theory and holistic understanding and approach to anti-violence work. Women aren't supported to leave abusive relationships and re-establish new lives with their children; how can you possibly do that in 2 weeks? Maybe you can, but only in exceptional circumstances; most women need more than 2 weeks to break free from the chains of an abusive partner, and even then, it's only the physical chains. The psychological and emotional damage takes sometimes a lifetime to heal, or never...

Anways, she talked disparagingly of New Zealander's and her colleagues' work ethic. While she's comfortable working with women with additional drugs, alcohol, mental health needs, her peers aren't and it's because there is a mentality resistant to change. It's not just about resources, although that is an issue, she said; staff have no training budget but they wouldn't use it even if they did. The only reason she's different is because she's travelled and worked around the world, Ireland, England, Korea, etc. etc. 9 years after, she was horrified when she came back that things had gone back 50 years... I'm not really sure in what ways because she didn't explain.. She did have an interesting take on co-gender prevention group work. When in groups, there can be no collusion. It's probably more difficult, but it's not impossible... group's have cliques and couples and relationships within aren't necessarily equal... when I work in groups there is the attempt to prevent that from happening, definitely however I believe that where there's a will, a way shall be found, or created and if two people want to collude, they'll make it happen... isn't that how doemstic abuse starts?

Back to the refuges:

• weekly rent costs $450 to $600 per week, that's approx 200 to 300 pounds, not including bills, living costs so women do receive benefits but they come nowhere near to covering it
• women seek refuge so that they recieve priority when applying for council housing with Housing NZ however, unlike Edinburgh, the council have no obligation to house women presenting homeless because of domestic abuse
• some refuges at Viviana are not staffed ie. women don't receive support while there and basically have a building (There are only 5 staff, down from 9 when the previous manager left. Not only that, but those staff are on call 24 hrs outside of office hours...unpaid) ... is it better to have volunteers rather than no staff at all...??

So the picture's bleak for women being tortured by their abusive partners in New Zealand. I almost rescheduled the meeting to next week because the 5 staff were snowed under with court appearances at the Family Violence court each Wednesday. They seem to do a lot more legal support and advocacy work for women here... the staff I spoke to was also of the opinion that the Family Violence Unit were biased towards men, as part of a patriarchal society originating from england. She felt that all the men got programmes and support services for them and very little for women. I'm beginning to see her point; fathering week was a big deal and I've heard more about the men's counselling and parenting programmes that I have for women. I thought that this might be correctly directed towards the men as they're the ones who are at fault, but maybe she was expressing a disatisfaction more with the unequal allocation of resources between men's rehabilitation and women's protection, understandably.

This meeting was different from any other I've had with agencies so far. Partly to do with their stretched staff time and resources I guess. Partly to do with this staff's strange contradictory, ambiguous and indignant attitude towards her own sector. While she complained and compared New Zealand to other countries harshly, she wasn't trying to change it. Indeed, she was criticising in others the very short-comings she displayed herself. This woman's possibly been in this field too long. Or maybe her character's just the kind to look at the worst in people and get fixated on them, despite all the good that's there. Shame, because that's the first sure sign of a dying organisation: people tend to leave organisations with a self-defeating culture. People need to celebrate achievements and have visionary focus on change for the better, together. I'm feeling really sad about the anti-violence sector in New Zealand. the more I learn about it..and I haven't even been to the maori refuge yet...

Back to Familiar Territory: 'Family Violence' versus Domestic Abuse

There is no feminist movement in New Zealand. At least, not by my understanding within the anti-violence sector and in comparison to the UK. On Friday, at the end of my first week at Community Waitakere, I went to visit Debbie at WAVES: Waitakere Anti Violence Essential Services, and was shocked at the poor standard of non-profit and statutory support services available in a country that I've been impressed by so far. It's maybe a sign of the high standard of community development work I've seen all this week at Community Waitakere, an enivironmentally focussed community development project; very different from the violence prevention sector.

There are no 24 hour refuges for women and children with additional support needs, whose experiences of domestic abuse are complicated by subtance misuse/addiction, and/or mental health issues or any number of social factors. In fact, the District Health Boards screen women for domestic abuse but if there are additional support needs they are turned away; the state reaches out a helping hand only to take it away after having stirred up hope in the women who need it the most. The state does more damage than good with their empty promises. Every competent Community development worker knows meaningful interventions require long-term holistic approaches to social action.

Debbie then talked about the state's window dressing of the gender neutralising campaign material of the anti-violence strategy from what promoised to be a meaningful action towards challenging domestic abuse. The 'Te Rito' Family Violence Prevention Strategy produced by New Zealand's Ministry of Social Development in Feb 2002. She said that there is a backlash to feminists who mainly belong to the generation older than mine. 'Women are as violent as men' it says in this hand-out she says she is obliged to distribute in her job. The window-dressing happened 5 years ago she said, when the labour government were in power...

Every country has its strengths and weaknesses and that applies to the UK too. Just like people. Politicians who talk the talk and walk away when it comes to action let us down every day in the UK and in NZ. She works with WAVES to train agencies about domestic abuse (DA) and tells me that while referrals to DA services are normal procedure, unlike the UK, there is little partnership working between network agencies and absolutely no attempt by agencies to meet the needs of DA survivors within services. I didn't want to tell her the truth about agencies I visit who have no concept of the spectrum of DA or its impact on survivors because she thinks that we, in the UK, are waaaay ahead of NZ...

She talked about a mental health organisation who got defensive about a DVD they produced called ''he drove me mad' as they took it as a criticism on their lackings. There's a vitally important website it supports women surivivors through also. I have a copy of the DVD to take home to Edinburgh Women's Aid and a copy of another extremely interesting research from the Leitner Centre for International Law and Justice looking at domestic abuse across NZ in the context of international human rights: "It's Not OK: New Zealand's Efforts to Eliminate Violence Against Women".

Debbie also brought my attention to the the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse 'the national centre for collating and disseminating information about domestic and family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand'. An amazing resource. I wonder if we have the same thing for Scotland/UK? I was thinking after I left that I forgot to bring leaflets from my work at Edinburgh Women's Aid and that it's a shame because I've come so far and it adds a little something to to a first-time tran-global meeting of like-minded people....I'll remember for next time.

I was blown away by Debbie's kindness and the common interest and experience we have that made us get on instantly. She's agreed to request invitations for me to see a refuge and visit DA agencies via their boards and I hope to go out to do this in the next few weeks, however she said it probably won't be worth trying to organise a visit to a Maori refuge.

So back to familiar territory and it reminded me of what I left behind in Edinburgh and what I'll be going back to in 6 weeks. This week has flown by....