5,000 signatures reached
To: Rt. Hon Jacinda Ardern
PM Jacinda Ardern: Prevent violence against women and invest in support for victims and survivors
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Based on the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women’s recommendations, we ask you to:
➜ Adopt a comprehensive and cross-party strategy on preventing and ending gender based violence against women;
➜ Run public awareness and behavioural change programmes in collaboration with teachers and the media, including social media, to promote understanding and prevention of violence against women, and encourage victims and witnesses to report violence;
➜ Allocate adequate resources to comprehensive and evidence-based prevention of violence against women;
➜ Ensure that every woman in Aotearoa New Zealand, from every community and background, has access to culturally appropriate domestic and sexual violence support and healing services when and where they need it.
➜ Adopt a comprehensive and cross-party strategy on preventing and ending gender based violence against women;
➜ Run public awareness and behavioural change programmes in collaboration with teachers and the media, including social media, to promote understanding and prevention of violence against women, and encourage victims and witnesses to report violence;
➜ Allocate adequate resources to comprehensive and evidence-based prevention of violence against women;
➜ Ensure that every woman in Aotearoa New Zealand, from every community and background, has access to culturally appropriate domestic and sexual violence support and healing services when and where they need it.
Why is this important?
It’s difficult to know how to express the horror so many of us feel about what happened to Grace Millane. She was 21, on the trip of a lifetime, with her whole life ahead of her… and then she was gone.
When women are murdered, it is a reminder that our safety is an illusion. We have some of the worst statistics for sexual violence and violence against women in the OECD. Most of that violence is at the hands of our men.
For some time people at the front line with first-hand experience of violence against women, and those who support them, have been calling for the nation to do some soul-searching and to seek solution-based actions.
Women going on solo adventures or meeting new people for dates are not the problem here. Men who commit acts of violence against women are. But violence is preventable if we work together at an individual, whānau, community, regional and national level.
Most decent New Zealanders will be devastated by Grace’s death. The vast majority of us feel horrified for her parents and her family, and send them all our love. But we must open our eyes to the dangers facing women in our country. We must remove our rose-tinted glasses. The government and men of New Zealand must take action; for Grace and for all of the women who have lost their lives to violence in our country.
Rest in peace and aroha, Grace. On behalf of all New Zealanders, we are so very, very sorry. We promise to do better as a nation.
***
An open letter with the same asks has already been sent to PM Jacinda Ardern and was published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday 15 December.
See the news story here: http://bit.ly/2ULCWGU
See the letter that was sent to PM Jacinda Ardern here: http://bit.ly/2zZi9qp
For a list of other ways you can take action and organisations you can donate time or money to, visit www.HelpWahine.org.nz.
When women are murdered, it is a reminder that our safety is an illusion. We have some of the worst statistics for sexual violence and violence against women in the OECD. Most of that violence is at the hands of our men.
For some time people at the front line with first-hand experience of violence against women, and those who support them, have been calling for the nation to do some soul-searching and to seek solution-based actions.
Women going on solo adventures or meeting new people for dates are not the problem here. Men who commit acts of violence against women are. But violence is preventable if we work together at an individual, whānau, community, regional and national level.
Most decent New Zealanders will be devastated by Grace’s death. The vast majority of us feel horrified for her parents and her family, and send them all our love. But we must open our eyes to the dangers facing women in our country. We must remove our rose-tinted glasses. The government and men of New Zealand must take action; for Grace and for all of the women who have lost their lives to violence in our country.
Rest in peace and aroha, Grace. On behalf of all New Zealanders, we are so very, very sorry. We promise to do better as a nation.
***
An open letter with the same asks has already been sent to PM Jacinda Ardern and was published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday 15 December.
See the news story here: http://bit.ly/2ULCWGU
See the letter that was sent to PM Jacinda Ardern here: http://bit.ly/2zZi9qp
For a list of other ways you can take action and organisations you can donate time or money to, visit www.HelpWahine.org.nz.