Most of you will know that recently a young English backpacker was murdered on the night of her 22nd birthday in Auckland, and her body dumped in the Waitakere Ranges.
There has been an unprecedented outpouring of anger and grief throughout Aotearoa as a result. It’s as though both women and men have had enough, and were so shocked by this murder of a guest in our country that tens of thousands felt the need to do something – to come out and march in the streets, or organise banners, or hold prayer vigils, to show they care and want things to change.
Laura O’Connell Rapira of Action Station, an organisation founded to promote social justice and related issues in Aotearoa through online petitions and organised action, worked with Lizzie Marvelly, a writer, to persuade a group of women leaders in Aotearoa to ask Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for government action against violence towards women :
The Action Station Call for change:
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.
You might like to read more, and it would be great if you signed the on-line petition:
For those of you who want more resources for dealing with violence against women in your community, the White Ribbon campaign offers a range of assistance on its website too:
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Public Good
Will that anger and outrage drive change or will it, like too many other emotive outbursts, dissipate with regression to the patriarchal status quo? Jeanne