Just what can I do?
Facts on Family Violence
Over the past 10 years the number of recorded occurrences of family violence have increased from 31,654 in 1996 to 63,685 in 2005, with arrests increasing over that period from 9311 to 18,305. While this represents increased reporting due to people being less tolerant of this kind of behaviour, it also represents a huge number of incidents of family violence. Staggeringly, that works our at a little over 7 cases an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
New Zealand has the third-worst record for child deaths from maltreatment among the 27 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A disproportionate number of cases involve families of Maori people.
“It is a fact that we are a race of people that are abusing and killing our children,” said Tau Huirama, 56, joint chief executive officer of Jigsaw, a community group based in Wellington that tackles child abuse. “As a Maori man, my heart still cries when I hear that.”
http://www.jigsaw.org.nz/resources_wheel.html
The government in May earmarked NZ$53 million ($33 million) over four years to change attitudes toward violence, teach good parenting and fund community groups working with families.
Maori, who make up 14 percent of the 4.1 million population, are twice as likely to die from child abuse as other New Zealanders.
The MSD Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families First report identifies four key areas of actions to reduce family violence. For further information: Bronwyn Saunders, MSD Chief Media Advisor, phone 04 916 3447 or 029 916 3887 or bronwyn.saunders002@msd.govt.nz, or look at their website.
For a great source of recent research and information on domestic violence see
The Family Centre in Lower Hutt http://www.familycentre.org.nz/ and the Ministry of Social Development’s Social Policy Journal Issue 28 July 2006 available online at http://www.msd.govt.nz/publications/journal/28-july-2006/index.html, or call them on 04 916 3300 to order a hardcopy.
The Ministry of Health’s website http://www.moh.govt.nz/familyviolence or you can get a copy of the Ministry of Health’s toolkit to help reduce interpersonal violence by ringing them on 04 496 2000 or download it at http://www.newhealth.govt.nz/toolkits/violence.htm.
The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Service http://www.nzccss.org.nz
And of course visit Jigsaw @ http://www.jigsaw.org.nz
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