June 1 2020 INL Digital Edition

16
JUNE 1, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic and the
lockdowns that have been put
in place globally have led to
what many have termed the
second epidemic –escalation of family
violence.
In New Zealand, Police statistics
show 20% spike in cases.
As the Police have acknowledged,
the real figure is likely to be higher.
This is generally the case since many
do not report the violence that they are
experiencing.
Service providers agree that figures
are even less likely to reflect reality
in lockdown since those who are
constantly monitored by their abuser
struggle to access help.
Covid-19 heightens risk
Dr Sripriya Somasekhar, whose
doctoral thesis is on Indian Women
and Domestic Violence says, “Covid-19
has heightened the risks for those
most vulnerable to family violence
especially women and child from our
ethnic-minority communities. Various
ethnic service providers have noted
a spike in family violence during the
lockdown. This was expected looking
at global trends of family violence
during lockdown and knowing unique
barriers ethnic women face in seeking
help. There was escalated violence in
some cases owing to unemployment.
Ethnic women who live in a joint family
set up would find it harder under the
situations of lockdown to ring for help.
Although we see a spike, we will only
be able to learn from thus situation in a
few months’ time when we see themes
and patterns of abuse and help-seeking
emerging”.
Even at the start of New Zealand’s
response to Covid19, our government
knew that we were likely to see an
increase in family violence.
That is why Family Violence Support
Services were specifically included
as essential social services and
were allowed to continue to operate
throughout the lockdown.
The fast-tracked Immigration
Bill passed its final
hearings in Parliament
on Friday, May 15, 2020.
About 350,000 people are
in New Zealand on temporary
visas and more than two-thirds
of those are on work visas.
Some have lost their jobs and
been unable to start new ones,
others are overseas and worried
whether their visas - and jobs
- will still exist when the border
re-opens.
Minister’s assurance
In an email to stakeholders,
Immigration New Zealand (INZ)
said that the Minister of Immigration
had assured the migrant
community in New Zealand that
the government would not use
the powers in the Act to take
away any existing visa rights.
It can now impose, vary or
cancel conditions for groups
of temporary entry-class visa
holders, extend expiry dates and
stop some people offshore from
making applications.
“These changes could include
amending visa conditions for
groups of people such as what
region they can work in, or
extending visa expiry dates for
groups of people. The new powers
cannot be used to change
conditions if that change would
materially disadvantage the
class of visa holders concerned,”
an INZ notification said.
Communitylink
The pandemic of family violence warrants heightened alert
Priyanca Radhakrishnan
Funding in Budget 2020
To support the sector further and
in an ongoing effort to end family and
sexual violence, the government recently
announced a significant funding
package as part of Budget 2020.
The funding package of $202 million
is to enable victims/survivors of family
violence access the support that they
need and to help perpetrators stop
inflicting family violence.
The funding also supports victims
of non-fatal strangulation to access
the medical and forensic services they
need in order to deal with the resultant
trauma and to gather the evidence
needed to prosecute offenders.
The funding boost builds on the
support provided through the 2019
Wellbeing Budget.
Long-term approach
The Coalition government is serious
about ending the scourge that is family
and sexual violence and has therefore
adopted a long-term, multi-year,
cross-agency approach to address it.
That is why our Government
created the position of Parliamentary
Under-Secretary focused on addressing
family and sexual violence.
I understand this is the first time we
have had such a position in the New
Zealand government.
Under-Secretary Janet Logie leads
the government’s work on the design
of an integrated and responsive
family violence system, engagement
with the sector, responses to the
Law Commission report on justice
responses to victims of sexual violence,
and implementation of new family
violence law.
Family and sexual violence cuts
across ethnicity, socio-economic status,
educational background and every
other classification that serves to divide
us.
It is, however, a gendered issue.
While most men do not inflict violence
against women, the evidence tells
us that in cases of family and sexual
violence, women are more often the
victims and men are more often the
offenders.
Transformative thinking
There is a significant body of
evidence that support this, including a
series of reports by the Family Violence
New Immigration rules take effect
Gill Bonnett
“It is an effective safeguard
because it means that the Minister
would not be able to use the
powers in a way that materially
deprives visa holders of existing
visa rights (eg work rights).”
Pragmatic Solution
The legislation was a
pragmatic solution to challenges
it faced, it said.
“Several hundred thousand
people on temporary entry
class visas are in New Zealand
at present - too many to easily
deal with on an individual
basis when the system is so
disrupted,” INZ said.
Law Society Immigration And
Refugee Committee Convenor
Mark Williams was among those
who made submissions to the
Epidemic Response Committee
on the Bill.
Safeguards implemented
He said that safeguards recommended
by Select Committee
MPs were incorporated into the
Bill.
“The Bill in its previous form,
we and other industry participants
had concerns around the
potential purpose it could be
used for - and the wide ranging,
very powerful discretion it gave
to the minister to essentially
Death Review Committee (FVDRC).
The FVDRC is an independent body
that reviews and advises the Health
Quality & Safety Commission on how to
reduce the number of family violence
deaths.
In earlier reports the FVDRC
presented transformative thinking to
better reflect the reality of women’s
experiences of intimate partner
violence.
They called for an integrated system
response that understand the gendered
pattern of harm and was able to keep
women and children safe.
Previous reports have repeatedly
concluded that to realise safety for
women and children, we need to
better understand and interrupt the
pathways men are on that lead them to
perpetrate violence.
The most recent Sixth FVDRC
report attempts to understand the
life trajectory of the men involved in
family violence deaths from their birth
to the death event.
This is important because we can
analyse how we reduce men’s violence
while concurrently working with
women and children to keep them safe.
Prior to entering Parliament, I
worked as a Policy Analyst with the
Ministry for Women’s Affairs (now
Ministry for Women).
Preventative measures
My research included exploring
primary prevention approaches, focused
on stopping family violence from
occurring by promoting respectful,
non-violent relationships.
International evidence indicates that
promising interventions focused on
changing behaviours that were rooted
in often deep-seated gendered roles,
norms and stereotypes.
This includes challenging social
norms around masculinity and femininity
that are often guised as cultural
norms, whether that is the culture of
particular groups, like sports clubs or
specific ethnic or religious groups.
The FVDRC’s Sixth Report offers
some lessons on how this may be
achieved. There are also some lessons
in the Sixth Report for our South Asian
communities.
The Report tells us that 14% of men
who used violence in intimate partner
make law, without going through
the normal process. That has
now been somewhat modified
and balanced with the Select
Committee hearings,” Mr Williams
said.
The legislation was designed
to bring efficiencies to the
system to quickly resolve delays
and uncertainties, he said.
“With the additional
safeguards that have been built
into it, there is now a view that
those powers can only really be
exercised without material detriment
to the migrants concerned.
I think it will clarify a lot of the
questions or uncertainty about
what’s happening with (visa)
processing. There has been a
lack of information flowing and
those questions around people,
can they come in - ‘I have got a
visa expiring offshore and have
got to get in in the next three
weeks when is that going to
happen?’
“I think the powers bestowed
on the Minister will help answer
a lot of those questions and help
reset or extend a lot of those
entry times, so it should give far
more certainty to some people
and ease some of the stress on
those visa holders,” Mr Williams
said.
Gill Bonnett is Immigration
Reporter at Radio New Zealand.
The above Report and
Picture have been published
under a Special Arrangement
with www.rnz.co.nz
deaths between 2009 and 2017 were
of South Asian origin (this includes
Indo-Fijian men given cultural and
religious commonalities).
This is the third most frequently
recorded ethnic grouping after Pakeha
and Maori communities.
Yet, Asian women, including South
Asian women, report violence at a lower
rate than other women living in New
Zealand.
The Report outlines barriers that Asian
women face in accessing support.
The immigration threat
These include a lack of understanding
of the legal protections available, isolation,
language barriers and in the case
of migrant women, I would add, their
Immigration status. Immigration is often
used as a tool to control women and
prevent them from accessing support.
In my experience working in the
family violence intervention sector,
particularly with women from ethnic
minority communities, our communities
often choose not to talk about issues
like family violence. And being from an
ethnic minority community myself, I can
understand why.
Most of us have experienced
discrimination in some form – whether it
is institutionalised or casual racism. The
last thing we want is to acknowledge that
some of the uglier issues that exist in all
communities, also exist in ours.
We do not want to risk being further
marginalised and told to “go back home.”
And so there is a tendency to turn a
blind eye.
The Report acknowledges this and
clarifies that the section on ethnic immigrant
communities and family violence
is not included to fuel racist attitudes, but
instead to highlight the need to further
understand intimate partner violence in
ethnic migrant communities and address
it.
Structural changes
It is clear, that we need structural
change at various levels if we are to see
a reduction in, and eventually an end to,
family violence. The report supports this
view and highlights the need to address
racism, the impacts of colonisation and
structural inequities so that everyone
can access justice, secure housing, health
care and education.
The Report also emphasises that we all
have a role to play in this - government,
agencies families and our wider
communities.
It is an interesting Report that
provides valuable insights.
One of them is around community
mobilisation, or the idea of stimulating
action among community members to
change deep-rooted social norms.
As stated in the Report, “the
aspirational target is for community
accountability, where communities are
in a position to address men’s use of
violence and hold them accountable
for their actions while supporting
women and children to be safe.”
Communities exist where people
gather – at work, sports clubs, schools,
places of worship, towns- or where
they have a common identity such as
ethnicity.
They are places where people with
common interests, beliefs or activities
interact. Communities in turn, play
an important role in shaping people’s
attitudes, identities and roles.
Understanding the dynamics
I strongly believe that our communities
need to ensure that those in
positions of authority have a sound
understanding of the dynamics of
family violence so that they can work
with women and children to be safe
and hold offenders to account.
It is also important that we are able
to identify protective factors that are
intrinsic to our cultures and religious
beliefs that can be drawn on to
strengthen relationships, because those
exist too.
I want to emphasise that we all have
a role to play in ending the scourge
that is family and sexual violence. It
is also time that we adopt a mature
multiculturalism so that we can discuss
these issues collectively without fear of
further marginalisation.
We all have a role to play in that too.
Priyanca Radhakrishnan is Member of
Parliament on Labour List from Maungakiekie
and is Parliamentary Private
Secretary to the Minister for Ethnic
Communities. As well as leading and
contributing to the efforts concerted
to address family violence, she is a
strong advocate of social equality and
uplifting the lot of the poor and the
under-privileged.
Primary Health Care nurses reject pay increase offer
“The government continues to undervalue our work”
Supplied Content
After prolonged negotiations,
Primary Health
Care nurses have voted
down a final offer from
employers of 2.5% and 2% pay
increases over two years.
The New Zealand Nurses
Organisation (NZNO) has been
negotiating the Primary Health
Care Multi-Employer Collective
Agreement (PHC MECA) since
November last year.
The MECA covers more than
3400 nurses, receptionists and
administrators across more than
500 practices and accident or
medical centres.
A NZNO notification said that
despite approaches to the Health
Minister, the Ministry of Health
and DHB officials by NZNO and
organisations such as the New
Zealand Medical Association,
Green Cross Limited and General
Practice NZ, the additional funding
needed to achieve pay parity
with DHB nurses has not been
forthcoming.
Employers’ final offer
NZNO Industrial Adviser Chris
Wilson said that in March this
year, employers gave their final
offer based on what they say they
can currently afford, but it was
clearly insufficient.
"We have advocated strongly
for an offer that would put primary
Health Care nurses on a salary
par with their DHB counterparts,
but this offer falls woefully short
and accordingly our members
have voted it down. An experienced
nurse covered by the PHC
MECA is currently paid 10.6%
less than their DHB colleague
with the same qualifications and
experience. This disparity can
and must be fixed, and it really
comes down to funding and
political will,” she said.
Work undervalued
Ms Wilson said that despite
the advocacy of NZNO and
widespread recognition of their
valuable work, especially on the
frontline against Covid-19, the
government continues to undervalue
the work of PHC nurses
and the sector by not funding the
gap that will secure pay parity.
It is time to this recognition
and praise were matched by pay,
she said.
"There was a post-Budget
pledge of more funding to Early
Childhood Centres in recognition
that they were undervalued
and of their importance in the
recovery from Covid-19. That is
a great outcome
for them and it
shows that the
government
is capable of
addressing
pay inequities.
There are clear
parallels here to
primary health
care and we would like to see
a similar solution found,” Ms
Wilson said.
Fight of human capital
Earlier this year NZNO
surveyed its members covered
by the PHC MECA and 70% of
respondents said that they were
considering leaving the sector
because of higher pay elsewhere.
Many nurse leaders said in the
survey that they are struggling to
recruit new nurses or keep the
ones they already have.
"These nurses provide expert
care and advice which often
reduces hospital admissions.
Fewer nurses will mean these
services become less available
and more expensive. Not only is
the pay inequality an injustice, it
ultimately costs the system more
in the long-term. We cannot let
this go on,” Ms Wilson said.
NZNO will resume negotiations
as soon as possible in an
endeavour to reach a proposed
collective agreement that values
Primary Health Care workers’
contribution to delivering a
quality service at the frontline of
health.