Dismal view of violence to women goes to UN

Lianne Dalziel

The United Nations is to hear that New Zealand women suffer "intolerable" rates of domestic violence, and that their pay still lags 20 per cent behind that of men.

The message comes from a Government report on the status of the country's women, a 100-page document released today for presentation to the UN.

New Zealand has been obliged to provide a stocktake every four years since 1985, when it signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. A total of 182 countries - more than 90 per cent of the UN's members - have signed.

Although progress had been made in many areas of women's lives, "the level of violence against women in New Zealand is intolerable", said Women's Affairs Minister Lianne Dalziel. She will present the report in New York in August next year.

Called The Status of Women in New Zealand, the document says that although family violence is a "serious social and economic issue", a true picture was hard to form because much abuse went unreported.

Crime statistics could not yet show the gender of victims or perpetrators of violence against women, a situation needing "urgent improvement".

The report also highlights pay inequity: "Women [are] earning on average 20 per cent less than their male counterparts, even in the same professions," said Ms Dalziel.

They were also concentrated in traditionally "female" jobs. About 75 per cent of women were working in four types of roles, said the report: service and sales workers, professionals, technicians and "associate professionals".

Ms Dalziel said that although New Zealand had strong laws against discrimination and violence, "in most instances it is attitudinal change that is required, which the Government cannot legislate".

Much progress had been made but "we cannot afford to be complacent".