KEY POINTS:
There has been a bit of biffo outside the Labour Party conference but Trevor wasn't anywhere in sight.
A demonstration against the police raids of three weeks ago turned ugly apparently, according to colleagues. Three people were arrested. Various cameras captured the lot with shots of people being people hit whacked with megaphones, others being dragged away, cops being spat at and so on.
I decided against monitoring the protest the whole time and when the arrests went down, was observing a policy workshop.
There was a pretty emotional debate on a remit this morning about "dowry abuse."
The remit reads thus:
That the Labour Government develop initiatives, including legislation where appropriate, which will:
1. prevent dowry abuse
2 ban forced marriages and
3. prevent abuse of migrant women as a result of their non-resident immigration status.
A women's refuge worker described the night a 16-year-old was entrusted to the refuge's care after she had been found attempting suicide. The victim had been forced into a marriage with her parents having to pay a dowry of the equivalent of $60,000 in cash and assets to the husband.
She would not say what ethnicity the husband was but said the young woman was physically, sexually and emotionally abused. She had to work the whole time either in the house or on the farm where she lived and was given no money of her own.
A couple of mature women from India, including a GP from Wellington, supported the intent of the remit but pleaded with the workshop not to use the term "dowry-abuse" which they felt was an attack on their culture.
One woman said legislation did not change behaviour.
Maryan Street, the new Housing Minister, said the remit had been carefully worded and that it id not target any ethnic abuse. She also took issue with the notion that legislation does not change behaviour. It does, she said. "Attitudes come later."
The remit was passed unanimously in the end with the agreement to send it back to the policy committee to discuss the concerns about the cultural offence some felt the wording caused.
