Violence collusion

Do New Zealand institutions collude in violence against women?

Feminists in the 1990s surveyed abused wives/partners of soldiers in camps across New Zealand. Their published findings were that the worst cases occurred at Waiouru. Embarrassed, the ‘brass’ ordered the soldiers to make their women shut up. The men were not ordered to cease the beatings.

In the 1980s, before computer use, a journalist contracted by the NZ Police visited every police station nationwide, compiling statistics of persons murdered by firearms, over a specific period.

The police, suspecting drug gangs were murdering men, anticipated an iron-clad case to present to Parliament for funding to combat the gangs. When the report showed the largest number murdered was women, killed by ordinary men — their husbands, partners, ex-partners — the police shelved that report permanently. The journalist was Pamela Sterling, latterly, prize-winning editor of The Listener.

What of magistrates ordering terrified women, like me, to attend counselling with their abuser ‘for the children’s sake’, before women’s divorce petitions would be heard? One such husband waited in his car with his hunting rifle. His wife arrived. As she mounted the stairs to the counsellor he shot her dead. MONA WILLIAMS

Khandallah