In a leafy suburb in Auckland, Stevie cuddles her 4-year-old daughter. The mother of three is in her early 40s, was privately educated, graduated with a degree and lives in a house owned by her parents’ family trust.
Across her chest are deep scars from where her ex-partner scraped at her. Her genitals are damaged, the physical scars of rape.
Her youngest child – the preschooler she soothes while she talks to the Listener –was conceived by rape. Stevie was exhausted, coping with a 6-week-old baby when her partner attacked her, resulting in another pregnancy.
The man is now in prison, jailed for fraud and burglary; domestic violence charges against him were added later.
Domestic violence is not a blue-collar problem or the domain of fist-happy drunks. In homes from Kaitaia to Bluff, women are being battered, victims of emotional and psychological abuse. Socioeconomics do play a part: for women like Stevie, financial resources, and friends with spare rooms, can offer shelter. But every year, about 50,000 women from all levels of society and their children seek the help of Women’s Refuge. Put them all together and it’s the population of Nelson.
“Safer How, Safer When”, a groundbreaking study by Women’s Refuge New Zealand, has uncovered a more detailed picture, a nightmare scene of often torturous environments in which more than half of the 3500 women surveyed actually feared their partner might kill them.
One in eight homicide victims are women who die at the hands of their intimate partner, police statistics show. From 2009-21, 115 women were killed by a male partner, either their current or former one. One in three New Zealand women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the 2019 Family Violence
Study, by University of Auckland researchers Janet Fanslow and Tracey McIntosh.
And in a 2011 UN report, New Zealand ranked worst among 14 OECD countries that supplied
