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November 25, 2013
White Ribbon challenge from men and women
Waatea Team
Posted On November 25, 2013
It’s White Ribbon Day, and men up and down the country are being urged to take the pledge to address violence against women and children.
White Ribbon campaign manager Rob McCann says it’s not about shutting out men who are violent, but about challenging their behaviour and working with them to change it.
He says men are often too scared to take action.
"So you might be down at the pub and your mate might be saying something that’s quite derogatory towards women. It might be a sexist joke, it might be talking about his ownership of ‘his woman’, you can name a whole bunch of different scenarios, and the reaction of most men is to just ignore it or smile, wanting it to go away. What they are actually doing is in the eyes of that perpetrator, they are condoning his behaviour, they are saying it’s OK. And we need to make that real change in New Zealand. We need to adopt the works of the It’s Not OK campaign and men need to go ‘mate, that’s not OK,'" Mr McCann says.
He says the White Ribbon ambassadors include fathers who have lost daughters to violent partners because no one spoke out.
Meanwhile, a Maori women’s group is recommending Maori return to traditional values and practices to counter family violence.
Leonie Pihama from Te Wharepora Hou says the violence experienced in Maori homes and whanau is a direct outcome of colonisation which has removed whanau from the tikanga that mitigates such abuse.
She says values of collective responsibility lead to better connected communities and a shared intolerance of violence.
The rate of family violence for Maori is disproportionately high, and Te Wharepora Hou is calling on whanau, hapu and iwi to take a zero tolerance stand.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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