Oranga Tamariki cutting women’s self defence funding is an obscenity built upon an abomination
Funding cut leaves women’s self-defence course Kia Haumaru fighting for future
Funding cuts have put a personal safety and self-defence education programme at risk of closure.
Kia Haumaru – Personal Safety Education (formerly known as the Women’s Self Defence Network – Wāhine Toa) has been teaching self-defence for nearly 40 years, running an average of 700 courses to around 17,000 kōtiro and wāhine every year.
But funding through Oranga Tamariki will cease in April, meaning Kia Haumaru will no longer be able to provide the course for free.
In a statement to RNZ, Kia Haumaru said the decision would result in thousands of girls and women missing out on the chance to learn critical safety skills to protect themselves, their friends, and their whānau from harm.
Oranga Tamariki cutting women’s self defence funding is an obscenity built upon an abomination.
It is hear. breaking that we have to teach our daughters to defend themselves in the first place, but when you consider the appalling domestic violence rates in New Zealand ALONGSIDE the decision by Police to pull back from domestic violence and self harm incidents…
Advocates warn family violence victims may not call police this Christmas
Victims advocates warn some women fearing for their safety this Christmas will not call the police, thinking they will be turned away.
It is the first festive period since the police stepped back from responding to low risk calls, which are usually related to family harm or mental health.
Police say they still respond to crimes but calls are now being triaged, or prioritised, based on the 111 call.
…then, cutting funding to teach self defence is an obscenity built upon an abomination.
In 2022 there were 175,573 domestic violence investigations, that is a civil war being waged against ourselves in our own whanau.
To shrug at that number, deprioritise Police call outs WHILE cutting funding to self defence – what are we asking our victims of physical violence to do?
Die quietly without any fuss?
We must fund self defence for women, and it must be free.
It allows the building of self confidence, it helps build resilience and provides an opportunity to heal and regain one’s agency.
To simply dump self defence funding when we have Police giving up and almost 200 000 domestic violence events per year is an appalling decision that must be reversed.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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The cops aren’t trained to deal with mental health cases, probably one half hour hour module, if that, and nor are all domestic abuse cases mental health issues. Some are vile thugs, or dumb bullies, disgusting drunks, manipulative psychos, immigrant cultural practitioners etc.
They now know that the police can’t come, and that girls and women will no longer be taught how to defend themselves.
The police didn’t come at Albert Park either where it was a simpler matter of shutting women up. Oranga Tamariki’s stupifying decision to cut funding takes that a dangerous degree further.
Quitter Coster never did explain the dynamics of Albert Park, but the misogynistic sociopaths at OT need to justify this latest barbarity, and there are good decent men out there who will be wanting answers from the Taliban running OT.
They don’t need to put New Zealand females into purdah, parents of dear little girls may elect to be doing this themselves, a massive step backwards in what purports to be a civilised society.
Choosing Christmas time to clobber females like this is sacrilegious and beyond sick, and it says more about the mindset of Oranga Tamariki than they may have they brain cells to comprehend.
If OT’s slippery public servants think the Christmas break will sink this dodgy decision, they would be well advised to think again. It won’t. Everyone who knows that every child counts will challenge it.