Jyoda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
This week is Rape Awareness Week. In New Zealand.
One in three women and one in eight men experience sexual violence.
At some stage in their lifetime.
Repeated surveys show that tens of thousands of New Zealanders are experiencing this type of assault every year. So what's being done to try and stop this violence? And are those victims who are speaking up getting the justice they deserve. Today on the Front Page, we're joined by clinical psychologist and Help Executive director Catherine McPhillips to discuss this crisis. Probably more people than we think who experience sexual violence
at some point in their lifetime. Right do you think people would be surprised to learn just how many that is?
I mean some people wouldn't.
Some wouldn't of course, So those who've experienced themselves they might be more aware of how common it is. Our best research in New Zealand at the moment suggests that it's around about one in three girls.
And one and twelve boys.
And that's just the start of it, of course, because people are also accused or you know, sexual violence also occurs when adults are the victims of that, so it is very common, and so you know, those who experienced it may understand how common it is, whereas those.
Who haven't may not.
And there's just so much stigma about speaking out about it.
But why is it so.
Important to have open discussions about this? And do you think that that stigma is slowly but surely being put by the wayside.
Yeah, I mean, look, there is a lot of stigma because you know, those kind of ancient ideas or I say ancient because you know they should be ancient, But that idea is that it was up to a woman always to stop a man's sexual advances to her, for her to be pure or untainted or something. You know, there was some kind of virtue in that scene for a woman, and women have been blamed when they weren't
able to stop those advances. So I think that that's where that stigma and shame kind of comes from historically, and so we really need to talk about it because we have to shift that stigma and shame to the person who, you know, the person who's causing hearm, not
to the victim of that harm. And so we need to have these conversations so that people who are victimized can understand that they're not at fault and that the people supporting them, so their families, partners, you know, their community around them, also get to understand that it's not appropriate to blame the victim for this, that we actually need to be talking about how we stop accepting the way that in particular, but you know, also men and
certainly rainbow groups are kind of sexualized. We need to be holding those who cause harm to account.
And you're quite right those ancient ideas of sexual violence. I mean, it's the old adage what were you wearing? What was she wearing?
Kind of thing.
I remember seeing an amazing exhibition of people who had submitted their clothes of what they actually were wearing, and it was this incredible display of you know, the track pants and mini skirts and all this kind of stuff.
It's kind of just getting rid of.
Those ideas and those ideals, totally getting rid of the idea that there's some way in which people ask for this to be done to them, and shifting it back to actually is the responsibility of the person initiating that behavior to not do it?
Yeah, the very sad.
Sorry.
That really struck me was that fifteen percent of the victims of sexual violence thought it was a crime. The other eighty five percent of the victims of sexual violence didn't believe that what had happened to them was a crime.
Yeah, it stops in your tracks, doesn't it. And just section six reporting to the police, based on non reporting estimates, sexual offenses, ninety four percent was significantly more likely to go unreported. So there are a whole lot of victims out there who were just sitting with it.
I've found a number of stats that show that sexual assault happens to a lot of New Zealanders every year. One stat from help showed that between November twenty twenty and November twenty twenty one, around seventy eight thousand New Zealanders experienced sexual assault.
Have we seen that figure improve?
It all?
There's been some improvement.
You know, all of this research is retrospective and then we kind of project that to go, well, this is what might be happening now or what might happen in the future. And so the retrospect to research with young people tells us that we have got better with boys,
so there is less sexual abuse of boys. That's what the research indicates, and I think we need to really celebrate that because that you know, that's great, but we also need to be spreading that out and seeing less to girls and less to adults as.
Well, you know, and young people.
Young people are also targeted for sexual ones and so yes, yes we've got some improvement, but we need to really keep going and keep going as strong as we can to.
Stop this happening.
And speaking of those ages, you might have seen the story from April about a German backpacker who was allegedly gang raped in Central Auckland on New Year's Day. Three men have been charged over that, and the alleged perpetrators are aged between nineteen and twenty one. Do you see any statistics around the ages of those who potentially do these kind of crimes.
It's kind of variable really with the ages. There is certainly some youth offending which occurs against children, which you know, doesn't seem to necessarily persist into the young person's adulthood. In terms of sexual violence against young people, certainly we see that the vulnerability or the targeting of young people is in that kind of sixteen to twenty four year old age group where they're kind of out and about,
and so you know, there is a similarity. I think when we see the ages of those who are who are offending, it's the people that they're out and about with or around, and so you know, that doesn't say that it's just you know, young people in that early twenties age at all. It goes on up, but certainly it's who has access to you, really is who does it to you, and so who is around.
You at those times.
I mentioned in our intro that men are impacted by sexual assault as well, and I guess I bring that up because it's really important to recognize that, isn't there because there is more stigma around men being the victims of this sort of crime.
Would you say that that's correct.
I think there's more stigma in some ways but not in others. But absolutely yes, we must acknowledge and understand the sexual offending that happens against men. It's a very traumatizing experience for men as well, and so we certainly need to be understanding that and attending to that.
Now prevention efforts as well.
One of the biggest issues, it seems that stops people coming forward with sexual assault allegations. Is that judicial process that can be quite traumatic, you know, having to relive your experience to police, to lawyers, to a courtroom, facing cross examination, things like that. What changes have you seen in recent years to try and improve that process for victims.
Yeah, there's been quite a few changes. So there was pilot courts in Auckland and Fugaday which involved training court staff, training judges about the traumatization of victims and how to work with them in ways which would not or would retraumatize them less. So judges introducing themselves before the trial, letting victims know that, you know, it was okay to take a break if they need it. You know, that
kind of thing has been really helpful. We've had prosecution guidelines in place of sexual violence for a few years now, so prosecutors are more aware about again how to not step into that retraumatizing victims. So that's been really helpful. Lots of changes in police to interview people in ways which are again less traumatizing, so asking people what happened and then what happened and so helping the person to sequence the events without suggestions from them if you like.
So that's you know, that helps a person's brain when it's when the person is traumatized. So we've had specialist adult sexual assault teams and police, so specialist people doing the interviews as well as the investigations. So there has been a lot of change, but we nowhere near where we need to be yet.
What changes would you like to see?
So all sorts of things.
I mean, we'd like to change the fact finder in the court to a judge and who trained jurists. Basically, what happens now is that defense lawyers do their job often by undermining the credibility of a victim and putting it back on them, and.
That's just not helpful.
So we would rather have judges asking the questions necessary and defense lawyers only asking those questions which were not covered by the judge. So we'd like to see that change. We'd like to see treatment courts, So these were explored by the Law Commissions some years ago, where a person could, if they paid guilty, could be assessed for treatment as different to you know, an automatic assumption of a prison sentence.
The reason for this is that you know, many victims come to us and say that they don't want the person you know, hugely punished What they really want is for them to never do it to anyone else again. And so not everybody you know, are going to gain from treatment, but many people can.
So we would like to see that change.
We think that that would bring more people to make a complaint if they knew that the outcome that they want was possible through the judicial system.
And other changes happening in regards to giving evidence in court via AVL or perhaps in another room.
Yes, so there are changes.
Not all courts have the facilities across the country, but yes, an expect you know that it should be possible to give evidence by audiovisual link into the court.
So we've previously had that for children and it's been.
Possible under our law for quite some time, but there's a shift towards that being more accepted as part of the process.
Everyone was pretty outraged.
I think it's all that's been see on Instagram and like social media this week.
We're fighting for justice and our rights.
Any of my girl Vlope brind if they went for any of that shit, that guy wouldn't be a nine month He'll be six free. Down here to protest the sentence of Jaden Meyer, who raped and sexually assaulted five teenagers when he was sixteen. He'll spends nine months on home detention. A sentence, this advocate says, isn't enough.
I was absolutely outraged. It makes absolutely no sense.
It's pretty much telling the younger generation that it's okay to do this, and you're going to get away with a slap on the hand, Like, come on, Even when you do go through the process, there's no guarantee of what sort of punishment perpetrators will receive.
You mentioned that a little bit before.
How frustrated do you get when you see a judge's comments, or maybe not even a judge's comments, a lawyer's comments or comments from the courtroom that when putting down a sentence, you hear the phrase it would ruin their future prospects.
Yes, that's very frustrating because they should have thought of it before they took the action. Regardless of their future prospects, they have already harmed the person's future prospects because, you know, sex assault isn't it a one night thing. You know, for many people, it's something that they carry through their
lives for a very long time, if not forever. Our nervous systems don't really fully recover from being really harmed, and you know, it can lead if you develop PTSD from the assault, it can lead to you being more likely to develop PTSD through your lifetime. Some people, you know, respond by isolating themselves and not going out. And you know, the more that you withdraw from the life and the world and people, you know, the much narrower your whole
life is as you go forward. Other people might have recurring anxiety or depression you know, through their lives. So when you do this to somebody else, you alter the trajectory of their life. So actually, if the trajectory of your life is also altered, well that sounds like justice.
The government's currently working on to our DAKUDA, a twenty five year National Strategy for the Prevention of Family and Sexual violence.
Are you happy with how this is progressing.
Well, it's fantastic that there is a national strategy, and it's fantastic that this government continued that strategy and kept investing in that strategy. Of course, we like to see everything move faster than it is, because twenty five years is really not very long at all in terms of you know, turning the tide on this kind of violence. The strategy is for sexual violence and for what we call family violence, and so certainly, you know, resources are
spread across those which slows things down. But I think this is say, compared to Australia, which has a child sexual abuse strategy just you know, on its own, we would like to see more happening faster, but we're certainly grateful for the work that is happening in that strategy. So things like training are strate to try workers. You know, thousands of people are going to be trained over the next few years in terms of how to respond to people who disclose sexual violence.
So that's a real win.
And I read a statistic that I found actually quite startling, and you mentioned it in the beginning of our conversation. One in four New Zealand girls may be sexually abused before she turns sixteen, and around ninety percent of the abuse will be done by someone she knows. Now, I read this on the DREM section of the help website. Can you tell me a little bit about this offshoot?
Yeah, So, DEARIM is.
A leadership program for young people who are interested in ending sexual violence. So we work with them to look at you know, to help them understand the ways they can do that.
They get to do.
Projects which are their projects of how they would like to do this. So one young woman did a podcast, another young woman has led some actions or a petition on consent law reform. They go into the university and talk to counselors about what young people need in these situations. So you know, a variety of different actions every year, but it's kind of fostering their knowledge and their sense of how they can participate in making this change in the world.
They also have very flourishing social media.
So Instagram in particular, just spreading the messages really about what needs to change to end sexual violence.
If there was one thing, Catherine, that you'd like any political party to introduce as a policy to tackle this issue in sexual violence and rape, what would it be.
To be honest, The one that's dearest to my heart at the moment is the Justice Select Committee has looked at how we stop children on the stand being accused of having consented to sexual activity, and we're talking, you know, children as young as five or six years old, you know, being accused of that. So there is a bill looking at that. At the moment, the government doesn't have that in the stated plan to enact that bolt, to make that bill into law. That bill would stop any child
under twelve being challenged about consent. But yeah, we'd really like to see that fast tracted in as soon as possible, because it's really quite an indictement on our society that we challenge six year olds about having consented to sexual things done to them by adults.
Thanks for joining us, Catherine.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.