Family Violence in the Storm of COVID: The Story of Aotearoa New Zealand

New Zealand, despite being the first nation globally to provide voting rights to women, also tops the OECD countries in highest rate of intimate partner violence with one in three women experiencing physical, sexual, or coercive violence from their intimate partner in their lifetime (Hager, The hierarchies in NZ’s domestic violence problem. Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Politics and law, The University of Auckland. Available via. https://www.auckland.ac.nz/ , 2020). New Zealand defines family violence as an umbrella term to describe the violence within families and relationships, such as between partners, parents, and children, and siblings (New Zealand Ministry of Social Development, Te Rito: New Zealand Family Violence Prevention Strategy. New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse. https://nzfvc.org.nz/definitions , 2002). When COVID hit NZ, strict lockdown helped to prevent its spread, but the conditions during lockdown contributed toward the lack of safety net available for women at their homes. The Epidemic Response Committee formed to discuss the government’s management of COVID had a major part of the focus on health, business, police, and civil defense. The chapter would detail the ways in which information around safety was disseminated and deliberate on the approach taken on “staying safe in your bubble.” It will further explore if civil society were able to effectively contextualize their programs in responding to the emerging needs of women and children, and if social workers were prepared with appropriate tools to respond. The author believes with the possibility of more complex human disasters in future, it is key for the social work sector to strategize and think ahead of their operational strategies focusing on women and children and finding ways of making them visible. This would help keep up with the pace of providing essential services, more safely, timely and appropriately.