7 February 2018

Sexual Abuse Prevention Network supports Wellington City Council’s move to give new councillor focus on sexual violence

A spokesperson for Sexual Abuse Prevention Network says it is excellent to see that Wellington City Council has given a focus to sexual violence within the safer cities portfolio.

General Manager, Fiona McNamara says “Wellington City Council has a long history of supporting organisations in the sexual violence sector, but giving responsibility for this to a councillor ensures that it remains a priority and that we have strong advocate for this issue representing our city.”

“Councillor Fitzsimons has spoken passionately about this issue in her maiden speech, giving us confidence that she will have a positive influence towards changing the culture that allows sexual violence to happen.”

“We look forward to working with Fitzsimons, the Mayor and the council more broadly to develop and implement new strategies to eliminate sexual violence in our city.”

“Sexual violence in preventable and we need to shift the focus to addressing the culture in which it exists.”

Sexual Abuse Prevention Network offers a range of education, professional development and consultancy services to businesses, schools, community groups and other organisations. SAPN works with agencies to develop policies, procedures and safety strategies unique to their organisation.

Programmes include the ‘It’s Our Business programme’ a programme tailored to the hospitality sector that assists staff in developing safety strategies in their bars, trains staff to identify dangerous situations and to intervene before sexual violence occurs, and to respond safely when an incident does happen.

“Every time we run this programme, bar staff all report that they have witnessed sexual harassment in their bars already. They all have a story to tell and want to know what they can do stop this kind of behaviour from happening. There is a need and desire in a broad range of workplaces for this kind of conversation to happen.”

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