A group of Wellington women recently launched a petition: https://womensrights.nz/

Their petition is open to all NZ residents who are enrolled to vote until the end of April, and will then be presented to the Wellington City Council. The group is concerned about decisions made by WCC—decisions that have had no public consultation and impact everyone in Wellington and beyond, as Wellington is a destination for many New Zealanders.

The petition organisers assure people who sign the petition that their personal details will not be made public; anonymised results will be shared publicly and with the City Council. This is because of the nature of their petition—it’s about preserving single-sex facilities in public spaces in Wellington. Organisers want people to feel free to sign the petition with no fear of backlash to themselves, their families and friends, or to their jobs; if this was not assured, people may be reluctant to participate in matters that affect them, compromising their democratic rights.

The petition is a response to the new WCC Councillors endorsing the previous Council’s Rainbow Action Plan1 which, among other things, aims to ensure new and refurbished changing rooms and toilets are “all gender” facilities. The petition calls on WCC to retain or reinstate public single-sex changing rooms and toilets, to abandon their policies making such facilities “all gender”, to also provide universal changing rooms where appropriate, to review and rewrite their policies for their public facilities based on research and risk assessments, and to train front-line staff to ensure the safety of users by having consistent messaging around the use of the facilities.

The petition organisers say that where “all gender” facilities have been installed overseas, 90% of reported sex attacks occurred in them as opposed to 10% in single-sex facilities2. Whether “all gender” facilities have either fully or partially enclosed separate cubicles, sexual predators, including sexual voyeurs, will find opportunities to offend when the rules are not clear and not proactively monitored3. With 98% of sexual violence towards females being committed by men, “all gender” facilities are not safe for women and girls.

1. https://wellington.govt.nz/your-council/plans-policies-and-bylaws/policies/rainbow-action-plan In particular, see p10 of the plan.

2. https://a86851fb-c226-400d-9bf4-401a61daaa40.usrfiles.com/ugd/a86851_0f9e0eeec3b54ff18327bfce8f5e6f52.pdf See pp 9-12.

3. https://www.womensrights.network/post/how-leisure-centres-enable-sexual-predators

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