Office of the Hon Laila Harré
Minister of Women's Affairs
Minister of Youth Affairs
Associate Minister of Commerce
Associate Minister of Labour

Media Release

March 7 2000

For immediate release

SUPPORT CARD CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Women's Affairs Minister Laila Harré is encouraging New Zealanders to get signing in support of an international campaign to eliminate violence and poverty from women's lives.

Ms Harré will mark International Women's Day by launching the New Zealand arm of a post card campaign supporting the World March of Women 2000.

The postcard campaign is named after the Women's March Against Poverty held in Quebec 1995.

In New Zealand it is being organised by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and NZEI.

"This time it's not about marching it's about sending a message to the United Nations that violence and discrimination against women is not acceptable," she says.

The postcards are addressed to United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, and call for the elimination of poverty and violence against women and a fair distribution of the planet's wealth between rich and poor.

"The message on these postcards is relevant to women all over the world, but it bears real significance for women in New Zealand," Ms Harré says.

Women's Affairs statistics show that family violence represents 80 per cent of all violent offending in New Zealand, a figure that isn't declining.

Women are most often the targets of family violence, and Maori women are particularly at risk.

"The support card campaign fits in with the Government's aim to make New Zealand a safer society by eliminating all forms of violence against women – physical, sexual, domestic or emotional," Ms Harré says.

ENDS

Contact

Joan Macdonald, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom,
(09) 360-8001.

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