Maryanne Rapata (left), Suzanne Pene and Georgina Kupa. Photo: Paul EstcourtSOUTH AUCKLAND (The New Zealand Herald), November 6, 2007: Two toll free numbers that help pre-empt violence in South Auckland homes have been set up but are struggling to secure funding.
Maryanne Rapata, who is Counties Manukau police's district iwi liaison officer, said the South Auckland Family Violence Prevention Network's toll-free initiative known as "Te Kainga" was launched after a vigil for the slain Kahui twins in Mangere last year.
She told the opening of the Counties Manukau Family Violence Awareness week yesterday that although there were agencies and social providers to deal with the aftermath of domestic violence, Te Kainga filled the void in getting families through crisis situations before they actually occurred.
"It's about realising what the triggers for this kind of behaviour are," she said. "People could call us on a Monday knowing on the Thursday they could get the bash because the husband's working three jobs, there's not enough money to pay the bills or the man of the house is going to get drunk.
"We sometimes get calls from women saying they're at their wit's end and they're afraid they're going to get it because there's not enough money to go around and their husband's not coping with it.
"Or the man is working three jobs and his wife is working a cleaning job at night just to make ends meet and they're having to leave the kids at home on their own."
Suzanne Pene, who is the co-manager of the South Auckland Family Violence Prevention Network, said after receiving the call, staff met the affected family members who were then referred to the necessary local providers, social agencies or marae.
"We want to utilise what resources we have here in our own communities, it's no good having people from outside South Auckland come in here and try to deal with these things," said Ms Pene. She said the initiative had dealt with dozens of calls.
Partner abuse was the most common form of violence reported but financial worries, elder abuse and poor relationships among adult siblings were also common.
While hopeful of a grant from Te Puni Kokiri which would help secure more people on the phones, Ms Rapata fired a broadside at the Government saying the initiative was still struggling with funding issues.
"The difficulty for us is that this is a community initiative and our 0800 number was around well before the launch of the "It's not OK" campaign and I don't know of any government-initiated 0800 campaigns like this."
She said despite fielding calls from other ethnicities, the service dealt mainly with Maori, who last year made up 47 per cent of all family violence-related calls in South Auckland.
"It's a pretty shocking statistic when you consider we only make up 15 per cent of the population here."
The Counties Manukau acting district commander, Inspector Bruce Bird, said family violence was the area's "critical platform" and 60 per cent of police service calls in the region were domestic violence related.
Last year, 11 of the district's 14 homicide inquiries were related to domestic violence and police responded to about 10,000 family violence calls - nearly a fifth of the country's total number of calls for such incidents.
By James Ihaka
Copyright ©2007, APN Holdings NZ Limited
