WE THINK of our neighbours across the ditch as peaceful people but statistics show more than half a million New Zealanders fall victim to domestic violence each year.

New figures, released by New Zealand Police, show officers attended a family violence incident somewhere in the country once every five and a half minutes last year.

They attended, on average, 279 calls for help every day and about 105,000 domestic violence incidents overall.

The statistics are frightening, but they don’t even include the number of assaults that go unreported. Police estimate that if every family violence situation was reported in 2015 they would have attended 525,000 calls for help, according to the New Zealand Herald.

The statistics were released as part of a powerful new campaign aimed at reducing the staggering number of assaults that take place in the family home and in intimate partner relationships.

In a series of stories and advertisements, domestic violence survivors and members of the police force urge victims to speak out and abusers to change their behaviour.

Positioned around the theme ‘We’re Better Than This’, those involved paint a disturbing picture.

One woman, who chose not to be named, told the Herald: “I would not wish what I have been through on anybody.”

She said her home felt like a prison.

“It was a beautiful prison, but I was desperate to leave it. For me, a sense of isolation and despair was very real. I also had the responsibility of our children and their despair and needs at every level,” she said.

“Abuse is cross-cultural, within all ethnicities, and sadly part of a human condition where love is absent and evil is allowed to fester and foster. Secrecy is a key to breeding more abuse.”

The Herald reports New Zealand has the “highest reported rate of intimate-partner violence and child abuse in the developed world” and one in three Kiwi women during the course of their lives will experience either physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a partner or ex.

New Zealand Police Superintendent Tusha Penny tried to explain why the rate is so high.

“There’s lots of whys and there’s still some whys that are unknown,” she said. “If we look at a lot of the cases we go to there’s a lot of dynamics there; stresses in the family, they can be financial.

“If you talk to marriage counsellors they’ll say the biggest dynamic that will lead to the breakdown in a relationship is around financial pressure. Alcohol, drug abuse, substance abuse, mental health issues we know are significant.

“People often say, ‘Is New Zealand just more violent than other countries?’ I don’t know. What I do know is that every day in this country on average the NZ police attend around 279 calls for help (every day) around family violence.”

A United Nations report published in 2011 showed a third of the country’s women had reported experiencing physical violence from a partner between 2000 and 2010.

UN Women New Zealand national president Rae Julian asked the government to “actively investigate the causes ... and issues of partner violence against women’’.

Justice Minister Amy Adams told the Herald the problem does not belong to any one segment of the population.

“The high rate of family violence in New Zealand is unacceptable,” she said. “It is one of our most significant social issues.

“This is not something that happens in some parts of New Zealand. This happens across every single social, ethnic, age and socio-economic group.

“We have to acknowledge that. It happens in every street, in every community. To make people think about this more and talk about this more, that is part of our challenge. We absolutely can and must do better.”

For help in New Zealand, visit www.areyouok.org.nz or www.womensrefuge.org.nz.

For help in Australia, visit www.whiteribbon.org.au or phone 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).

