UN Women

Greetings to everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the evening (Sign)

Susan and I specifically greet you: Liz Brown, Vice President of UN Women New Zealand; Faye Gardiner, Auckland President; Hon Hekia Parata, Minister of Women’s Affairs; Carol Beaumont and Dr Jackie Blue, Members of Parliament; representatives from the National Council of Women, the Federation of Business and Professional Women, Zonta, Soroptimists, the Federation of Graduate Women; Altrusa, Pacific Women’s Watch, and the Pacific South East Asia Women’s Association; Distinguished Guests all.

It is a great pleasure for Susan and me to host this event for International Women’s Day.  We have that honour as joint patrons of the organisation that has this year changed its name from Unifem NZ to UN Women NZ, and widened its role.

March 8 this year marks the centenary of the first celebrations of International Women’s Day in 1911.  It is a matter of note that UN Women NZ and its affiliate organisations have aimed to organise 100 events around the country today in commemoration.

Before speaking about the work of UN Women NZ, there are some words to say about Christchurch and, in particular, its importance in women’s political history in New Zealand.

We visited the city five days after the devastating February 22 earthquake and yesterday we visited again, to offer our support to those whose living in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Going there gives you a different feeling from seeing interviews and pictures.  We both feel shocked by what we have seen and the plight of some of the people there.

The work underway in the Emergency Operations Centre in the Christchurch Art Gallery was heartening, and we were impressed by the competent and careful work of the USAR teams from New Zealand and around the world.

Our visit yesterday was first to the Disaster Victim Identification team and then to the eastern suburbs.  Important information already known about victims, like dental records, has and is being gathered and matched to the people found.  Care, efficiency and respect are all evident.

In New Brighton and in Aranui we found people working assiduously for the common good distributing food and care while disregarding their own needs.  There is concern for homes but we saw a lot of support in the community between neighbours.  The streets are bumpy and with areas of silt everywhere, especially where people had shovelled it out from their home.

On February 27, which was the first time we were there, Helen Clark, New Zealand’s first elected woman Prime Minister, and now Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme was there to show her solidarity with the people of Christchurch.

The establishment of women’s rights in New Zealand is intertwined with the history of Christchurch.  Elizabeth McCombs, became New Zealand’s first woman Member of Parliament when she was elected for Lyttelton in 1933.

It was the home of Kate Sheppard, too, who spearheaded the campaign for women’s suffrage in New Zealand, and whose image is on the $10 note.

The long campaign by Kate Sheppard and others was, in the end, successful.  Adult New Zealand women were enfranchised a full 35 years before all women got the vote in Britain, where suffrage was given to women over 30 in 1918 but not extended to women over 21 until 1928.

Kate Sheppard once said, on behalf of New Zealand women:  “We are tired of having a ‘sphere’ doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is ‘unwomanly’.  We want to be natural just for a change.  We must be ourselves at all risks.”

The work of UN Women New Zealand helps women to do that, both here and in other parts of the world.

The project to establish more gender equality in decision making in the Marshall Islands, where it is working with a local organisation, Women United Together, has had some success.

The first part of this project resulted in a number of women being elected to local government positions, including several as mayor.  The second part, consisting of mentoring workshops, is almost completed.

Here in New Zealand, the organisation introduced the highly successful White Ribbon campaign.  Held each year on November 25, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence towards Women, this campaign asks men to wear a white ribbon as a personal pledge to speak up against violence against women.

The campaign has played a major role in shifting attitudes to the violence that takes place within the home.  The city in which New Zealand’s first women’s refuge opened in 1973 was Christchurch.  Today there are many women and children helped by these centres

We are optimistic for the work of UN Women internationally.  With four UN bodies coming together, it has been given the task of leading the international effort for gender equality and the attainment of women’s human rights.

The head of UN Women is Michelle Bachelet who, as the President of Chile visited New Zealand in 2006.  She has as her platform the principle that equality for men and women in civil and political rights is fundamental and integral to all human rights.

On this, the centenary of International Women’s Day, it gives us great pleasure to officially launch the new organisation UN Women NZ.

As our time in Government House will conclude in less than six months’ time, we would like to end by paying tribute to the work Unifem has done in the past, and wishing the new organisation all the best for its campaigns, both here and elsewhere in the world, in the future.

And on that note, I will now close for us both in New Zealand’s first language, offering everyone greetings and wishing everyone good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.