there are half a million victims.2 In 2016 there were over 118,000 police domestic violence callouts - one every five minutes.3 It is believed only 20% of victims report this violence to the Police.4 7. Between 2009 and 2015 there were 92 intimate partner violence events resulting in death. 68% of the deceased were women. Māori were three times more likely to be a victim or offender.5 In 2017, only 1.5% of government spending was dedicated to violence prevention.6 8. The Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recently raised serious concern about the prevalence of domestic and gender-based violence in New Zealand and made a number of recommendations in this regard.7 9. The Commission is concerned that the strategic approach to family violence prevention has changed with successive governments and there seems to be an overall lack of policy coherence in this area. 10. Pre-2012, the Te Rito Family Violence Prevention Strategy, aimed at reducing family violence, was led by the Ministry of Social Development. 8 In 2014, a Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence was established for the same purpose. On 17 May 2018, the current Government announced funding of $2m to resource the establishment of a dedicated body to lead and coordinate the transformation of the family and sexual violence system.9 It is currently unclear whether this new work will continue to build upon the three years of work undertaken by the previous Government or whether a new approach will be adopted. 11. The Government recently announced a 30% increase in spend to address family violence, $76m over four years for front line social services. The Government established a parliamentary under-secretary to the Minister of Justice with a focus on domestic and sexual violence.10 2 New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey: 2014 (2015) www.justice.govt.nz/justice-sector-policy/researchdata/nzcass/survey-results/ 3 New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse Data Summaries Snapshot, June 2017, quoting Data Scientist, National Performance & Insights Centre, New Zealand Police. (2017, May), http://areyouok.org.nz/family-violence/statistics/ on 24.4.2017 4 New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey: 2014 (2015), www.justice.govt.nz/justice-sector-policy/researchdata/nzcass/survey-results/ 5 Family Violence Death Review Committee (2016) Fifth Report Data: January 2009 to December 2015, https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/assets/FVDRC/Publications/FVDRC-FifthReportData-2017.pdf 6 New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse, NZFVC Data Summaries 2017: Family violence reports reach record High https://nzfvc.org.nz/news/nzfvc-data-summaries-2017-family-violence-reports-reach-record-high on 28.4.2018 7 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of New Zealand, E/C.12/NZL/CO/4 (1 May 2018), paras. 12, 13. 8 Ministry of Social Development, Te Rito Family Violence Strategy, https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-ourwork/publications-resources/planning-strategy/te-rito/the-strategy.html 9 Ministry of Justice, Family and sexual violence updates, https://www.justice.govt.nz/justice-sector-policy/keyinitiatives/reducing-family-and-sexual-violence/work-programme/updates/#H1 10 Ibid. 4