Te Pāti Māori list candidate for Christchurch, Teresa Butler, says women across New Zealand deserve better safety, equity and opportunity, and their voices will be heard at Saturday’s Women’s Day of Action in Christchurch.
The Mana Wahine Hīkoi will begin at 10am in Victoria Square with karakia and waiata before a march through the central city to the Bridge of Remembrance.
Guest speakers, community leaders and cultural performances are planned for the day.
Butler said the event is a tribute to trailblazers such as Dame Whina Cooper and Kate Sheppard, as well as the generations of women who carried their families and communities with quiet strength.
“It’s important to listen to the voices of our wāhine from all over New Zealand. We deserve safety, equity and opportunity right now, but the facts tell us otherwise. New Zealand has some of the highest rates of family and sexual violence in the OECD.
“Women still earn on average nine percent less than men, and access to vital health services like gynaecology and maternity care is unequal, especially in Canterbury,” she said.
Key messages of the day include equal pay, fair access to health services and stronger protections against family and sexual violence.
“Our voices need to be heard in this community. Equity around pay, equity around safety for all of our wāhine, tamariki and whānau, that’s what this march is about,” Butler said.
She rejected suggestions the march is a political stunt. “It’s not about political parties at all. It’s about equity for women of all whakapapa, from all over New Zealand. Māori and Pacific wāhine are experiencing wider gaps in pay transparency and accountability. In boardrooms, workplaces and Parliament, whose voice is not heard? Wāhine. And that must change,” she said.
Butler said the day was also deeply personal, reflecting on her own mother who raised seven children while working as a hospital cleaner.
“My mum never had the opportunity to learn how to drive and biked everywhere. Where was the equity for my mother and many others to help them thrive as wāhine? There just wasn’t, and there still isn’t right now,” she said. The hikoi will start at 11am, following family activities in the square. Butler said it would be “a march for equity, for women’s rights, and for voices to be heard.”
