The nation's The Ministry of Social Development will donate $4 million (NZ$ 6.4 million) over three years to the Love Better campaign to reduce domestic violence by assisting young people in coming to terms with breakups.
In New Zealand, which has one of the highest rates of domestic and sexual violence in the industrialized world, family violence is a severe social problem.
The campaign will provide text, phone, and email contact via charity Youthline, advising young people going through a breakup. Government ministers launched it in Auckland on Wednesday morning.
Around 100,000 family violence incidents are investigated by the New Zealand Police each year, according to the Ministry of Justice.
According to the Ministry of Justice, 9,723 reports of sexual violence were made to the police in 2020, and over half of those who did so in New Zealand were under 18.
Jo Madsen, who is a lead for the Youthline Clinic, attests that:
Typically it seems like your only option after a breakup, other than necessarily hating the person or cutting off the person, is not feeling anything in response. So it’s really cool to show that actually, it’s normal to have all these feelings in response to a breakup and these are some ways you can deal with them in a healthy way.”
The initiative, which invites kids to #OwnTheFeels and calls out for help, is also making the tools to give support. For instance, Youthline, a youth development organization, has been contracted to offer such assistance via phone, text, and email helplines. Youthline said on Instagram that it was getting a "small amount" of the Love Better funds from the government.
