Compensation to 525 for sexual attacks

Press, 30 December 1985, Page 6

Compensation to 525 for sexual attacks

PA Wellington The Accident Compensation Corporation paid out compensation to 525 women victims of sexual attacks in 1984, according to figures obtained by the “Dominion” newspaper. This was a 22 per cent rise from 430 in 1981.

However, A.C.C. claims paid out over the last four years to women are just a “drop in the ocean,” according to the Wellington Rape Crisis co-ordinator, Ms Patricia Ann.

Statistics specifically on rape or on actual amounts paid out in compensation are not available from the corporation. The 1981-84 figures showing the number of claims are organised into a crosstabulation of where the offences occurred, by the age of the women.

By far the most commonplace of offence was in the woman’s own home — 176 in 1981, rising to 202 in 1984. Roads and streets came next (68 in 1984) and public areas third (31 in 1984). However, Ms Ann believed that most of these

claims would not be for lump sum payments but for counselling, and that they would form only a tiny proportion of the number of women who have suffered from sexual abuse. She said that in the last eight months at the Wellington Rape Crisis Centre she knew of only four women who had claimed for A.C.C. payments. She said this would be echoed in rape crisis centres throughout New Zealand, except for somewhere like Auckland Help Centre which had a much greater liaison with medical staff.

Ms Ann said a large proportion of women coming to rape crisis centres were not eligible for accident compensation. “Most of the work being done in the centres is with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse” she said.

“They don’t have doctor’s certificates saying that abuse took place because it happened years before.” Ms Ann said incest was a huge gap in A.C.C. figures. “Taking (the feminist psychologist) Miriam Saphira’s figures which show that one in four girls is sexually abused by the age of 18, it would be an enormous amount.”

“Even one in eight would cause a financial catastrophe.” Ms Ann said also that few women realised compensation was available from the A.C.C., and believed it had been poorly advertised. Compenstion for rape survivors has, in fact, been available since 1963, first through the Criminal In-

juries Compensation Act, and from 1975, through the Accident Compensation Corporation Act. Lump sum compensation for any sort of “accident” is available in two forms. A maximum of $17,000 is available to a person suffering a permanent physical injury. Second, up to $lO,OOO is available to someone losing their capacity for enjoying life. The latter is open to negotiation, according to the nature, intensity and duration of the injury. A social worker doing senior university research, Ms Carmel Hurdle, who made a preliminary study earlier this year on why women did not generally apply for lump sum compensation, said ignorance was a large factor. “People don’t know about it. It is just not publicised at all,” she said.

The procedure also put some women off. They did not want to have to “prove” their case as if in a court.

The managing director of the A.C.C., Mr Jeff Chapman, said there had been a noticeable increase in the number of claims in the last calendar year for rape, incest, and child abuse.

“The climate is such that both women and children feel freer to come forward.”

The compensation controller, Mr Harry Lynch, said compensation was readily granted to women for counselling, medical fees, and for any period of unemployment caused through the trauma of their experience. However, he said that most who claimed just wanted to forget about the trauma and be rehabilitated into the community. Ms Ann said the best advice she could give was for all women who had been sexually abused to see their doctor. This was important not only for health reasons but it was an opportunity for them to get something written down.

“They may even wish to get an A.C.C. claim form and pop it away with their private papers. At some later stage they may wish to come back and use it to their benefit,” she said.