What Pay Equity Has To Do With Ending Sexual Violence

Scoop

13-05-2025

At Wellington Rape Crisis, our work is rooted in healing, justice, and the belief that every person deserves to live free from violence and its harm. Pay equity might not be the first thing that comes to mind when people think about preventing sexual violence. But at Wellington Rape Crisis, we know the two are deeply connected.
The care and social services sectors—where the majority of frontline workers are women—form the backbone of our wellbeing as a society. This is the workforce that holds trauma, repairs harm, supports healing, and strengthens community safety. Yet care work remains chronically underpaid and undervalued.
This isn't just an oversight—it's the result of gendered power imbalances that stretch across our economy, institutions, and communities, showing up clearly in the persistent gaps in pay between men and women, and between dominant and marginalised groups.
Every day, we walk alongside survivors who are navigating harm not just from individuals, but from systems — economic, legal, and social — that too often fail to protect them. Unequal pay, insecure work, and economic dependence don't just create hardship. They create conditions where violence can thrive, and where survivors are forced to choose between safety and survival.
If we are serious about ending sexual violence, we must be just as serious about ending the gender pay gap -—and resourcing the care economy that supports healing and safety for all.
Power and Pay: Whose Work Is Valued?
When we talk about pay equity, we're talking about power.
Being underpaid isn't just a financial issue, it's a social one. It sends a message: your work, your time, and your contributions matter less. When people are paid unfairly based on gender, ethnicity, or identity, it reinforces a message that some lives are worth more than others.
In Aotearoa, the care workforce is overwhelmingly made up of women—particularly Māori, Pasifika, migrant, and working-class women. The low wages in these sectors reflect a long history of devaluing care as 'women's work,' even though it is critical to our collective wellbeing.
This imbalance plays out in the workplace, where unequal pay often goes hand-in-hand with less job security, fewer leadership opportunities, and less protection from harm. These conditions can make it easier for bullying, harassment, and sexual violence to occur—and harder for those affected to speak up safely.
When pay doesn't reflect the value of the work, it undermines not only those who provide care, but those who depend on it.
Economic Dependence Can Trap Survivors
We see every day how financial insecurity can make people more vulnerable to violence. When someone is underpaid or financially dependent on a partner or employer, they may not feel safe or able to leave an unsafe situation. This isn't a reflection of weakness, it's a reflection of how our systems are set up, and they often fail to protect those who need support the most.
Survivors have shared with us how the fear of losing income, housing, or childcare keeps them silent. To truly support survivors, we need to build a society where people have the economic freedom to choose safety, healing and justice.
These aren't two separate problems—they're symptoms of the same broken systems. The undervaluing of care work and the economic silencing and oppression of survivors are both rooted in the same dynamics: the minimization of gendered labour and expertise, the concentration of power, and a refusal by those in power and those with influence to invest in what truly keeps our communities safe.
Culture, Care, and Commitment
Every workplace sends a message about what is acceptable—and what isn't.
But workplaces don't exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by—and help uphold—broader systems and beliefs about whose work matters, who deserves protection, what kinds of labour—and which people performing it—are treated as expendable.
When an organisation ignores or justifies pay disparities, it can also create an environment where other harmful behaviours are overlooked.
On the other hand, when workplaces commit to fairness and equity, they begin to disrupt those systems. They contribute to a culture where respect, safety, and justice can take root.
This is just as true in the social services sector as anywhere else. Achieving Pay Equity for social workers has been critical to our organisation Wellington Rape Crisis, to our non-profit community sector, and the survivors we serve. For too long, our sector and workforces have struggled to retain skilled, qualified professionals. The low wages set by government procurement fail to reflect the high level of expert skill, emotional intelligence and labour, and risk our staff carry every day.
It's important to name clearly: this is not unskilled work. Social workers and other care professionals are trained to the same standard as many other regulated professions—such as accountants or lawyers—with comparable education, registration, and ongoing professional requirements. The difference is not in the skill, but in how society has chosen to value women-dominated professions. Undervaluing is not the same as unskilled.
The loss of commitment to maintaining the pay equity claim is devastating.
It takes us back in time—to when we were unable to sustain a capable and specialist workforce needed to meet the growing demand from survivors and their families.
Without sustained pay equity, we risk losing the very people who hold space for healing, who walk alongside survivors in their darkest moments, and who are essential to a functioning, compassionate response to violence and a society we all want to participate in.
Survivors Deserve Better Systems
Seeking justice—whether through a pay equity claim or reporting sexual violence—is often met with enormous barriers: disbelief, retaliation, complicated processes, and emotional exhaustion. These systems weren't built with survivors in mind. They often protect power, not people.
When we listen to survivors, one thing becomes clear: healing requires not only personal support but systemic change. We must build pathways to justice that are survivor-led, trauma-informed, and rooted in equity.
Some Communities Face Greater Harm
Sexual violence and economic injustice don't impact everyone equally. Māori women, Pasifika women, disabled people, trans and queer communities, and migrant workers often face greater risks—of both exploitation and violence. These overlapping forms of discrimination must be recognised and addressed together.
True equity means making space for every voice, especially those who have been pushed to the margins.
Healing Means Justice, and Justice Includes Pay Equity
At Wellington Rape Crisis, we believe that healing doesn't happen in isolation—it happens in community. And communities are strongest when they are just, inclusive, and safe.
Pay equity is part of that vision. It's part of what safety looks like. When we honour the value of every person's work and life, we create a foundation where violence has less room to grow.
Let's work together—as envisaged in Te Aorerekura—to build a future where care is valued, survivors are heard, and safety is not a privilege, but a right. For a future where no one is held back—or held down—by systems that harm. Until we close the pay gap, we are leaving the door open to abuse.