What Happened in 2025?

2025 was a busy and impactful year for the International Action Hub - with key highlights including: 

• Organising the third Women at the Table on Climate Change event in May 2025, in partnership with the Council of International Development and UN Women Aotearoa New Zealand.  This was a hybrid event chaired by Madison Walker CEO UN Women NZ and Eva Hartshorn-Sanders, convenor of the International Action Hub of NCWNZ (we stepped in at the last minute as Nanaia Mahuta was attending the tangi of a close friend).  The focus of the third event was to understand a business, union and philanthropy approach to climate action (following two earlier events that had focused on government / politics and international frameworks, and NGO work).  Speakers included:
  • Cheryl Spain, CEO of the Gift Trust
  • Jo Tyndall, Director of the Environment Directorate, OECD
  • Elly Rosita Silaban, President of KSBSI (the Indonesian Workers’ Welfare Union) 
  • Ella Tunnicliffe-Glass, Senior Manager Sustainability Strategy, Fonterra
  • Katie Beith, Head of ESG at Forsyth Barr

You can watch the YouTube recording of this event here.

This article is the third in a series for The Circular by the members of the NCWNZ International Action Hub. The series highlights the many different international treaties to which New Zealand is a signatory and how this impacts women and girls.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is one of the core international human rights treaties adopted by the United Nations in 1966. It sets out fundamental civil and political rights that all people are entitled to, simply by virtue of being human. New Zealand ratified the ICCPR in 1978, meaning our government has committed to uphold and protect these rights in law, policy, and practice.

For women and girls in Aotearoa, the Covenant is not abstract. It provides a powerful framework for equality, safety, and participation. Countries that have ratified the Covenant must report regularly to the UN Human Rights Committee on how they are implementing it.

Civil society organisations, including women’s groups, can also submit 'shadow reports' to highlight gaps between law and lived reality. This creates an important accountability mechanism.

The Covenant protects a wide range of civil and political freedoms. Key rights include:

• The right to life 
• Freedom from Torture and cruel inhuman or degrading treatment
• Freedom from discrimination
• Equality before the law
• Freedom of expression, assembly and association
• Political participation

In May 2025 the New Zealand Government chose to overturn our formerly world-leading pay equity legislation. The changes had been in the works for nearly a year, and the People's Select Committee on Pay Equity (PSCPE) formed in February 2024 as an organised voice for the communities affected by the law.

Many submitters to the PSCPE reported human rights violations due to both the Equal Pay Amendment Bill’s content and its legislative process. In the report Kei te rapu te iwi: Inquiry into the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 (24 February 2026), the PSCPE described breaches of the following international treaties of which New Zealand is a member:

• International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 100,
• the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
• the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights,
• Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
• the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and
• the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

The PSCPE found that the New Zealand Government indicated no consideration of its international legal commitments under these treaties, and in some cases wilfully and knowingly acted in breach of its international legal commitments. The report's findings relating to each of these international treaty obligations are summarised below.

On 1 February 2026, the International Action Hub sent a letter of support to the Rt. Hon. Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister - copying also to the Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Hon. Nicola Grigg, Minister for Women. The letter was sent upon gaining approval from the NCWNZ Board to welcome the Prime Minister's announcement that New Zealand declined the invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump to join the Board of Peace. 

U.S. President Trump had launched the founding charter of the Board of Peace during the 50th World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on 22 January 2026. Leaders and foreign ministers of 19 other countries attended the Board of Peace signing ceremony in Davos and signed the founding charter. The U.S. originally presented the Board of Peace as an oversight body focused on Gaza, and the U.N. Security Council adopted the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 on 17 November 2025 to give the Board of Peace a mandate to do so until the end of 2027. The Board of Peace charter indicated that the U.S. would serve as the fiscal depository and that President Trump would be approving all decisions. The charter does not contain the word "Gaza" which had been the original U.N. mandate. President Trump has asserted that he would like the Board of Peace to become the world’s preeminent conflict resolution body. 

Many thanks to International Action Hub member Megan Hutching (WILPF) for taking the lead in building the bulk of this statement. Read the letter of support from NCWNZ to the Prime Minister below:

This article is the second in a series of articles for The Circular by the members of the NCWNZ International Action Hub. The series highlights the many different international treaties to which New Zealand is a signatory and how this impacts women and girls.

One of the founding member organisations of the National Council of Women of New Zealand, the Women's Christian Temperance Union of New Zealand (WCTU NZ) led a campaign to contribute to an international initiative, "The Polyglot Petition for Home Protection." The 4,000+ signatories of women from New Zealand would have seen themselves as part of a global effort to convince heads of state to work together to address the scourge of violence resulting from the state support for and individual use of alcohol and drugs.

This world-wide campaign of the Polyglot Petition was the first global proclamation against the international trade in alcohol and drugs. The petition was initiated by the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1885, and its American president Frances Willard penned the petition to be submitted to national leaders. The destructive effects of the highly addictive version of opium used in the drug trade had funded and maintained several European empires through the nineteenth century. The Polyglot Petition was the first international campaign to raise awareness about the controls needed for opium and its derivatives as well as for the liquor trade.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is not the only international treaty that recognises rights for women. Members of the International Action Hub are writing a series of articles on the many different international treaties to which New Zealand is a signatory and how this impacts women and girls.

The United Nations' Convention Against Torture & Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) was adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by UN General Assembly resolution 39/46 of 10 December 1984 and entered into force on 26 June 1987. New Zealand ratified the CAT on 10 December 1989.

The Optional Protocol to the CAT seeks to prevent torture and other forms of ill-treatment through the establishment of a system of regular visits to places of detention carried out by independent international and national bodies. It was adopted by resolution A/RES/57/199 on 18 December 2002 at the 57th session of the UN General Assembly and entered into force on 22 June 2006. New Zealand ratified the Optional Protocol on 14 March 2007.

Be sure to register for the online event set for 23 September, 12 p.m. (noon) - 1 p.m. Jan Logie, Strategic Funding Lead for Women at Clare Foundation, will interview Dame Ranjna Patel DNZM QSM JP.

Dame Patel is the founder of the Gandhi Nivas family violence prevention programme in New Zealand, and she was also a co-founder and director of Tāmaki Health, a primary healthcare group -- the largest health provider for high-needs, Pacific Island and Māori audiences. She was recently recognised in the King Birthday Honours for services to ethnic communities, health and family violence prevention. 

Gail Pacheco is currently an adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at the Auckland University of Technology and she is the Kaihautū Ōritenga Mahi Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) Commissioner at the Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission. She was invited by Eva Hartshorn-Sanders of the International Action Hub to provide her perspectives on a series of questions of importance to our members.

What are two significant issues facing women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand?

The road to gender equality is long and uneven. In Aotearoa New Zealand we have made good progress in some areas, for example the increasingly levels of labour market participation and educational success of women and girls. There, of course, remain many pressing issues. It is worth noting that these challenges may also be magnified when they intersect with other aspects of identity, such as ethnicity, belonging to rainbow communities, or having a disability. Two key issues are briefly described here: pay equity and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Register today in Humanitix for "Women at the Table on Climate Change" panel event on Wednesday, 7 May 2025, 5:30 - 7 p.m. The discussion will take place at Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington, Pipitea Campus in Wellington and registrants may also choose to attend online. This event is a collaboration between NCWNZ International Action Hub, the Council for International Development, and UN Women of Aotearoa NZ.

At the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), women’s civil society representatives voiced deep concerns over the persistent barriers to achieving gender equality and lack of government action on the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action. More than fifty New Zealand civil society delegates were in New York for the first week of the CSW session 10 to 14 March.