Advocating to make stalking illegal – a first hand account

Retired psychologist Dr Alison Towns is an expert in family violence, a member of the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children, and a dear friend of the Auckland Women’s Centre.

Here, she talks about why she helped drive the successful campaign to make stalking illegal, with our Aotearoa Free From Stalking team.

I first became aware of the extent of harm to women from stalking when I was on the Inaugural NZ Family Violence Death Review Committee (FVDRC): many of the women killed were talented women who were stalked by the partners or ex-partners before they were killed. Later, I did the evaluation of the fabulous Shine safe@home programme, which has since morphed into the national “Whānau Protect” home security and safety programme run by Women’s Refuge.  Before the safe@home programme, women were regularly being stalked with considerable impact on their well-being and their children’s well-being. The whole whānau was living in terror caused by the stalker, and their lives had become so closed and limited. Stalking commonly involved various forms of surveillance as well as massive amounts of unwanted contact, often at night; various means of damage to their lives and reputations, usually through instigated debt; as well as threats and intimidation, physical violence, and damage to property commonly leaving homes insecure.

Yet many of those working with these women did not recognise the stalking, until the safe@home programme. Safe@home did a wonderful job of making these women and children feel safe –  but as soon as the programme eased off these stalkers began their stalking again. Protection orders were useful in offering some protection for these clients at very high risk because the police were aware of the danger they were in, but charges of criminal harassment very rarely happened.

Little did I know that a year after I had completed this project my partner and I would have firsthand experience of stalking from a local couple, which went on for the next five years. The offenders thrived on police involvement and the police response was completely inadequate. Police treated the stalking as a civil matter, but our attempts to get restraining orders cost thousands of dollars and were thwarted by the male stalker, who never attended court. He was confronting me after dark when I arrived home, throwing rubbish on our property, intimidating us with his vehicle, damaging our property, blocking our exit from our property and disturbing us and the surrounding neighbours with noise after we had gone to bed. We became isolated from our community, and concerned about having friends and family over in case they were subjected to the harassment. A minor criminal offence was brought against him by the police, but the law was completely inadequate and the judge clearly did not understand stalking. My work, health and social life was affected. All this stopped when we eventually sold our house, a huge task under the circumstances, and we have made sure that we have kept our new location hidden from this couple. During this period Women’s Refuge published their report on stalking, but governments failed to improve the law.

Farzana’s Yaqubi’s death brought all these experiences together, and mobilised me and the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children lead by the wonderful Leonie Morris into action. Here was yet another talented young woman killed by a man because the police failed to protect her. We were seeing social media fuel further harassment and stalking of woman academics, media and politicians, particularly over the COVID period, and we could no longer allow such action to stifle talented women and the movement towards women’s equity. Stalking had become a means of oppressing women’s political action, leadership, independence and talent; children were affected, and it had to stop.

We mobilised with Women’s Refuge, the National Council of Women and others and produced a report on stalking designed to provoke a change to the law to make stalking illegal. When that still was not successful, we wrote the law ourselves, with the wonderful help of Associate Professor Carrie Leonetti at the University of Auckland Law School. Leonie Morris and the Auckland Women’s Centre mobilised young women who were markedly affected by stalking, and organised an open letter from politicians, leaders in the field of family and sexual violence, and academia. Labour MP Ginny Anderson wrote a members bill based on the law we wrote and put it in the Members Bill biscuit tin. We actioned a petition, achieved 20,000 signatures in 7 weeks, and presented it at Parliament’s steps in June 2024, inviting politicians from all of the political parties to attend – which many did, including Ginny Anderson, Marama Davidson and Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith. At that event, the Minister promised to introduce a bill criminalising stalking by the end of the year. The outcome is that stalking is now in the Crimes Act, and will be actioned in May 2026.

This is a massive positive shift in the legal protections for women, children and anybody who is being stalked. I am delighted that we were successful in getting this new law and I feel enormously proud of the way women, researchers, politicians and the media worked together to make this change happen. Anybody who finds themselves being stalked will have more options for protection in the future.

We have shown that change is possible when you have the wonderful support of women around you, when you insist on it, and will not take no for an answer. The Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Act 2025 would not have been possible without so many wonderful women working in concert towards that end. Politicians, media, non-government organisations, community workers and educators, and academics all came together to support this bill. I want to thank everyone for their commitment to this kaupapa. The work is not finished, as we need educated police, prosecutors and judiciary, but perhaps we are closer to having a safer Aotearoa for all women.