Tika – New Zealand’s first independent way to report sexual harm, is open for registrations from today, offering a free and private pathway to report and pursue justice together. Almost a million New Zealanders have experienced sexual harm in their lifetime, yet the vast majority do not report to any official body or channel – a stark reminder of how many experiences of sexual harm remain hidden.
Tika is New Zealand’s first independent way to report sexual harm, launches to help address the barriers that prevent many victim-survivors from reporting, offering a free, private and legally supported platform where adults can report sexual harm, understand the service available to them and remain in control of what happens next.
Perpetrators benefit from victim-survivors feeling isolated, fearing they won’t be believed, and lacking the confidence to come forward on their own. When multiple people independently report harm by the same person, Tika can securely identify that pattern and offer each person independent legal advice before they decide whether to take legal action together – helping reduce the isolation that can stop survivors coming forward.
Co-founded by former journalist and advocate Alison Mau and lawyer Zoë Lawton, with significant funding from Clare, Tika brings together legal, technology and advocacy expertise to support survivors through that process.
Alison Mau says Tika was created because too many survivors are still left to carry the burden of coming forward alone.
“For years, I’ve heard from people who have experienced sexual harm and felt they had nowhere safe to go with what happened to them,” says Mau. “Too often, the burden has sat with one person alone – to speak up, to be believed, to understand their options and to carry the risk of coming forward. But we know that perpetrators rarely harm just one person. It’s often a pattern of behaviour that can create a chain of victims over years or decades.
“Tika is not here to tell anyone what they must do. It gives people another option: a private, legally supported way to tell someone what happened and understand their rights.”
The platform is open to anyone aged 18 or older who has experienced sexual harm in New Zealand, regardless of when it happened.
When someone registers with Tika, they enter a confidential lawyer-client relationship. Their information remains private and will not be shared or acted on without their permission. The launch has been welcomed by organisations working across the sexual harm sector.
For more information, please visit tika.org.nz. The full launch media release is here.