Introducing Tika 29.10.26

Content warning: This content contains references to sexual harm.

I don’t know about you, but my feed is almost entirely filled with posts about the Cornell7 right now.

This story - about the events of one night in US college frat house in 2024 - have sparked horror and outrage around the world. A woman known publicly only as Jane Doe has launched a civil case with evidence she was sexually assaulted by multiple men at Chi Phi fraternity over a period of 8 hours. There’s Snapchat messages showing 50 other members of a group thread were invited to come to the room for “free p***y”. Hours later one member of the chat - and this really turns my stomach - asked “is the shop still open?”

More details about that night are being released in the media and on socials every day. It’s very easy to feel hopeless in the face of this latest horror - on top of the Giselle Pelicot case, the Epstein files and so many distressing stories from here in Aotearoa New Zealand, it sometimes feels like there’s nowhere useful to put our rage and despair.

I’m here to tell you that as of now, that’s not the case (for everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand, anyway.)

For the past three years, my co-founder Zoë Lawton and I have been working on something really big. And at the end of September, we launched Tika - a safe, secure, survivor-focused online reporting platform and free legal service for New Zealanders 18 and over who have experienced sexual harm - whenever that happened in their lives.

I’m so fiercely proud (and a ‘lil bit emotional) that I can even type that sentence. Nothing exactly like this has ever existed worldwide.

Before I get into the details, you might like to know a bit about the “why” of Tika, so here’s the short story.

In 2018, when the #metoo movement exploded worldwide, Zoë was a lawyer and I was a journalist. We were both so moved by the outpouring from women all over the world, that we separately decided something had to be done to give survivors in New Zealand a platform too. So in our separate fields of media and the law Zoë and I spent years telling survivors stories, and supporting them as they pursued accountability and justice.

In 2023 we got together for a chat about what all that awareness-raising had achieved. It wasn’t nothing - but it hadn’t created the systemic change we’d really hoped for. Crucially, it hadn’t moved the numbers of people who feel comfortable to report the harm they’d experienced to NZ Police or other official reporting pathways.

Less than 10 percent ever report. That hadn’t moved in more than a decade.

There are good reasons why people decide not the report, we soon found out. The main barriers people face include:

Fear of not being believed

Isolation and feeling alone

Shame and self-blame

And a reluctance to step into the justice system on their own.

All of these reasons are totally understandable. In fact, when you think about all the stories of how victim-survivors can be retraumatised by pursuing justice in the current system, it becomes a completely rational decision. But if you ask survivors what did or would lead them to report (and I have asked hundreds) they all tend to say the same thing.

“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

After all they’ve been through, survivors have a strong drive to protect other people, even if they have not been able to reach for justice themselves. We needed something that made it safer and less traumatizing to report the harm that has happened to you (no matter when it happened in your life) and give you community and support - an opportunity to stand alongside other survivors when you do decide to take action.

The outcome of that is Tika’s collection action model - a truly independent new way to act and stand with others.

What is it and how does it work?

First things first! Tika is an enterprise-grade platform with security and privacy built in at every level. We understand this is crucial for survivors who are inputting sensitive information.

When you register with Tika, you get lawyer-client privilege at the very first step, which means everything you tell us after that is completely private and protected. We also ask you to verify your identity, which not only allows you to enter that legally privileged relationship, but prevents “bad actors” including perpetrators from phishing the system and trying to find out whether their name has been reported. It keeps the system and our community safe.

We ask you for a small amount of information about you, about the harm that happened to you, and about the perpetrator. More than 90% of people in Aotearoa know the name of the person who harmed them. We’ve designed the reporting part to be trauma informed and survivor focused and we let you take all the time you need (you can save your report as a draft and come back to it anytime.)

Once you submit, the platform begins to look for others who have reported the same person. If a group of three or more is detected, a Tika lawyer will review the information and offer each individual free legal advice on their options. The group them decides together on the justice pathway that suits them best (we don’t just help you with the criminal justice pathway! We also offer things like help with restorative justice, civil cases, or reporting to regulatory bodies like the Teaching Council etc.)

But Tika is not only about supporting survivor groups. It’s also about stopping the chains of harm created by serial perpetrators. We know that many perpetrators harm multiple people and until now there has been no way to “join the dots”. We’re aiming to help stop those repeat perpetrators and hold them accountable - therefore creating a safer Aotearoa.

One last thing in case you were wondering - Tika is free. Free to register, and free legal advice if you match with others in a group. We can only do this with the support of our wonderful community - so if you get a chance and you have the means, we’d love it if you’d consider donating to help ALL survivors access our service. You can donate at Givealittle.

To learn more about Tika or to access the service, visit www.tika.org.nz

*Tika was named in consultation with Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Māori, the Māori Language Commission, which confirmed that in this context, Tika means justice, or putting things right.