After years of advocacy, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022 (CPPLA) came into force in New Zealand in 2022.  The CPPLA created new criminal offences relating to conversion practices. It also amended the Human Rights Act 1993 to make conversion practices unlawful in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This report contributes to better understanding of the harm caused by conversion practices in Aotearoa and provides a robust human rights perspective rooted in local circumstances, in particular by drawing together insights relating to marginalised communities who face conversion practices.

The purpose of this report is to capture the extensive collective learning and reflection gathered in implementing the civil response of the CPPLA, to make recommendations to support survivors of conversion practices and to prevent these practices from occurring. 

Recommendations for Government 

• Strengthen the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022 (CPPLA) and provide ongoing funding to support its intent.
• Ensure medical healthcare and mental health and wellbeing support for conversion practices survivors are accessible, safe, and culturally competent.
• Explore categorising conversion practices as a form of family violence in cases where families are involved in these practices.
• Adopt an evidence-based approach to addressing the ideologies that inform conversion practices.

Recommendations for all communities 

• Affirm the rights of Rainbow people in your communities and promote whānau and community spaces that are inclusive of Rainbow people. Decolonise perspectives on sexuality and gender.

Recommendations for religious/faith communities

• Affirm the rights of Rainbow people and work with survivors to develop actions plans to eliminate conversion practices, including by exploring affirming teachings.
• Engage with resources about conversion practices that have been tailored to religious communities.
• Conduct research at the highest levels of your faith/spiritual group on gender and sexuality-based spiritual abuse and the harm caused by conversion practices.

Recommendations to support Māori as Tangata Whenua 

• Engage with mātauranga Māori, tikanga, and research on pre-colonial understandings of sexuality and gender and create opportunities to discuss, reflect, and, where relevant, remedy the impacts of colonisation upon Māori Rainbow communities. 
• Support Māori cultural revitalisation that embraces pre-colonial expressions of sexuality and gender, including in cultural practices, language, arts, and storytelling.

Recommendations to support Pacific and ethnic communities 

• Engage with customary knowledge and research on pre-colonial understandings of sexuality and gender and create opportunities to discuss, reflect, and, where relevant, remedy the impacts of colonisation upon Rainbow communities.
• Support cultural revitalisation that embraces pre-colonial expressions of sexuality and gender, including in cultural practices, language, arts, and storytelling.