New Zealand will allow domestic violence victims to take up to 10 days paid leave from work to try to escape the abuse as part of a scheme to address the nation’s “shocking” levels of family violence.

Introducing the scheme, which is the first in the developed world, Greens MP Jan Logie, a member of the ruling Labour-led coalition, said the leave would help victims to move homes or settle children into new schools. She said it would also help to protect victims from abusers, who often stalked them at work or tried to sabotage their careers.

“This is a win for victims, a win for employers, and a win for society,” she said. 

“This law is a world first and it will make a significant difference for people trying to escape domestic violence."

New Zealand has one of the world’s highest rates of domestic violence  – a phenomenon that has been blamed on a range of factors, including high levels of alcohol and drug use as well as societal attitudes towards the status of women.

Authorities say about a third of New Zealand’s women experience physical or sexual violence during their lifetimes and 76 per cent of incidents are not reported to police. 

The country was the first self-governing nation to give women the vote –a change introduced in 1893 – and its current prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, recently had a baby daughter and became the world’s first leader to take maternity leave.

Yet the nation has struggled to address horrific rates of domestic violence.

An average of 23 adults and nine children die each year from domestic violence in the country, which has a population of about 4.7 million people. The nation’s family homicide rates are more than double those in Australia, Canada and Britain. 

Commenting on the phenomenon during the recent sentencing of a 23-year-old who murdered his partner, High Court Justice Matthew Muir said the killing was a "sad indictment on New Zealand society and its shocking domestic violence record".

Ms Logie said efforts to help victims often came too late, saying “we will not solve this problem by continuing to focus … on what happens after the police have been called".

"We wait until things get really bad or someone gets killed and then we wring our hands," she said.

The scheme follows a similar move by the Philippines, which has allowed victims 10 days of paid leave since 2004. But the scheme there is rarely used or enforced. Earlier this year, Australia’s workplace tribunal ruled that employees were entitled to five days of unpaid domestic violence each year. 

New Zealand’s parliament approved the scheme, which will begin next April, by 63 votes to 57.

The conservative opposition National Party opposed the legislation, saying it could prevent employers hiring women deemed more likely to experience domestic violence.