Several female lawmakers were thrown out of the New Zealand parliament on Wednesday after disclosing that they had been victims of sexual assaults.
Katie Bradford, a political reporter for New Zealand's ONE News, tweeted photos of the parliamentarians after they were told to leave the hall for refusing to stop.
Other lawmakers walked out in support.
MPs who have walked of the house or been kicked out pic.twitter.com/1kjQJZQ29O— Katie Bradford (@katieabradford) November 11, 2015
Some of the MPs who said they were victims of sexual assault say they've never said it publicly before pic.twitter.com/0oM5GJGi5p— Katie Bradford (@katieabradford) November 11, 2015
Some of the politicians forced out wrote on Twitter about the experience.
It took tremendous courageous to disclose our deepest hurts in the house today, The PM must apologise #nzqt— Poto Williams (@PotoChchEast) November 11, 2015
I got kicked out of the House. So I am thankful that @metiria stayed to speak on mine and many others behalf #StopTheViolence— Marama Davidson (@MaramaDavidson) November 11, 2015
The women's protest comes after Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday accused opposition lawmakers of "backing the rapists" in a fight over the Australian government's detention of New Zealanders, according to The Guardian.
Opposition lawmakers had said they were concerned about the detention of New Zealand citizens awaiting deportation after Australia cancelled visas for those convicted of certain crimes.
"Some of the [detainees] are rapists, some of them are child molesters, and some of them are murders," Key reportedly said.
David Carter, the parliament's speaker, said Key's statement on Tuesday had gone too far. But he said had not heard it.
"Had I heard the remark... I would have ruled it to be unparliamentary and required the prime minister to withdraw and apologize for it," Carter said, according to Stuff.co.nz news site.
While there has been no apology from Key, some Twitter users applauded the women for taking the stance.
Wow! NZ Parliament - brave stance taken from many female MP's right now. #wahinetoa #manawahine— Julian Wilcox (@julianwilcox) November 11, 2015
One of the women, MP Marama Davidson, told The Guardian that the group "walked out because every woman in this country needs to know that women parliamentarians will not put up with this."
She added, “We will not stand by and allow this to be bandied around parliament -– this kind of abuse of people and way of approaching rape is simply unacceptable, and the prime minister has to be held to account."