Approximately 200,000 children, young people, and vulnerable adults experienced abuse while in state and faith-based care in New Zealand over the past 70 years, according to a landmark investigation. This equates to nearly one in three children in care from 1950 to 2019 suffering some form of abuse, including rape, electric shocks, and forced labor, as revealed by the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry.
The release of the commission’s final report comes after a six-year investigation into the experiences of nearly 3,000 individuals. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon apologized for the findings, describing it as “a dark and sorrowful day in New Zealand’s history as a society.”
The inquiry, the largest and most expensive in New Zealand to date, cost around NZ$170m ($101m; £78m). Many of those abused came from disadvantaged or marginalized communities, including Māori and Pacific people, as well as those with disabilities.
Over 2,300 survivors spoke to the inquiry, which found that in most cases, “abuse and neglect almost always started from the first day.” One survivor, Anna Thompson, recounted to the commission how she was physically and verbally abused at a faith-based orphanage. “At night, the nuns would strip my clothes off, tie me to the bed face down, and thrash me with a belt with the buckle. It cut into my skin until I bled, and I couldn’t sit down afterwards for weeks,” she said in testimony published in the report.
Jesse Kett shared how he was beaten and raped by staff at a residential school in Auckland when he was eight years old, recounting that other staff members sometimes watched the abuse happen. Moeapulu Frances Tagaloa was abused by a priest for two years from the age of five in the 1970s. “He was a popular, well-known teacher,” she said. “But he was also a paedophile and unfortunately, there were other little girls that he abused.” Ms. Tagaloa now works to help other survivors and has called for all 138 recommendations in the report to be implemented.
The report found that Māori and Pacific survivors endured higher levels of physical abuse and were often “degraded because of their ethnicity and skin color.” It also revealed that children and people in foster care experienced the highest levels of sexual abuse among various social welfare care settings.
“It is a national disgrace that hundreds of thousands of children, young people, and adults were abused and neglected in the care of the state and faith-based institutions,” the report stated. “Many survivors died while they were in care or by suicide following care. For others, the impacts of abuse are ongoing and compounding, making everyday activities and choices challenging,” it added.
Mr. Luxon said: “We should have done better, and I am determined we will do so. To every person who took part, I say thank you for your exceptional strength, your incredible courage, and your confronting honesty. Because of you, we know the truth about the abuse and trauma you have endured,” he said, describing many of the stories as horrific and harrowing. “I cannot take away your pain, but I can tell you this: you are heard and you are believed.”
He added that it was too soon to reveal how much the government expected to pay victims in compensation. He said he would offer a formal apology on 12 November. According to the report, the economic cost of this abuse and neglect has been estimated to be anywhere from NZ$96bn to $217bn, considering negative outcomes including increased mental and physical healthcare costs, homelessness, and crime.
On Wednesday, dozens of care abuse survivors participated in a march to parliament before the inquiry was released. One survivor called the report “historic.” “For decades they told us we made it up,” Toni Jarvis told news agency. “So this today is historic and it’s an acknowledgment. It acknowledges all the survivors who have been courageous enough to share their stories.”
Academic Dr. Rawiri Waretini-Karena, who was a witness in the inquiry, had earlier spoken about the “pipeline from state care to prison.” “When I walked into the prison yard for the first time as a teenager, having never been there before – I already knew 80% of the men in there. We’d spent the last 11 years growing up together in state care,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Radio New Zealand. “That’s when I knew there was a pipeline to prison; a pipeline that has spent decades sweeping up and funneling Māori children from state care to prison.” Dr. Waretini-Karena added that the Royal Commission’s report acknowledged “that whilst we are responsible for our actions, we are not responsible for the hidden mechanisms that operate within the environment we are born into, privileging one faction at the expense of the other.”
