Inquiry finds 200,000 people were abused in NZ over decades in ‘national disgrace’ – MASHAHER

The figures were likely higher. Complaints were disregarded, and records were lost or destroyed.

“These gross violations occurred at the same time as Aotearoa New Zealand was promoting itself, internationally and domestically, as a bastion of human rights and as a safe, fair country in which to grow up as a child in a loving family,” the inquiry heads wrote, using the country’s Maori and English names.

“If this injustice is not addressed, it will remain as a stain on our national character forever,” they wrote.

Hundreds of survivors and their supporters filled the public gallery in parliament, where MPs responded to the findings. In an emotional scene, they stood and sang a Maori song.

The report lambasted some senior figures in government and faith institutions, who it said continued to cover up and excuse abuse in public hearings. Many of the worst episodes had long been common knowledge, it said, and officials at the time of the abuse were “either oblivious or indifferent” about protecting children, instead shoring up the reputations of their institutions and abusers.

The inquiry made 138 recommendations across New Zealand’s law, society and government. It adds to interim recommendations in 2021 that urged swift redress for those abused, some of whom were sick or dying. Few have been enacted.

The government pledged to supply answers by the end of the year about plans for redress.

The new recommendations include seeking apologies from state and church leaders, including Pope Francis. The inquiry also endorsed creating offices to prosecute abusers and enact redress, renaming streets and monuments dedicated to abusers, reforming civil and criminal law, rewriting the child welfare system and searching for unmarked graves at psychiatric facilities.

Among investigations worldwide, New Zealand’s inquiry was the widest-ranging ever undertaken, according to those leading it. It examined abuse in state institutions, foster care, faith-based care and medical and educational settings, interviewing nearly 2500 survivors of abuse.

Indigenous children targeted

Children were removed arbitrarily and unfairly from their families, the report said, and the majority of New Zealand’s criminal gang members and prisoners are believed to have spent time in care.

As in Australia, Indigenous children were targeted for placement in harsher facilities. The majority of children in care were Maori, despite the group making up less than 20 per cent of New Zealand’s population during the period examined.

The report singled out churches, particularly the Catholic Church. As many as 42 per cent of those in faith-based care by all denominations were abused, according to a report produced for the inquiry. The Catholic Church said in a 2020 briefing to the commission that accusations had been made against 14 per cent of its New Zealand clergy during the time covered by the inquiry.

One recommendation urged an investigation into priests from one Catholic order who had been sent to Papua New Guinea to evade accusations of abuse in Australia and New Zealand.

Senior Catholic figures in New Zealand said in a written statement they had received the report and “will now read and review it carefully.”

The average cost of abuse in a survivor’s lifetime is $NZ857,000 ($774,275), the inquiry found. Health care and other government-funded measures account for less than a quarter of that, while the remainder quantifies the survivor’s suffering and lost opportunities.

Those abused have had little recourse under New Zealand law to sue or seek compensation. Some accepted small out-of-court settlements. As recently as 2015, the government rejected the need for such an inquiry, and government agencies argued that abuse had not been endemic.

Tu Chapman, a survivor and advocate, said that immediate action on redress was needed to prove that the government takes the findings seriously: “Further delay is just impacting survivors even more who have waited 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years.”

Maori Party co-leader and opposition MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said she did not accept that the government needed time to digest the report. “What the hell has changed for us?” Ngarewa-Packer asked parliament, referring to what the inquiry said was continuing abuse of people in care.