In the mid-20th century, if parents had a child who was deaf, disabled or mentally disturbed, and lacked other support, they were often advised to place them in institutional care. Children in homes where they were neglected and abused would be removed by a welfare officer and placed with foster parents or in a state or church “home”.
Delinquent youths and pregnant girls were also dispatched to institutions.
As we have heard from many “survivors” of this system in recent decades, these places were often anything but homes. At the hands of staff with little understanding of their needs, and even less sympathy, life could be hell. And, for a shocking number, it really was.
Last week an almost 3,000-page report, Whanaketia, from the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was tabled in Parliament, where it was received with universal expressions of shame and contrition from the assembled politicians.
The fruit of six years’ work, the report brings together six decades of evidence from a wide range of care institutions in a conscience-searing catalogue of misery inflicted on helpless children, young people and adults.
The commission, which claims to have had the widest mandate of any similar inquiry overseas, found that of about 655,000 children, young people and adults in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019, around 200,000 individuals were abused, and even more neglected.
Beatings, isolation and sexual abuse were common. A psychiatric institution used shock treatment as punishment on young people, a practice that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon acknowledged as “torture”. Institutions for boys “too difficult” to stay in the community were “cauldrons of violence” and a “pipeline to prison”.
A Catholic facility for boys with mental disabilities or behavioural problems harboured sexual predators, and even put one of them in charge of community centre for street kids. The matron of an Anglican home underfed her pregnant charges so their babies would be small and births simpler.
The system was particularly hard on Maori children (“racist”), and those with disabilities, who suffered from segregation and social exclusion (“ableist”). The state was negligent, professionals arrogant, church officials defensive. “Thousands of unmarked graves” testify to a fundamental lack of respect for the person.
“This State-led model of care cannot be described as anything less than a dismal failure,” says the Royal Commission.
Proposed compensation to survivors – and their children – will cost billions – though not as many as the estimated NZ$200 billion that six decades of abuse and neglect has cost us already, according to the Commission.
What have we learned from all this?
One thing is abundantly clear: the state does not make a good parent. Neither does any other institution, including religious organisations.
A child belongs with its own loving mother and father. Every policy and every effort should be directed to keeping children with their own parents, and supporting parents by education and other means to love and raise their children well.
As we have heard from many “survivors” of this system in recent decades, these places were often anything but homes. At the hands of staff with little understanding of their needs, and even less sympathy, life could be hell. And, for a shocking number, it really was.
Last week an almost 3,000-page report, Whanaketia, from the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was tabled in Parliament, where it was received with universal expressions of shame and contrition from the assembled politicians.
The fruit of six years’ work, the report brings together six decades of evidence from a wide range of care institutions in a conscience-searing catalogue of misery inflicted on helpless children, young people and adults.
The commission, which claims to have had the widest mandate of any similar inquiry overseas, found that of about 655,000 children, young people and adults in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019, around 200,000 individuals were abused, and even more neglected.
Beatings, isolation and sexual abuse were common. A psychiatric institution used shock treatment as punishment on young people, a practice that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon acknowledged as “torture”. Institutions for boys “too difficult” to stay in the community were “cauldrons of violence” and a “pipeline to prison”.
A Catholic facility for boys with mental disabilities or behavioural problems harboured sexual predators, and even put one of them in charge of community centre for street kids. The matron of an Anglican home underfed her pregnant charges so their babies would be small and births simpler.
The system was particularly hard on Maori children (“racist”), and those with disabilities, who suffered from segregation and social exclusion (“ableist”). The state was negligent, professionals arrogant, church officials defensive. “Thousands of unmarked graves” testify to a fundamental lack of respect for the person.
“This State-led model of care cannot be described as anything less than a dismal failure,” says the Royal Commission.
Proposed compensation to survivors – and their children – will cost billions – though not as many as the estimated NZ$200 billion that six decades of abuse and neglect has cost us already, according to the Commission.
What have we learned from all this?
One thing is abundantly clear: the state does not make a good parent. Neither does any other institution, including religious organisations.
A child belongs with its own loving mother and father. Every policy and every effort should be directed to keeping children with their own parents, and supporting parents by education and other means to love and raise their children well.
This is, in fact, the current policy of Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, which provides support for struggling families through social workers and approved community agencies and services. For Maori, who appear to be the bulk of clients, this usually involves the extended family – the whanau, a flexible term which extends beyond near relations to the sub-tribe (hapu) and tribe (iwi).
However, this system is not working well; it is constantly under fire for bungling cases which too often end fatally for a child. Stories of babies or toddlers shaken or beaten to death appear regularly in the newspapers.
Carolyn Moynihan is the former deputy editor of Mercator. This article was first published HERE
However, this system is not working well; it is constantly under fire for bungling cases which too often end fatally for a child. Stories of babies or toddlers shaken or beaten to death appear regularly in the newspapers.
Carolyn Moynihan is the former deputy editor of Mercator. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
What a load of bollocks !
200,000 figure has been debunked !
The state has become an even worse parent 'in loco parentis in our schools. Whereas parents over many decades have protested strongly about the lack of focus on the three Rs in schools they have been ignored by an ideologically driven education system that persists with their own agenda of social engineering promoting socialism.
This has got even worse this century with schools now pushing the sexualization of small children and DEI Marxist ideas that parents have never asked for.A survey showed ninety percent of parents do not want the transgender agenda.
To Progressive Education parents are viewed as the enemy to its constant novel unproven programmes. Meanwhile academic standards just get worse. Parents don't want their children treated as lab.rats. Underachieving children suffer in school and for their entire lives..
I write this to counter thinking that child abuse only occurred in the bad old days and things are improving. LOL as they say on blogs.
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