New Zealand to apologise after enquiry finds 200,000 children abused in care
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon expressed regret on Wednesday after a public enquiry found some 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in state and religious care over the last 70 years.
Nearly one in three children and vulnerable adults in care from 1950 to 2019 experienced some form of abuse, the report found, a finding that could leave the government facing billions of dollars in fresh compensation claims.
“This is a dark and sorrowful day in New Zealand’s history as a society and as a state, we should have done better, and I am determined that we will do so,” Luxon told a news conference.
An official apology will follow on November 12, he added.
The report by Royal Commission of Inquiry spoke to over 2,300 survivors of abuse in New Zealand, which has a population of 5.3 million. The inquiry detailed a litany of abuses in state and faith-based care, including rape, sterilisation and electric shocks, which peaked in the 1970s.
Key findings and recommendations
- The report estimated 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults of the 655,000 in state and faith-based care were abused during 1950-2019 and even more were neglected.
- A wide range of abuse and physical, emotional, psychological, medical, educational, spiritual and cultural neglect occurred.
- Discrimination and racism by authorities and the public played a role in being taken into care and the treatment received in care.
- Abuse in care is estimated to have cost an individual NZ$857,000 ($510,090) over the course of their lifetime; the cost to society for abuse in care between 1950-2019 is between NZ$96 billion and NZ$217 billion.
- Between the 1950s and the 1980s a disproportionate number of Maori entered state care. And Maori and Pacific survivors endured higher levels of physical abuse than other ethnicities
- The inquiry was established in 2018 and its completion was delayed in part due to expanding its terms of reference.
- This is one of the longest running and most complex commissions of inquiry undertaken by New Zealand.
The report outlines 138 recommendations, here are some of the key recommendations:
- The Prime Minister should make a national apology for historical abuse and neglect in the care of the state.
- The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and heads of other religious organisation should make public apologies and acknowledge the abuse and neglect that happened to people in the care of their religious institutions.
- The New Zealand police should establish a specialist unit dedicated to investigating and prosecuting those responsible for historical and/or current abuse and neglect in State and faith-based care.
- Survivors of abuse and neglect in care should be fairly and meaningfully compensated.
- The establishment of a new comprehensive National Care Safety Strategy, required by law, on the prevention of and response to abuse and neglect, and an agency to oversee its implementation and regulate the sector.
- The government should introduce legislation where necessary to create a coherent mandatory reporting regime.
- The government should prioritise and accelerate current work to close care and protection residences.
Those from the Indigenous Maori community were especially vulnerable to abuse, the report found, as well as those with mental or physical disabilities.
Civil and faith leaders fought to cover up abuse by moving abusers to other locations and denying culpability, with many victims dying before seeing justice, the report added.
“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 said.
It made 138 recommendations, including calling for public apologies from New Zealand’s government, as well as the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches respectively, who have previously condemned child abuse.
It also called for the government to set up a Care Safe Agency responsible for overseeing the industry, as well new legislation including mandatory reporting of suspected abuse, including admissions made during religious confession.
The report estimated the average lifetime cost to an abuse survivor, that is what New Zealanders would consider normal, day-to-day activities, was estimated in 2020 to be approximately NZ$857,000 ($511,200.50) per person, though the report did not make clear the amount of compensation available for survivors.
Luxon said he believed the total compensation due to survivors could run into billions of dollars.
“We’re opening up the redress conversations and we’re going through that work with survivor groups,” he said.
The inquiry also recommended payments to families who have been cared for by survivors of abuse due to the intergenerational trauma they suffered, as well as review of compensation paid in previous child abuse cases including at the state-run Lake Alice adolescent unit.
“The most important element is to recognise and acknowledge the survivors for the reality and the truth of their lives,” said Tracey McIntosh, a sociologist at the University of Auckland.