An interim report by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse of Children in State Welfare estimated that between 1950 and 2019 up to 256,000 people were abused. This accounts for almost 40% of the 655,000 people in care during that period.
“The pain and suffering that has been caused in New Zealand’s history is inexcusable,” said Public Service Secretary Chris Hipkins, who described the report as “difficult to read.”
“All children under the care of the state should be protected from harm, but as the testimony all too often points out, the opposite was true.”
According to the report, most of the abuse survivors were between the ages of 5 and 17, but some were only 9 months old and 20 years old. Most were abused for a period of five to ten years.
The abuse included physical and sexual abuse, with staff in some psychiatric facilities forcing male patients to rape female patients. It also included the improper use of medical procedures, including electric shocks to genitals and legs, improper comic and vaginal exams, and verbal abuse and racist insults.
“Sometimes I would get shock treatment twice a day,” said Anne, who was placed in a psychiatric facility at the age of 17 in 1979.
“According to the data, I went blind, then they gave me another shock treatment that night,” she told the study.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced to the Royal Commission in 2018 that the country was facing “a dark chapter” in its history, and later expanded it to include churches and other faith-based institutions.
The report said the chances of children and young people being abused in faith-based or religious homes ranges from 21% to 42%.
It found the number of people going through health care facilities was six times higher than previously estimated.
“At any assessment, this is a serious and long-standing social problem that must be addressed,” the report said, adding that there was evidence that the abuse continues today.
The report comes after private and public court hearings where survivors bravely told harrowing accounts of physical and sexual abuse.
A Maori survivor, Peter, told the investigation that he drove a car off a cliff in a suicide attempt to escape the abuse.
“I didn’t want to live anymore. I went over a cliff and bumped head-on into a couch. Again, if someone just stopped and looked why, they would have come up with something, but they didn’t,” he said.
The Catholic Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, said it would study the report to learn how to deal with complaints and prevent abuse.
The report acknowledged that indigenous Maori children are likely to suffer the most, as 81% of children abused in care are Māori, while 69% of children in care are Māori.
It said some faith-based institutions were trying to “purify” the cultural identities of Maori people in health care through sexual and physical abuse.
Thousands of Maori people protested in New Zealand last year, calling for an end to the practice of removing at-risk children from families and placing them under state care.
Critics of the practice have said the process is racially skewed against Maori and a legacy of colonization.
Neighboring Australia issued a national apology in 2017 after a five-year investigation into child sexual abuse uncovered thousands of cases of sexual misconduct, largely committed in religious and state-run institutions.