Wellington: In a major revelation, a public inquiry in New Zealand found some 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in state and religious care over the last 70 years, which authorities failed to prevent, stop or even admit when they were aware of it. This followed a six-year investigation after two decades of similar probes, and the findings were called "unimaginable".
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon apologised and promised reforms on Wednesday after the findings were released, which said nearly one in three children and vulnerable adults in care from 1950 to 2019 experienced some form of abuse. The government agreed, for the first time, that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture.
"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 press conference while an official apology is scheduled for November 12. Survivors and their supporters filled the public gallery of the country's parliament as the report was debated, while still more watched from a separate room.
Rape, sterilisation and electric shocks
The report by a Royal Commission of Inquiry spoke to more than 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. 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," it 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. The Catholic Church in New Zealand said it was carefully reviewing the report.
The Anglican Church in New Zealand said in a statement: "We acknowledge and take full responsibility for our failures to provide the safe, caring and nurturing environment those who have been in our care had a right to expect and to receive."
Government expected to pay compensation
The findings of the report could leave the government facing billions of dollars in fresh compensation claims. The report said the average lifetime cost to an abuse survivor was estimated in 2020 to be approximately NZ$857,000 ($511,200.50) per person, though it 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 a review of compensation paid in previous child abuse cases including at the Lake Alice adolescent unit. It also called for the government to set up a Care Safe Agency responsible for overseeing the industry.
(with input from agencies)
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