"National Disgrace": New Zealand Report Finds 200,000 Victims Of Abuse From State Care Institutions (image@NZParliament)

New Zealand has described a report on the treatment of people in a state and faith-based care institutions as a “national disgrace”. The remark came after the landmark report revealed about a 200,000 children and adults suffered at the hands of those in charge of the institution.

The New Zealand’s royal commission into the abuse is by far the largest and most complex royal commission the country has held. The independent investigation was started in 2018 as a move to reveal the extent of the ongoing impact of abuses within the institutions designed to protect children.

The investigation primarily covered the period from 1950 to 1999, but those who had suffered abuse after 1999 also gave testimony. The final report, which was weighing 14 kg, was made public on Wednesday. The revelation marked the culmination of over 100 days of public hearings, nearly 3,000 testimonies gathered and more than one million documents received in evidence.

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The survivors gathered in the Parliament’s public gallery to witness the report being tabled. As per the inquiry, out of the 655,000 people who went through care institutions since the 1950s, roughly 200,000 were abused. It also said that the number of survivors could be much higher.

It found that sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and neglect were widespread and systematic, leading to the significant trauma to the victims. The abusers include caregivers, religious leaders, social workers, and medical professionals.

The inquiry revealed that children at Lake Alice Psychiatric hospital during the 1970s were subjected to torture through electric shocks and painful injections as punishment. It presented testimonies of survivors, looked at the impact of abuse and neglect on individuals and their families, as well as communities and society.

“The care system in Aotearoa New Zealand was a fully funded failure that enabled pervasive abuse and neglect. Almost every survivor who came forward to share their experience with the inquiry has endured irreparable damage to the quality of their lives”, read the report.

Some institutions had performed extreme abuse. There was evidence of young people threatened with death through mock executions, experiencing severe corporal punishment inflicted with weapons to the genitals, and being routinely held in solitary confinement. The investigation also found about the overuse of institutional care for deaf, disabled and mentally challenged people.

The report said several survivors experienced homelessness, poverty, addiction, and other devastating effects on health and mental health. They face reduced opportunities for education and work.

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The Maori survivors faced disconnection from their culture and identity, and some of the survivors were put on the pathway of gang membership, imprisonment and suicide.

The estimated economic cost of the abuse and neglect by the inquiry is about $200 billion.

Coral Shaw, the judge who chaired the inquiry, described the scale of the abuse as a “national disgrace and shame”, and urged the government to heed to the report in order to ensure it never happens again.

The inquiry made 95 redress recommendations and 138 other recommendations. The recommendations include calling for a formal apology from the Prime Minister, formal apologies from the pope and other head of churches, renaming streets and amenities named after a proven perpetrator, reopening criminal investigations into possible offending.

The inquiry recommended a new agency, the Care Safe Agency, be established to prevent and respond to abuse and neglect in care, supported by a new law to give effect to the agency and the inquiry’s recommendations. It also made detailed recommendations over how the state and faith-based care entities should ensure safety within their institutions, and called for a better investment in mental health and disability care.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the report marked a “dark and sorrowful day” in the country’s history. “As a society and as a state, we should have done better, and I am determined to do so,” he said.

Thanking the survivors for their courageous testimonies, Luxon said, “I cannot take away your pain but I can tell you this: today you are heard and you are believed”. The state failed survivors in the “worst possible way” by subjecting those in its care to “unimaginable physical, emotional, mental and sexual abuse”, he added.