Protestor and advocate for survivors of abuse in care refused to watch NZ government apology which was broadcast to survivors in Wellington at Shed 6. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Eleisha Foon
Survivors of abuse in faith and state-based institutions seek meaningful redress that restores their cultural identity, following the New Zealand government's formal apology.
Between 1950 and 1999, a quarter of a million children, young people, and adults were abused, the majority Māori and Pasifika survivors, including those who were deaf and disabled. They were stripped of their personhood, heritage, and culture.
Survivors of abuse want meaningful redress
Thousands of survivors and their whānau across the country watched on following decades of waiting to hear the government of New Zealand take accountability for the abuse and harm which has impacted generations of people.
Frances Tagaloa suffered sexual and emotional abuse by a Marist Brother during the 1970s and has been waiting 22 years for a meaningful apology.
Moeapulu Frances and Timo Tagaloa Photo: RNZ Pacific / Sela Jane Hopgood
Tagaloa said many survivors, who fought to be believed, waited decades for accountability, compensation, and redress, but have since died. She hopes their memory and fight will not be in vain and called on the New Zealand government and faith-based institutions to follow through with meaningful redress.
"I would love to be able to have any former which is extending forgiveness, but also the perpetrators, which would be the church and in state coming and asking for forgiveness through the ifona traditional way of reconciliation," she said.
Māori and Pasifika survivors were disproportionately affected.
The inquiry revealed they were disproportionately targeted for harsher treatment due to their ethnicity and were often forced into care systems that severed ties to their cultural heritage.
Tagaloa said healing and proper redress was about restoring survivors' severed ties to their heritage.
"It has to have a Pasifika pathway and Te Ao Māori pathway. Otherwise, it is not meaningful if [the government] are not putting it in the context of the culture."
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was the largest, longest, public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, spanning six years and collecting the evidence and experiences of more than 2400 survivors.
It delivered 138 recommendations, but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the government's response essentially boiled down to three things: acknowledgement and a formal apology, support for the survivors, and preventing the abuse from happening again.
During the formal apology, Luxon said, "It was horrific, it was heartbreaking, it was wrong and should never have happened."
In 2020, the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry released findings estimating up to a quarter of a million children, young people and adults were abused.
Over 80 percent of survivors were Māori.
In many cases, tamariki Māori were deprived of practising tikanga, mātauranga, and speaking te reo, creating long-lasting impacts on their sense of identity and belonging.
Pacific survivors experienced higher levels of physical abuse than other ethnicities. Pacific people in care were mis-recorded either as Māori or in an ambiguous 'Polynesian' category that also included Māori.
Pacific peoples in care were called "savages" and other racist slurs, and staff attempted to force them to conform to Palagi ways.
Abuse compounded the hurt arising from separation from their families and communities, which often resulted in young Pacific people losing their support networks, and their language, culture and sense of identity.
"I would love to have an ifona which is extending forgiveness. The perpetrators - the church and state asking for forgiveness through this traditional form of reconciliation," Tagaloa said.
Protestor and advocate for survivors of abuse in care refused to watch NZ government apology which was broadcast to survivors in Wellington at Shed 6. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Eleisha Foon
Jim Goodwin, a Pākehā survivor of faith-based abuse at Christ College, recognised the system failed Pacific and Māori survivors, a wrong he said must be put right.
"It was a Pākehā system, and it didn't even work for Pākehā let alone Māori and Pasifika. People were taken away from their whānau, away from their culture. So part of the recovery is reconnection with their culture and reconnection with their whānau."
Meanwhile, Martin called for greater funding to Māori and Pacific health services as a start to accompany the launch of a new redress system.
"So that we're able to heal our. Pākehā trying to heal Māori, it doesn't seem to work. And there's a good reflection of our history which shows that. I just think Māori for Māori and Pasifika for Pasifika, because we all know each other."