Dr. Oliver Sutherland discovers disturbing cases of abused children in state care, including imprisonment and torture of children as young as nine. Fighting a racist system, the insect scientist stands up to expose abuse in the notorious Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital, but will justice ever be served? Made with funding from NZ on Air.
This week the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care released a damning report outlining how generations of children suffered extreme abuse. Daisy Hudson takes a look at how we got to this point, and what comes next.
They were our most vulnerable.
Children, many from marginalised or disadvantagedbackgrounds, disproportionately Maori and Pasifika, taken into what can now only ironically be called "care".
As wards of the State, or under the care of faith-based institutions, potentially hundreds of thousands of young New Zealanders were horrifically abused for decades in ways too awful to describe in print.
The sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse has impacted generations of Kiwis, and caused untold harm for survivors and their whanau.
The South was one of the epicentres of that harm, with systemic abuse reported at boys' homes, schools and psychiatric facilities around the region.
Judge Coral Shaw is the chairwoman of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. Photo / Otago Daily Times
Survivors' trauma was compounded by a system that protected abusers, was sceptical of survivors, and did little to prevent further abuse from occurring.
After years of hard work and advocacy from survivors, in 2018 the Government announced a royal commission of inquiry.
But the full scope, scale, and systemic nature of the abuse was not widely appreciated.
In 2017, the United Nations recommended that New Zealand hold an independent inquiry into the systemic abuse of children and disabled adults. A petition calling for the same garnered almost 12,000 signatures.
Former Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand was initially appointed to chair the royal commission but later left for another role, and was replaced by retired Judge Coral Shaw.
