Dark side to boyhood in paradise

By Andrew Stone

WELLINGTON - As a child, Tino Pereira grew up in an island paradise. He watched the Samoan sky turn orange as the sun sank into the sea, and fished in a lagoon with a bamboo rod.

He sang in the choir, respected the matai (local chief) and, with his brothers and sisters, dug an umu early on Sunday mornings for a feast after church.

But there was a dark side to his upbringing, "a heavy dose of what is known in my community as discipline."

At a family violence conference yesterday, Mr Pereira, a partner in a consulting firm, laid bare his family history before over 600 delegates, saying he wanted Pacific Islanders to know culture was no excuse for abuse.

"I was whacked as a child and beaten as a teenager. There were days nursing broken bones, and fear became the basis of the parental relationship.

"My brothers and sisters fared no better, and my mother was helpless to intervene or lessen our burden of suffering because she too was a victim.

"We were cocooned in a tabernacle of violence legitimised by a sense of parental arrogance that it was in the long-term interest of the children to be beaten to make them tough in future life."

Mr Pereira said the "chamber of unrelenting violence" was not uncommon in his homeland and among Island families here.

Despite what many Island leaders - and especially church ministers - maintained, the practice was abuse, not culture.

"What is the point of saying you love your kids and then beating the crap out of them?"

A former Radio New Zealand journalist, the 45-year-old father of three - who carries the title Fa'amatuaini, or chiefly orator - said he was challenging child-rearing practices because his people had suffered enough.

In Auckland, 22 per cent of abuse notifications involved Pacific children, while nationally 9 per cent of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Agency clients were Islanders.

Mr Pereira said his father was dead, but he would have spoken out regardless because the time for excuses was over.

He expected his disclosure of family history would cause trouble with church leaders, but he could not expect respect unless he told the truth.

He recalled that 10 years ago the Samoan Stop Abuse Project in Wellington showed what could be achieved by drawing a line between abuse and parenting.