Hope after abuse: A little girl’s new life after family disowns her

An 11-year-old (not the person pictured) has "experienced more than anyone should in a lifetime" after she was sexually abused by her stepdad – and her family sided with him.

When a girl revealed she was being sexually abused by her mother’s partner, she was essentially disowned by adults who claimed she was lying. Her aunty took her in and has stood by her side as her stepfather was imprisoned last year for 11 years. The girl’s story was so moving that an NZME reader donated $1000 to help support her. The girl’s aunty shares the girl’s progress with Hannah Bartlett.

When Aroha* recalls her young niece confiding in her that she’d been sexually abused, she fights back tears.

“Even though it was years ago, I still get emotional thinking about it,” she said in an interview about what life has been since she took in her niece, who was essentially disowned after revealing she’d been abused by her stepfather.

Aroha recalls getting a call that family members her niece was living with were “fricking going to beat [the girl] up”.

Utterly confused, she told a relative to drop the young girl to her.

Later that day she asked the primary-aged girl what had happened and that’s when she revealed her stepdad, who she called “uncle”, was abusing her.

“She initially described it real [sic] casual, you know, ‘Oh, nan had me in the wardrobe because mum and uncle were gonna beat me up’. And I was like: ‘Beat you up for what?’ ... ‘Oh, because uncle was doing stuff’.”

The “stuff”, which a jury found the man guilty of, included showing the girl pornography, and six charges of sexual violation.

At sentencing, the girl’s victim impact statement was read by Crown solicitor Anna Pollett.

It revealed the abuse, which started when the girl was about 7, had destroyed the whole family.

“I just don’t have a mum. She doesn’t believe me, she believes him. Now instead of love, there is hatred towards me,” she said in her statement.

The girl initially went to live with another family member, but for the past few months has been with Aroha after an abrupt change in circumstances.

The money donated by the NZME reader, moved after hearing about the 11-year-old’s ordeal, came at just the right time.

“Initially it helped us kind of set her up to be here, with school uniform because now she’s attending regularly,” Aroha said.

“She came with two bags of clothes, so she needed new clothes and stuff like that.”

The girl was adjusting well to the new living situation, but it was a big change for everyone.

The girl previously hadn’t had any real boundaries, rules, or routine, so Aroha was taking each day as an opportunity to establish normality.

She was going to try to encourage her niece to get some counselling, because she was aware she was good at making it seem like “there were no major issues”.

However, she also knew her niece was still “mad” about everything that had happened.

The court process had been challenging for a number of reasons, not least because the girl’s mother had testified in defence of the girl’s stepdad, rather than supporting her own daughter.

“She’s still sad about it. And I [said] ‘you’re more than entitled to feel that’,” Aroha said.

The girl's allegations were the subject of a jury trial in Tauranga, in which the man was found guilty of sexually violating the girl. He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. Photo / NZME

Disclosure, followed by ‘interrogation’

Aroha said the girl initially confided in a child living in the same house as her.

That child had told the stepdad’s mum, and Aroha’s niece was confronted by adults in the family.

“[They] full-on interrogated this poor 7-year-old girl,” Aroha recalls.

Aroha said she didn’t “muck around” when it came to getting in touch with a social worker, because “she wouldn’t say those kinds of things for nothing, you know, there’s no way that she could have made up that stuff”.

The girl did a recorded interview with a specialist child interviewer, and this formed the evidence played to the jury in court.

Despite the trauma of the trial, and her mother’s evidence in defence of the girl’s stepdad, Aroha has suggested the girl meet up with her mum again.

“I think eventually she will get to a point where maybe she wants to do that.

“I said maybe that’s something we could talk to your lawyer about, or our lawyer about ... arranging at least visits or something.”

For the moment, the girl was still “too mad” to want that, but did want to see her younger siblings, who she is estranged from.

“They were always really close ... she was essentially like another parent to those kids.

“We used to try and remind her, ‘It’s not your responsibility, love’, but I think as an older sister, you sometimes just can’t help it.”

The difficulty was the girl’s immediate whānau still did not believe her.

“In their mind, we’ve conjured up this whole entire story.

“They think we planted the seed and encouraged her to make up all these lies so that she could come and live with us,” Aroha said.

Routines, rhythms, and ‘singing the house down’

There is still a long road ahead for her niece, who has lived in a number of different homes and situations throughout her childhood.

“She’s had it pretty rough. She’s only 11, you know? And she’s experienced more than anyone should in a lifetime already.”

Despite this, Aroha said her niece was settling into new rhythms and routines.

“Just trying to establish some healthy boundaries for her has been an adjustment for all of us because she’s not used to it,” she said.

“I think she feels like that because now he’s been sentenced and that stuff is all finalised ... she almost feels a sense of relief.”

The girl is enjoying school, making new friends, and showing signs she is comfortable in her new surroundings.

“She missed five months of school just in this one year ... at the moment I’m just trying to get her into a really good routine, trying to remind her that she’s loved and she’s cared about and supported.”

The girl was also showing signs of being “safe and comfortable” to express herself in her new home.

“She sings the freaking house down. She has headphones in so loud that I don’t think she realises how loud she’s been, but I love it.”

She was also “fiercely independent” and keen on cooking.

“She asked one night if she could make butter chicken and I was like, ‘yeah, absolutely’... I was so embarrassed to admit that it was way better than mine.”

Aroha was open to whatever the future might hold, and while her niece’s mum and stepdad’s family were “still so bitter”, Aroha was hopeful there might be reconciliation in the future.

For now, everyone was taking it “one day at a time”.

An ‘up, down and around’ path forward

Tautoko Mai sexual harm support CEO Julie Sach says when it comes to recovering after sexual abuse, the path forward is not necessarily a straight line, but there is a way forward.

Tautoko Mai sexual harm support CEO Julie Sach.

She said children who had been sexually abused wouldn’t necessarily “act traumatised all the time”, and would often embrace the usual childhood experiences.

“There are moments where they are just children,” she said.

“The other misconception is that healing is a straightforward journey rather than an up, down, around [journey].”

She said at different stages, the abuse might be revisited, as a child gained new understanding or new questions arose, particularly in adolescence.

“One of the things about the New Zealand system is that we have ACC, so people who have a sensitive claim have that cover for life and can access help.”

Sach said one of the main supports for children, and victims in general, was accessing specialist counselling and therapy.

However, the first thing to bear in mind was the response from loved ones.

“The first step is for the family to come to terms with believing the child because one of the biggest things is there are some misconceptions about children lying.”

She said in her experience, and based on research Tautoko Mai had access to, instances of children “making things up about abuse” were rare.

“You have to ask if children are disclosing, where did they get that knowledge from?,” she said.

It could be exposure to pornography, or having witnessed adults behaving sexually in front of them.

But Sach said there were interventions by Oranga Tamariki, and the police, to understand the disclosure and decide whether to take the matter to court.

The justice system had its flaws, in Sach’s view, particularly in that children were required to give evidence and be cross-examined in an adult framework.

“It’s like landing on a foreign planet to go to court for a child, I think.”

Sach felt there needed to be some serious thought given to the way trials involving child complainants in sexual violence cases operated.

In the meantime, Tautoko Mai was there to support the families who found themselves navigating the justice system, both practically in court, and with a view to the future.

“It is our job to support the family to support the child, because they are the best people to support their children long term.”

She said there were many complex reasons why a family might not believe a child and it was not as simple as saying “they’re in denial”.

“There are so many reasons why people find it difficult to get their heads around what’s happened, and I certainly don’t want to blame parents for doing that, because in a way, it’s a protective kind of thing to do.”

There could be “massive shame and guilt and stigma” for caregivers who may have felt they failed to protect their child.

“But what we would say is it’s really important to believe [the child], to support them, to awhi them, to wrap around them, to love them, support them,” she said.

“What we know is that when that happens, they have a much better chance of recovery than if they’re told ‘shut up’, ‘be quiet’ and ‘don’t talk about it’.”

“There can be lifelong impacts, but there’s also the ability to recover,” she said.

“I think there’s a myth there that if you’ve been abused, you’ll go on to be an abuser or to be a victim of abuse. As if it’s a fait accompli... what I know is that is not true.

“Many people who have experienced childhood sexual abuse go on to live amazing lives that are not defined by what happened to them.”

*Name has been changed to protect the girl’s identity which is suppressed.