Content Warning: This article discusses abuse of children and adults in care.
An estimated 200,000 people in state, foster and faith-based care suffered “unimaginable” abuse over a period of seven decades, a blistering report released in July said at the end of the largest inquiry ever undertaken in New Zealand.
Children and adults in care and who suffered abuse were disproportionately Māori.
Tu Chapman was placed into state care at just 18 months old, where she endured severe neglect and abuse.
She remained there until the age of 17.
Today, Chapman is part of Pūata Ahoaho, a collective of Māori abuse survivors who have come together for mutual support.
Reflecting on her past, Chapman describes her experience as a young person struggling to survive and find her place in the world.
“I was trying to survive and trying to find where I fit in this world as a confused, unsure, unhinged rangatahi. It’s hard to comprehend what was going through my head at the time, and most of it was all trauma.
“It was all about identity for me. Where do I belong? Who do I belong to? Am I even Māori?,” Ms Chapman told the Otago Daily Times.
Now deeply connected to te ao Māori, Chapman criticizes the official apology, particularly the absence of tikanga Māori in the process.
Ms Chapman spoke on behalf of survivors in Parliament.
“Right now I feel alone and in utter despair at the way this government has undertaken the task of acknowledging all survivors.
“Once again, like our decades of fight, we are having to validate our care experiences and our existence,” Ms Chapman told AP.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made a “formal and unreserved” apology in parliament for the widespread abuse, torture and neglect of hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults in care.
“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” Luxon said on Tuesday, as he spoke to politicians and a public gallery packed with survivors of the abuse.
“For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility,” Luxon said.
“Words do matter and I say these words with sincerity: I have read your stories, and I believe you.”
Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki Chief Executive Denise Messiter. Credit: Governor-General New Zealand website
Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki Chief Executive Denise Messiter compared the apology to the Treaty settlements that Māori have had to endure with the Crown.
“We‘ve heard apology after apology through the Treaty settlements, and like our whānau have said and the whānau that were here today said – ’actions are going to speak louder than words,” she said.
The prime minister said he was apologising on behalf of previous governments.
The results were a “national disgrace,” the inquiry’s report said, after a six-year investigation believed to be the widest-ranging of comparable probes worldwide.
Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 2019 – in a country that has a population of five million – nearly a third endured physical, sexual, verbal or psychological abuse.
Many more were exploited or neglected.
In response to the findings, New Zealand’s government agreed for the first time that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture, and pledged an apology to all those abused in state, foster and religious care since 1950.
Luxon’s government was decried by some survivors and advocates earlier on Tuesday ahead of the apology for not yet having divulged plans for the financial compensation of those abused.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
13 YARN (13 92 76)
