New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has 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. Source: SBS News.
“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” Mr 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,” Mr Luxon said.
“Words do matter and I say these words with sincerity: I have read your stories, and I believe you.”
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.
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.
FULL STORY
An NZ inquiry has damned the abuse of thousands of people in care, who were disproportionately Māori (By Bronte Charles, AAP via SBS News)
RELATED COVERAGE
‘You deserved so much better’ – Christopher Luxon apologises to survivors of abuse in care (RNZ)
