hello and welcome you're watching fine print i'm molly kamper an inquiry into new zealand's faith-based and state care system has revealed some horrific details a quarter of a million children young people and vulnerable adults were physically and sexually abused in these centers more than 250 000 children young people and vulnerable adults were abused this was during the six decade period from the 1960s over the same time period around 655 000 people entered care homes out of them 256 000 suffered abuse that's 40 percent of all people who were admitted they were subjected to years of
abuse survivors later recounted instances of rape and electric shock treatment who was responsible for this abuse at this magnitude the same people who were in charge of the facilities the staff some members of the clergy and even foster parents in some cases the report clearly highlights uh that there have been some intolerable and unacceptable abuses in state care in the past that is something that all new zealanders i think will be concerned and alarmed by although it confirms what the victims have been saying for some time the government has already been taking steps to respond
to the work of the royal commission as that has been undertaken including changing the crown's litigation strategy which we have already done most abuse survivors were between 5 to 17 years of age some were as young as 9 months the details of the abuse are absolutely disturbing the staff often forced the male patients to rape the female patients improper strip searches vaginal examinations were common so was verbal abuse and racist laws this report comes after private and public redress hearings where survivors bravely narrated accounts of physical and sexual abuse the report acknowledged that the indigenous
myori children suffered the most it states that 81 percent of maori children were abused in these facilities 69 of the children in state care belonging to the miami community i think what you'll see from the fact that we establish the royal commission is that we do acknowledge that the abuse of maori by the state isn't just a historic issue actually some of these examples highlighted by the royal commission are more recent they're in our lifetimes so we do need to take those seriously we do need to acknowledge that maori have been disproportionately affected and we
do need to make sure that we are looking to the future and that will include looking at our current systems to make sure that we're not creating the environment where that abuse is perpetuated in the future
