On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, New Zealand offered a historic national apology to victims and families of hundreds of thousands of young people and vulnerable adults who had been subjected to physical and sexual abuse in institutions in the past 70 years.
This apology is coming on the heels of a report by a public inquiry in July that revealed how at least 200,000 children and vulnerable adults in state and faith-based care had experienced some form of abuse from 1950 to 2019.
“Today I am apologising on behalf of the government to everyone who suffered abuse, harm and neglect while in care. I make this apology to all survivors on behalf of my own and previous governments.” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had remarked.
Luxon further disclosed that the government had completed or started work on 28 recommendations from the inquiry, and will provide its full response early 2025.
A National Remembrance Day would take place on Nov 12, 2025 and work will begin to remove memorials like street names, public amenities, and other public honours of ascertained perpetrators, Luxon had promised, adding that the country would instead, honour the victims, several of whom were buried in unmarked graves at psychiatric wards and other sites that were designated places of care in New Zealand.
A bill to include several measures to improve safety in state care will have its first reading in parliament on Tuesday.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry was the longest and the most complex prove undertaken by the New Zealand government. The inquiry had spoken to over 2,300 survivors of abuse in the country of 5.3 million and it detailed a litany of abuses in state and faith-based care, including rape, sterilisation and use of electric shocks, which peaked in the 1970s.
It was found that individuals from the Indigenous Maori community and those with mental or physical disabilities were mostly vulnerable to abuse.
The final report thereafter outlined 138 recommendations, including calls for public apologies from New Zealand’s government, as well as the Pope’s and the Archbishop of Canterbury — both of whom were heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches respectively– who have condemned child abuse.
A new legislation including mandatory reporting of alleged abuse, including admissions made during religious confession was also suggested.
