15. The Terms of Reference directed the Inquiry to recognise and focus on the experiences of groups who have been disproportionately represented  in care and disproportionately suffered abuse and neglect in care, including disabled people.[2]

Disabled survivors who registered with the Inquiry

16. Disabled survivors made up just over a quarter (27 percent) of the 2,329 survivors who registered with the Inquiry. This does not include Deaf survivors or survivors who experienced mental distress. Part 1, Chapter 4 of the Inquiry's final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, includes information about the disabled survivors who registered with the Inquiry, including gender, age, ethnicity, where they were in care and self-identified impairments.

17. Part 1, Chapter 5 of the Inquiry's final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, describes how the Inquiry engaged with disabled survivors, their whānau and wider communities.

18. Part 1, Chapter 6 of the Inquiry's final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, sets out the framework the Inquiry used to guide its analysis and understanding of disabled survivors who suffered abuse and neglect in State and faith-based care. The framework was also used to understand the experiences of Deaf survivors and survivors who experienced mental distress.

19. Part 1, Chapter 6 of the Inquiry's final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, also describes the principles from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Enabling Good Lives, which the Inquiry considered appropriate to help frame its understanding and analysis of the abuse and neglect suffered by disabled survivors.

Context relevant to disability in Aotearoa New Zealand

20. Part 2 of the Inquiry's final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, includes more detailed contextual information:

• Chapter 2 describes traditional Māori, Pacific and settler societal attitudes to disability
• Chapter 4 explains ableism, disablism and the eugenics movement
• Chapters 5 and 6 describe the development and implementation of the State’s policy segregating disabled people in large-scale institutions in the 1950s–1970s
• Chapter 7 describes the closure of institutions in the 1970s–1990s, and the disability rights movement
• Chapter 8 discusses demographic data about disabled people during the Inquiry period
• Chapter 10 describes the State-run disability care settings during the Inquiry period, including psychopaedic institutions, sheltered workshops and special schools
• Chapter 11 describes the faith-run disability care settings during the Inquiry period.

21. Chapter 2 of the Inquiry's Kimberley Centre case study, Out of Sight, Out of Mind, sets out the history of the Kimberley Centre, a psychopaedic hospital in Taitoko Levin that operated for 61 years from 1945 to 2006

Key facts about registered disabled survivors 

Number and percent of registered disabled survivors 

• Total number: 624 
• Gender: 
  • • • • Female: 224 (36 percent) 
        • Male: 395 (63 percent) 
        • Gender diverse, non-binary, other, prefer not to say, no data: 5 (1 percent) 
• Part of Takatāpui, Rainbow and MVPFAFF+ community: 59 (9 percent) 
• Average age of disabled survivors when they entered care: 9 years old 
• Type of care: 
  • • • • State care: 506 (81 percent) 
        • Faith-based care: 211 (34 percent) 
        • State and faith-based care: 119 (19 percent) 
        • Unknown: 26 (4 percent) 
• Ethnicity: 
  • • • • Māori: 270 (43 percent) 
        • Pacific Peoples: 30 (5 percent) 
        • Pākeha / European: 442 (71 percent) 
        • Another ethnicity identity: 22 (4 percent) 
        • Prefer not to say, unknown: 13 (2 percent) 
• Needs as identified by survivor 
  • • • • Identified as having a disability before entering care: 125 (20 percent) 
        • Identified as having a learning disability: 223 (36 percent)
        • Identified as having a mobility impairment and / or physical disability: 165 (26 percent)
        • Identified as being blind or vision impaired: 65 (10 percent)
        • Identified as being neurodivergent: 303 (49 percent)
        • Identified as having a communication and / or speech impairment: 50 (8 percent)

Notes:  

• Many disabled survivors have multiple needs. This data is organised according to the impairment that the survivor primarily identified as having. 
• Survivors who experienced both State and faith-based care are counted in all three groups (State care, faith-based care, and State and faith-based care). 

Footnotes

[2]Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-Based Institutions, Terms of Reference, clause 8