8. Faith-based care was prevalent in Aotearoa New Zealand throughout the Inquiry period but evolved as societal needs changed. Of the eight faiths the Inquiry investigated, many provided children’s homes, unmarried mothers’ homes, adoption and foster services, schools and residential institutions, and almost all provided pastoral care.

9. Faith-based care included informal care scenarios, where a faith-based institution assumed responsibility for the care of a child, young person or adult through a pastoral care relationship, and a trust-based relationship was formed between that individual and a person with power or authority conferred by a faith-based institution.

10. Māori survivor Paora Moyle (Ngāti Porou) told the Inquiry:

“Before I tell you my story, you need to understand that we’re not what happened to us. We’re what we do with it. We’re what we become. I am the author of my own story. Survivors came to do this journey in the world to teach others about their own humanity and how to treat them accordingly. [1]

11. Some survivors entered faith-based care through whānau or family association, while others with no religious affiliation were placed by the State when the demand for care exceeded State supply.

12. Survivors from faith-based settings reported all types of abuse and neglect with many variations of co-occurrence. Sexual abuse was identified in many faithbased care settings. Survivors were subjected to grooming, inappropriate touching, inappropriate conversations about sex and masturbation, sexual assault, rape, being forced to perform sexual acts on others, and combinations of these types of abuse. Survivors also saw or heard the sexual abuse of others and, in some cases, were forced to do so.

13. Underpinning much of this abuse was also abuse of religious and spiritual teachingand authority.

14. Survivors who were abused in faith-based settings suffered impacts to their spiritual, mental and physical health. The abuse also impacted their relationships with loved ones, whānau, kainga and community, and connection to their culture. Sexual abuse within a spiritual or religious context severely damaged survivors’ ability to find spiritual security anywhere with their spiritual and religious beliefs, and the concept of a loving God was radically altered, if not destroyed.

15. There were factors that caused or contributed to abuse in care that were common across all care settings, including abusers, lack of appropriate recruitment or vetting processes, a lack of ongoing training and inadequate monitoring and oversight.

16. In addition, faith-based care settings had some unique factors that contributed to abuse and neglect in their care and created barriers to disclosure. These factors included:

• the misuse of religious power
• the moral authority and status of faith leaders and the access this power, authority and status gave them
• sexism and negative perceptions of women
• negative attitudes about sex and repression of sexuality
• racism and ableism based on religious concepts
• the interpretation of sexual abuse through the lens of sin and forgiveness.

17. Reverend Tara Tautari, on behalf of the Methodist Church of New Zealand at the Inquiry’s Faith-based Institutional Response Hearing, said:

“The Church carries the primary responsibility for ensuring the protection and wellbeing of those in its care. We failed in this sacred duty and are determined to make amends [2]

18. Oversight and monitoring of faith-based institutions providing care was lacking, both in terms of external oversight by the State and internal oversight by the faiths themselves. Most faith-based institutions were not held to account and few lessons were learned during the Inquiry period.

19. The Inquiry made strong recommendations to Government in its interim report He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu: From Redress to Puretumu Torowhānui, establishing a new puretumu torowhānui scheme to cover abuse in the care of both State and faith-based institutions. As the Government has not yet established the recommended puretumu torowhānui scheme, faith-based institutions have not yet had the opportunity to join it or to take the other related steps the Inquiry recommended.

Footnotes

[1]See Paora Moyle in Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, Survivor Experiences (2024, page 201)

[2]Transcript of evidence of Reverend Tara Tautari, on behalf of the Methodist Church of New Zealand, at the Inquiry’s Faith-based Institutional Response Hearing (Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, 18 October 2022, page 250).