Summary of female survivors who registered with the Inquiry

20. In total, 2,329 survivors registered with the Inquiry. Part 1 of the Inquiry’s final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, sets out that 40 percent (932 survivors) of registered survivors identified as female. The Inquiry recognises that the true number of girls, young women and adult women who experienced abuse and neglect in State and faith-based care may be far greater.

21. The table below sets out additional demographic information about survivors who registered with the Inquiry:

Historical and social context most relevant to women and girls

22. Understanding the historical and social context the care system operated in before and during the Inquiry period is crucial in understanding women and girls’ experiences of abuse and neglect in State and faith-based care.

23. Europeans came to Aotearoa New Zealand at a time when the idea of the nuclear family with the husband or father figure as the household leader was emerging. European women did not have independent legal identities and their bodies and children were considered the property of their husbands.[1] Women carried the main responsibility for childcare and housekeeping and faced legal and social barriers to participation in civil life and employment.[2]

24. In the 19th century, churches established women’s homes in response to concerns about prostitution and women’s sexuality, to address what they saw as unhealthy sexual behaviour and a threat to morality. Missionaries sought to ‘rescue’ women seen to be at risk.

25. Rigid gender roles persisted into the 20th century. In the 1950s, after the disruption of the Second World War, gender and class roles became more tightly enforced. Aotearoa New Zealand’s social structure and attitudes reflected colonial views that confined women to the ‘acceptable’ roles of wife and mother. Women and girls who did not adhere to these social structures and the attitudes and behaviours that supported them experienced discrimination. Many of society’s views on gender and family life were influenced by faith-based beliefs about sin and redemption.[3]

26. Throughout the Inquiry period, and especially from the 1950s to 1970s, women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand experienced widespread sexism and gender-based discrimination. Society held negative beliefs that women’s sexuality was something to be controlled and feared.[4] Women’s bodies were considered unclean and violence against women and girls was seen as acceptable.[5] Women and girls were considered less valuable than men and boys. Unmarried mothers were viewed as a social problem and as incapable of providing adequate care for their children.

27. These attitudes were evident in the way that society treated unmarried mothers, sexually active young women and working women.

28. In the 1950s there was growing public concern about juvenile delinquency and sexual promiscuity among teens, particularly focused on the behaviour of teenage girls.[6] Deepening fears about youth behaviour were part of wider social unease about how things were changing, including “adolescent independence, gendered social shifts and weakening family control”.[7] The State responded by appointing lawyer Oswald Mazengarb to chair a Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents in 1954. The resulting Mazengarb Report was sent to every household in the country, which fuelled public anxieties about “juvenile immorality”.[8] The report particularly focused on perceived promiscuity or immorality of girls as an issue and linked juvenile delinquency to girls being more open and confident about their sexuality.[9]

29. Access to contraception was restricted for the first two decades of the Inquiry period, due to a combination of moral concerns and a continuing State focus on social stability through the nuclear family, traditional gender roles and sustaining the Pākehā birth rate.[10] After the release of the Mazengarb Report in 1954, a law change made it illegal to discuss or provide contraception to under 16 year olds.[11]

30. Women’s wages were lower than men’s throughout the Inquiry period. A limited range of low wage work options existed for women, including teaching, nursing, clerical work, cleaning, sewing and shop work.[12] Combining work with caring for children and other family members added further challenges to women’s ability to be financially independent.[13]

31. An unemployment benefit was available from 1938 for both men and women but in practice the Department of Social Security was reluctant to grant the unemployment benefit to unmarried mothers, partly out of concerns about creating long-term welfare dependency.[14] The limited financial support that was available to single women before the introduction of the Domestic Purposes Benefit in 1972 was limited to married women whose husbands had died or abandoned them.[15]

32. Women and girls who were Māori, Pacific, Deaf and / or disabled, experienced mental distress and / or were Takatāpui, Rainbow or MVPFAFF+ experienced intersectional discrimination. The nature, extent and impacts of discrimination were amplified for these women and girls.

Unmarried mothers’ homes and adoptions

33. Adoptions and unmarried mothers’ homes played a significant role in many women’s and girls’ experiences of State and faith-based care during the first 30 years of the Inquiry period.

34. During the Inquiry period, the Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian churches and The Salvation Army operated homes for unmarried mothers. The Inquiry acknowledges that some facilities referred to as ‘unmarried mothers’ homes’ also operated as maternity hospitals and children’s homes, for example. These unmarried mothers’ homes also arranged faith-based adoptions.[16]

35. Before 1955, most legal adoptions were arranged privately, although social worker approval was required.[17] With the introduction of the 1955 Adoption Act, private providers of adoption services had no statutory powers; only the State could approve adoptions.[18] Despite this, Catholic and Anglican agencies and The Salvation Army continued to actively facilitate adoptions in the decades that followed. Although the Inquiry has received limited information about adoption facilitated through Presbyterian Support organisations and children’s homes, some evidence provided by these organisations indicates they had a role in adoption.[19]

36. Racism and increased State control of Māori adoptions and whāngai also influenced shifts in the numbers of pēpē, tamariki and rangatahi Māori adoptions. Māori traditionally had a system of caring for children among wider whānau and had common and accepted practices such as whāngai or atawhai, which involved tamariki Māori being raised by whānau members.[20]

37. From the 1900s Māori adoptions and whāngai became increasingly controlled and regulated by the State. The Adoption Act 1955 removed the ban on Māori adopting non-Māori (in place since 1909), and Māori adoptions were brought under almost the same rules as adoption. As such, the Act did not recognise Māori whāngai practices.[21]

38. A 1962 amendment transferred Māori adoption hearings from the (open) Māori Land Courts to the (closed) Magistrates Courts (known as District Courts from 1980). Financial costs and questioning of applicants’ personal circumstances disadvantaged whānau Māori.[22] This reduced the number of potential Māori adoptive parents and increased the likelihood of pēpē and tamariki Māori being placed in foster care or being adopted by Pākehā parents.[23]

39. Pākehā mothers of children fathered by Māori men increasingly gave their pēpē up for adoption to avoid racial and social discrimination and prejudice, often omitting the name of the Māori fathers on birth certificates.[24] Expert witness Dr Anne Else told the Inquiry that any claims from the father or wider whānau were often not recognised:

“Māori social workers recalled many cases where the [Māori] birth father’s family, especially the grandparents, wanted to adopt the child, but had no standing and were not permitted to do so”.[25]