59. Like the circumstances that led them into State and faith-based care, the abuse and neglect that women and girls experienced during the Inquiry period was also gendered and underpinned by misogyny and sexism.

60. Women and girls experienced the full spectrum of types of abuse and neglect reported to the Inquiry. Emotional and sexual abuse were most frequently reported by women and girls in care, occurring at least once in 58 percent and 57 percent of survivors’ accounts respectively.[54] In addition, 52 percent of female survivors were physically abused while in care and 34 percent experienced neglect. This chapter describes how certain kinds of abuse and neglect were differently experienced by women and girls – psychological and emotional abuse and neglect, medical abuse and neglect, and physical neglect.

61. Women and girls experienced abuse and neglect in all the State and faith-based care settings the Inquiry investigated. More than half of female survivors who went through social welfare care settings experienced sexual abuse (55 percent), with similar proportions for emotional and physical abuse (51 percent of reports for each).[55] Thirty-four percent of female survivors also reported experiencing neglect while in social welfare care settings. In faith-based care, emotional abuse and sexual abuse were the abuse types most experienced by female survivors, at 48 percent and 46 percent respectively. For female survivors in disability and mental health settings, emotional and physical abuse were the most common types, at 42 percent and 41 percent respectively.

Types of abuse and neglect experienced by women and girls in care

62. Part 4 of the Inquiry’s final report, Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, explains that women and girls experienced all types of abuse and neglect reported to the Inquiry, including:

• entry into care, which caused trauma
• psychological and emotional abuse and neglect
• physical abuse and neglect
• sexual abuse
• racial abuse and cultural neglect
• spiritual and religious abuse and neglect
• medical abuse and neglect
• solitary confinement
• financial abuse and forced labour
• educational neglect.

63. Set out below are the specific ways that women and girls experienced psychological and emotional abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, medical abuse and physical abuse and neglect.

Psychological and emotional abuse and neglect

64. Psychological and emotional abuse and neglect of women and girls in care was often experienced as verbal abuse. Survivors told the Inquiry that they were subjected to gendered verbal abuse and slurs, often focused on shaming about their bodies, sexuality, and perceived promiscuity.[56] June Lovett, a NZ European survivor of St Andrew’s Orphanage (Anglican) in Whakatū Nelson, said the matron would often call the girls ‘fat’, and told her that her mother was a ‘slut’.[57]

65. Some survivors were made to feel unclean for menstruating. NZ European survivor Nikky Kristoffersen said girls at The Grange Girls Home (The Salvation Army) in Remuera, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, were verbally abused and humiliated by the matron and were called ‘filthy’, and ‘dirty’ when they had their periods.[58]

66. Wendy Pokroy worked for the Department of Education as a psychologist from 1975 to 1977. She told the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination about her visits to Dey Street Residence for girls in Kirikiriroa Hamilton:

“I remember a staff member repeatedly calling a little girl a bitch.”[59]

67. In faith-based settings, a preoccupation with female sexuality resulted in women and girls being called sinful and promiscuous.[60] Survivor Margie Robertson described how the house father at Abbotsford Children’s Home (Anglican) in Waipawa told her that her older sister was a prostitute. When she was 12 years old, he told her that “he would put money” on her being pregnant by the time she was 16 years old.[61] At St Vincent’s Home of Compassion (Catholic) in Herne Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, survivor Angela Kinley said the nuns called her birth mother and other resident women “hookers, prostitutes, slags, hos [sic]” and other names to indicate they were “filthy women”.[62]

68. Māori and Pacific women and girls experienced psychological and emotional abuse grounded in sexism combined with racism, often focused on their perceived hypersexuality.

Medical abuse and neglect

69. During the Inquiry period, women and girls experienced medical abuse in the form of forced vaginal examinations (for venereal testing or to identify sexual activity or abuse) and instances of sterilisation or abortions without informed consent.

70. Girls and women, sometimes even girls under 5 years old, were targeted for venereal testing because they were viewed as potential carriers of sexually transmitted infections, even if they were not sexually active. The testing included vaginal examinations. The Inquiry saw no evidence that boys and men in care were subjected to this treatment as a matter of course. The Inquiry also heard of occasions where children were subjected to vaginal examinations to see if they had been sexually abused, even when there was no alleged abuse.

71. Vaginal examinations were a routine practice upon entry into social welfare residences, including when girls returned from holiday or leave. Forced internal examinations at girls’ homes were not compulsory, however, girls were locked in secure units until they agreed to undergo a test. Vaginal examinations also occurred in unmarried mothers’ homes and health camps. The Inquiry heard that many survivors were traumatised by these procedures. Māori survivor Susan Kenny (Ngāti Apa) told the Inquiry that the internal examinations she experienced at Miramar Girls’ Home in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington “were very humiliating and degrading”.[63]

72. Survivor Ms QP, who was also placed at Miramar Girls’ Home said:

“I was put in stirrups, and it was really painful. I was still a virgin then. The doctor doing the procedure was a cruel bastard. I tensed up and he said, ‘Why are you crying, you must have liked it.’ … Some of us were only like 14, 15.”[64]

73. In 1978, the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination’s investigation into children’s homes found that the method and manner of testing for sexually transmitted infections, particularly at Bollard Girls’ Home in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, constituted “degrading”[65] treatment or punishment under article 7 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[66] Forced venereal testing of girls and women largely ceased from the 1980s, after the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination raised public awareness of the practice.

74. Contraceptives were used to control girls’ and women’s bodies. For example, injections of DepoProvera for example were used to ‘manage’ menstruation, by limiting the care that could have been required from staff, and to decrease the likelihood of pregnancy.[67]

75. Most of the evidence the Inquiry reviewed about sterilisation, such as tubal ligation surgeries, related to the sterilisation of women. The Inquiry heard from survivors who were sterilised while in disability or mental health institutional care.[68] It also heard from family members who questioned the consent processes surrounding their loved ones’ sterilisations,[69] and disability sector workers who confirmed that sterilisations historically occurred in institutions.[70] Mark Benjamin, the former chief executive of Standards and Monitoring Services in Aotearoa New Zealand, told the Inquiry that from his personal observations it was unlikely people who were sterilised would have gone through “a process of making an informed choice about these procedures”.[71]

76. The Inquiry also heard evidence of forced and unconsented abortions happening in disability, mental health and social welfare settings.[72] Mostly, the Inquiry heard of women who realised during or after that the procedure they had undergone was an abortion. The Inquiry also heard that some of their pregnancies were a result of sexual abuse occurring in care.[73] For example, NZ European survivor Christina Ramage became pregnant after being raped by a psychiatrist while in Carrington Hospital’s psychiatric ward, Park House, in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in the 1970s, and was given an abortion without her knowledge or consent:

“A few months later, after the psychiatrist raped me, I was taken by a nurse to a room that was normally always locked. This room had lots of shiny things. I was told to get on the bed and I recall there being a nurse at my side and one behind me. I assumed I was there to get some sort of examination. Suddenly, everything went dark. I’m not sure whether this was because I had a mask over my face or if they had given me gas. The next thing I knew, I was awake. I can’t guarantee the exact words, but the nurse beside me said something along the lines of, ‘It's okay, you haven't got a baby anymore’.”[74]

Physical neglect

77. A specific form of physical neglect experienced by women and girls in care was denial of access to menstrual products, as well as information and support about menstruation.[75] In faith-based settings, this form of physical neglect often co-occurred with psychological and spiritual abuse – menstruating women and girls were shamed, humiliated and verbally abused.

78. Survivor Denise Caltaux, who was admitted to Kingseat Psychiatric Hospital in Karaka when she was aged 16, said that she was put in solitary confinement for days and was left “caked” in her own menstrual blood.[76] Ms KH, a former staff member at Templeton Centre in the early 1980s, said she saw a resident left in her menstrual blood.[77] A 1986 report on the Templeton Centre, located near Ōtautahi Christchurch, noted that women in Hinau Villa were not assisted in managing their periods or using sanitary towels. While sanitary towels were available, women were instead given two pairs of large bloomers to wear which were changed irregularly during the day and no attention was given to bathing for comfort and hygiene.[78]

79. Social welfare settings neglected to properly support and educate survivors who were going through puberty. Māori survivor Gwyneth Beard (Ngāti Porou) described learning about period hygiene in a social welfare residence, and how she now understands her experience in light of the tapu of her whare tangata:

“No one said, ‘This is what you’re meant to do.’ ... I didn’t understand that a period is what you get ... I’m just really embarrassed about that and I shouldn’t have to be – as Māori women, our bodies are sacred”.[79]

80. A Māori survivor who was placed at Te Whakapakari Youth Programme on Aotea Great Barrier Island when she was around age 14 described not having access to adequate hygiene when menstruating. She had no option but to clean herself in the river that was also used for fishing.[80] From an ao Māori perspective, bathing in the same river as a food source is a violation of the balance between tapu and noa.

81. The Inquiry’s case study on Te Whakapakari Youth Programme, Boot Camp, provides more information on the abuse and neglect suffered by children and young people in that setting.

82. Māori survivor Ms KM (Ngāti Porou) told the Inquiry that food and other supplies were rationed at Gloriavale Christian Community, leading to physical neglect and gendered inequality within the community. There was generally not enough food and boys were allotted more food than girls.[81] Soap, deodorant and menstrual products were also rationed.[82]

Abuse and neglect in unmarried mothers’ homes

83. During the Inquiry period, the Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian churches and The Salvation Army operated unmarried mothers’ homes and arranged adoptions. In unmarried mothers’ homes, girls and women experienced psychological, emotional, and physical abuse and neglect and financial abuse. Survivors experienced medical abuse and neglect before, during and after the birth of their babies. They experienced psychological and emotional abuse as a result of forced or coerced adoptions.

84. The abuse and neglect of girls and women in these homes was justified or reinforced by religious beliefs, particularly that the girls and women were morally corrupt and in need of redemption. Their children were seen as in need of rescue and redemption by being adopted to respectable families.[83]

Unmarried pregnant girls and women were verbally abused and shamed

85. Survivors of unmarried mothers’ homes told the Inquiry that they were subjected to gendered verbal abuse focused on their perceived promiscuity and immorality and shaming for being pregnant outside of marriage.[84]

86. They were told they were ‘filthy’, ‘dirty’ and called ‘whores’.[85] At St Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers in Ōtāhuhu, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (Anglican), Matron Gallagher and other nuns subjected the women and girls in the home to constant verbal abuse, calling them “dirty girls”,[86] and describing them as worthless, fallen, useless, selfish, used, tarnished and “illegitimate”.[87]

87. Survivor Nancy Levy, who went to St Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers in 1968 just before her 17th birthday, told the Inquiry that the women and girls in the home were considered sinners, and worthy of punishment as bearers of ‘illegitimate’ children.[88] Women and girls there were depersonalised by not being allowed to use their own names and were referred to by the matron’s surname, ‘Gallagher’.[89] Matron Gallagher told residents that if they did not do what she said, their babies would die.[90]

Physical abuse and neglect and financial abuse in unmarried mothers’ homes

88. As part of the treatment that was supposed to reform them, women and girls in unmarried mothers’ homes were subjected to forced labour while pregnant, doing work that benefited the institution for no pay, often while heavily pregnant. Work deemed insufficient would result in punishment. Survivor Nancy Levy recalled that if they did not clean the floors right, they had to do it again with a toothbrush, “on all fours, for hours and hours”.[91]

89. Hunger and malnutrition were present in unmarried mothers’ homes.[92] Survivor Maggie Wilkinson said they were given inadequate food because Matron Gallagher wanted them to have small babies so there would not be problems during delivery.[93] Survivor Ann-Marie Shelley, who attended Bethany Home (The Salvation Army) in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington, said:

“The food was scarce and atrocious. The milk was off, the butter was rancid. We often vomited after meals. But there was nothing we could do. None of us had anywhere else to go.”[94]

90. The harsh treatment in these institutions was intended to be a part of reforming the residents into respectable, moral girls and women in the eyes of Christian society. Survivors felt their perceived promiscuity was justification for poor treatment, as they were told they brought poor treatment on themselves by having sex outside of wedlock. Survivor Maggie Wilkinson said that the matron told residents “that we were ‘fallen’ women and that she would make ‘decent’ women out of us”.[95]

91. The Inquiry heard evidence of women at St Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers being forced to pay board through their sickness benefits and to work as domestics.[96] Survivors from St Vincent’s Home of Compassion (Catholic) in Herne Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, said that they also worked full time throughout their pregnancies for no pay.[97] Some survivors described laundry work as particularly gruelling.[98] Pākehā survivor Christine Hamilton recalled two Māori girls, aged 14 and 16 years old, who did ‘back-breaking’ work in the laundry every day using antiquated equipment while pregnant.[99] Survivors were given little time to rest – after working all week, they still had to be at morning mass at six o’clock on Sunday.[100]

Medical abuse and neglect during pregnancy and childbirth

92. Many women and girls in unmarried mothers’ homes experienced medical abuse and neglect during their pregnancies and childbirth.[101]

93. Survivors described being given medication during childbirth without consent during childbirth and labour.[102] Christine Hamilton was administered several drugs including sedatives and narcotics while she was in labour and woke up the next day, 17 hours after giving birth, feeling very disorientated. Upon receiving her records from the Director of Catholic Family and Social Services in 2005, Christine realised:

“They had drugged me to take my little boy. I had always blamed myself for been so weak and not fighting to keep him.”[103]

94. Survivor Mrs D recalls being left alone to labour for three days, except for when she was physically beaten by a matron, who told her she deserved it because she was promiscuous. Mrs D was forced to give birth lying on her side, so she would not catch a glimpse of her baby.[104]

95. When Nancy Levy was recovering from labour at St Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers, a nurse sat with her all day but offered her no help. Instead, as Nancy was “sick and coming in and out of consciousness”, she said the nurse sneered at her and said:

“‘I hope it was worth it ... What did you expect, you’re a dirty girl?’ She also told me that nobody would want me, I was worthless, and I was a dirty bitch”.[105]

96. Patricia Salter, who was sent to Childhaven Home for Unwed Mothers in Epsom, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (run by the non-denominational New Zealand Council of Christian Women), at age 14, remembered feeling “a lot of shame in Childhaven. Nobody stopped to ask how a 14-year old child had become pregnant or whether I had been abused or traumatised.”[106] Patricia told the Inquiry that she was dehumanised and neglected while giving birth:

“When I went into labour, I was sent to Auckland Hospital. I was treated like dirt. While I was having the baby, the doctor or nurse slapped me across the face. After the baby was born, they stitched me up with no anaesthetic or pain relief. The baby was taken away from me straightaway. I had no say. I have never seen that baby again. I have blacked out a lot of what happened at that time because it was so traumatic.”[107]

97. Survivors of unmarried mothers’ homes also told the Inquiry about a lack of information provided to them about what to expect during childbirth. Survivor Mrs D, who stayed at St Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers, said that “neither doctor prepped me with any knowledge of delivery or attended during labour or the birth”. She added that women who had already had their babies were separated from those yet to give birth.[108]

Psychological abuse through coerced and forced adoptions

98. Churches facilitated adoptions through the unmarried mothers’ homes they ran, including the Catholic Church, The Salvation Army and the Anglican Church. Survivors from these homes told the Inquiry that they were pressured, bullied or coerced into adopting out their babies. This pressure stemmed from the premise that having children outside of married was ‘sinful’ and shameful, and that their babies would be saved through adoption.

99. Women and girls who were in the St Vincent’s Home of Compassion (Catholic) in Herne Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, told the Inquiry that the nuns applied constant pressure on them to adopt out their babies, often through the application of guilt.[109] Pākehā survivor Christine Hamilton, whose first son was taken through a forced adoption while she was at St Vincent’s, told the Inquiry she was made to feel like a stain on society.[110]

100. Maggie Wilkinson described overt spiritual abuse alongside the forced adoption of her baby at St Mary’s Home for Unwed Mothers:

“The fact that I swore on the Bible that I would not try to find my daughter meant that I felt I could never take steps to do so.”[111]

101. Forced adoptions were commonly organised through the co-operation of churches and their unmarried mothers’ homes, State social welfare workers, and medical workers and nurses.[112] Sometimes adoption processes began and were approved quickly by the Department of Social Welfare with undue pressure applied to mothers who were inappropriately discouraged from keeping their babies. Women and girls subjected to forced adoptions within the Catholic Church said they had no support or understanding of the legal adoption process and were denied information about the rights of their children and themselves in the process.[113] Survivors spoke of similar experiences in Anglican adoptions.[114] Susan Williams, who was in The Salvation Army’s Bethany Home in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington, said:

“We were all brainwashed into adoption. It was the only option we were ever told about … finding out years later I could have got the Domestic Purposes Benefit … never any mention that we had options.”[115]

102. Many adoptions were ‘closed’ adoptions to strangers conducted according to the ‘clean break’ theory, which held that it was better for adopted children to have no idea of their origin or whakapapa (genealogy and background). The ‘clean break’ approach was supported by the Pākehā view that if a child was ‘illegitimate’ this should be kept hidden for the benefit of the child.[116] This commonly resulted in the creation of a new birth certificate claiming that the child had been born to its adoptive parents.[117]

103. Survivors were often given no opportunity to meet or bond with their newborn babies after childbirth. Joss Shawyer, campaigner and a survivor of abuse at Childhaven, said that Bethany Home:

“…systematically and relentlessly applied the adoption separation formula to successfully break the bonds of mother and infant, to satisfy would-be adopters and to secure ongoing government funding. The goal was to separate unmarried mothers from their newborn babies.”[118]

104. Women were expected to pretend as though their pregnancy never happened, adding to the trauma of this experience. Māori survivor Ms AF (Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Ira) was sent to Rosanna Good Shepherd Hostel for expectant mothers in Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai Lower Hutt by her adoptive parents, and upon her return home, was told she could never speak about the birth, the adoption or her son.[119]

 

Footnotes