Survivor experiences For the survivors, by the survivors

Foreword

Whanaketia tells the experiences of people in care, their life-long pain and trauma.

We thank and acknowledge all survivors who shared with the Inquiry their experiences. We are grateful to you for reliving traumatic experiences, making that sacrifice in the hope of achieving a better future for mokopuna.

This book is a tribute to all survivors and tells of your experience through a selection of survivors' profile. We heard you and we have tried to reflect your collective experience in Whanaketia.

We also mihi to those survivors who were not able to come forward, some because they had lost their trust and confidence in authorities due to being abused and neglected, some because they didn’t want to talk about their experiences – we send you aroha and understanding.

We also acknowledge those survivors who have died, sometimes by suicide, and some while the Inquiry was underway. We pay tribute to them and acknowledge their whānau and friends.

Over the life of the Royal Commission, the Inquiry heard from 2,329 survivors about the abuse they experienced in care and how it affects them today. Survivors talked to us about the very real and tangible impacts, not just on them but on their children and grandchildren. Survivors’ battles to get redress or even just to be believed, are lengthy, overly complex and simply not good enough, from both State and faith-based institutions.

The origins of the word ‘survivor’ means ‘to outlive’ – and the exact magnitude of abuse will never properly be known – many have turned their lives around and used what they experienced to give them power. We’ve heard from survivors who became social workers, found ways to help youth, put themselves through university, started their own businesses, and tackled the ramifications of their abuse by addressing intergenerational trauma.

In the pages that follow you’ll read the often graphic and horrific experiences of just a handful of the thousands of survivors who spoke with us. People like Gwyneth Beard, who’s now a social worker using the kaupapa of Tūpono te mana kaha o te whānau, which means to stand in the truth and strength of the family. Gwyneth says she wants to make sure that children who go into care don’t go out more damaged than when they went in.

“I believe in care and protection, but it needs to be care and protection, not care and damage,” she says. “I’ve dealt with the sexual abuse. I know who it belongs to and it doesn’t belong to me – it belongs to the perpetrator. I was not a willing participant in what happened to me. So I fixed that myself.”

Gwyneth says we also need to decolonise the way we think within our government departments, and we need to come back to tikanga Māori and the Treaty of Waitangi.

“We need to come back to whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and those concepts, to bring it all together and ask, how is this going to work for this whānau?”

Survivor Fa’amoana Luafatu went through boys’ homes, borstal, prison, foster care and family homes. He’s now a playwright, author and musician, and has shared his experiences of abuse through creative arts, particularly plays.

“My hope is that sharing my story through the creative arts will help young Pacific people in their own journeys. I want these kids to know they’re not by themselves, that there are other people who have been through this abuse, who understand what they are going through. I want them to see how they can use different mediums to express themselves.”

Working with rangatahi is also a focus for survivor Tupua Urlich, who now works with VOYCE Whakarongo Mai to advocate voice and connection for young people in care, empowering children’s voices to be heard and listened to, and enabling a pathway to their cultural identity.

“Our tamariki don’t belong to a Crown entity,” Tupua says. “Neither did I. Knowing who you are and where you come from, along with values defined by tikanga, are the right foundations for developing strong, healthy, independent, ready young people. It’s like day and night compared to the system we were raised in.”

The mahi of the Royal Commission and VOYCE is important to him as he’s the eldest left in his direct whānau line.

“You can’t say that this isn’t connected, because it absolutely is. The hardest part is living in a society that denies it is real. Just allow Māori to exercise being Māori, tino rangatiratanga. We don’t need the Crown to give us power – we have always had it, and they need to respect our power.

Most of all, Tupua says: “We have hope, and we have hope because we’re being heard.”

Joan Bellingham, who was put into psychiatric care at Princess Margaret Hospital for being gay, said she’s battled at length for redress to try to get people to believe that what she was saying had actually happened.

“I just keep going forward,” Joan says. “This is the end of a chapter for me, to finally be heard and believed. I’m very thankful.”

Survivors told us, overwhelmingly, they are speaking out so the harm is put right and so abuse in care stops, today.

The survivors and their words are a taonga. They are a treasure we must cherish, support and learn from.

We mihi to all our survivors who spoke with the Royal Commission, and pay tribute to those who couldn’t.

Kia kaha, kia mana ake. Stand strong in the internal power we all possess.