How many kids are being killed? Oranga Tamariki can’t say

Saturday, 26 August 2023

A Hawke's Bay study into child wellbeing has discovered that 90 per cent of students aren't eating the recommended daily fruit and vegetables. (Video from May 2022)

We can’t tackle child abuse if the ministry in charge of it can’t provide the facts, writes Jehan Casinader.

ANALYSIS: How many New Zealand kids were abused or killed last year?

You’d think it was a simple question. Child abuse has been in the headlines for decades. Is it getting better or worse?

I was shocked by how difficult it was to answer this question.

My first stop was Oranga Tamariki, the ministry charged with protecting our most vulnerable.

On its website, I could only find outdated statistics. I contacted the ministry’s media team, who seemed confused about what I was looking for.

It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Child abuse – kids getting kicked, slapped, beaten, starved. How many are suffering? How many are dying?

After three days, Oranga Tamariki hadn’t sent me any data. Instead, in an unusual move, they offered an interview with their chief social worker, Peter Whitcombe.

Moko Rangitoheriri was subjected to horrific violence by his killers, Tania Shailer and David Haerewa.

“When I heard that you were writing about child abuse, I was really pleased,” he said. “I truly believe that this is a really important conversation. How we care for our children is incredibly important.”

So where’s the most recent child abuse data? Whitcombe was unhappy that it wasn’t available.

“We will provide the stats for you, Jehan. I want you to be able to have them, so they can inform your report.”

On Friday – four days after my original enquiry – some basic information arrived in my inbox. And it blew my mind.

In the year to June 30, 2023, Oranga Tamariki established that 12,743 individual children were abused or neglected. That’s around 1.1% of under-17s.

Let that sink in. That means around one in 90 children were abused or neglected last year.

Whitcombe says the real figure will likely be much higher, because so much abuse is unreported or unprovable.

Three-year-old toddler Nia Glassie was murdered in Rotorua.

So why aren’t we talking about this? For many years, we did. Names like Chris and Cru Kahui, Lillybing, James Whakaruru, Coral Burrows, and Moko Rangitoheriri are etched into our minds.

We pledged to never forget those names. There were marches on Parliament. Celebrities fronted anti-violence campaigns. Multiple charities were set up. Politicians decried child abuse as “our national shame”.

But over the past decade, the faces of those dead kids have faded from our memories.

There’s an election in two months, and I haven’t heard any political leaders talk about child protection as one of their priorities.

Maybe they have no reason to. In June, the Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor asked a thousand people what the Government could do to improve life in our country. The researchers told me that not one participant mentioned child abuse.

Arapera Fia was 2 when she was murdered by Tyson Brown.

And yet children continue to die. Stuff’s crime reporters have covered three child homicide trials in the past few months – in the Auckland courts alone.

Two-year-old Arapera Fiadied after a long, severe beating by her caregiver’s partner.

Ten-month-old Chance Aipolani-Nielson was killed by his uncle. The baby had brain bleeding after being shaken and struck against a table.

Five-month-old Clarity Turu was killed by his dad, who wound tape around the baby’s face, punched him, broke his arm and slammed him into a sofa.

Chance Aipolani-Nielson was 10 months old when he opened what would be his first and last Christmas present.

Cases like this are regularly reported. Occasionally, one will capture the public’s attention – like the death of 5-year-old Malachi Subecz in 2021, or Lauren Dickason’s recent conviction for murdering her three children.

While watching the 6pm news, we wince and mutter: “How could they do that to a wee child?” Then, we return to cooking dinner.

In 2023, most child harm stories are just background noise. We barely even notice them.

Maybe some hard facts will make us sit up and take notice. So what does the data tell us? How many kids are dying as a result of abuse or neglect?

Believe it or not, we don’t know – because Oranga Tamariki’s figures are five years out of date.

“What we have known in the past is that around nine or 10 tamariki pass away, on average, each year,” says Whitcombe. “That’s one every five or six weeks.”

Hamuera Rawhiti appears at the High Court in Auckland, charged with the murder of baby Clarity Turu.

But exactly how many were killed in 2022? Or 2021? Or 2020? The ministry can’t say.

“When children die, cases often go through the courts or a coronial process. The cause of death has to be validated, which takes time.

“That’s the reason for the lag. But I’m not sure why the lag is five years.”

It’s astonishing. The agency in charge of protecting children can’t tell us how many kids are being killed.

Child Matters chief executive Jane Searle.

We know how many people are dying in car crashes. We know how many people are dying by suicide. But we don’t we know how many children are dying from abuse.

With suicide, the coroner publishes a provisional number of “suspected” suicides each year – because it may take years for the inquests to be completed. Surely the same could be done for child deaths.

Without having an annual child victim toll released by the Government, child welfare charities are left to comb through news articles to cobble together a partial list.

Child Matters is one of those organisations. I asked its CEO, Jane Searle, why she thinks Oranga Tamariki’s data is so opaque.

“Do you want my honest answer? I think the figures would be so confronting – and put such a spotlight on what is happening – that it wouldn’t be tolerable to the hierarchy at Oranga Tamariki.”

The ministry’s figures show that the number of child harm findings has fallen from 15,682 in 2020 to 12,743 in 2023. But in the same period, the number of alerts to Oranga Tamariki fell too – in part due to Covid lockdowns and school absences.

Oranga Tamariki couldn’t tell me how many children were abused after the agency had already been alerted to their welfare.

“These kinds of statistics should be front and centre,” says Searle. “We need Kiwis to know what’s happening, so we can hold government agencies to account, along with other agencies that are funded to tackle this problem.”

Chief social worker Peter Whitcombe accepts that Oranga Tamariki needs to be clearer and more upfront about the harm that children are facing.

“We need to take [your feedback] on board, and ensure that the data is more accessible,” he told me.

It’s often said that behind every statistic, there’s a child. But it’s equally true that behind every child, there’s a statistic.

If those statistics are hidden – if they’re shelved away in Wellington, or dumped in a dark corner of Oranga Tamariki’s website – they’ll continue to be invisible.

As invisible as the kids who’re no longer alive.