Child abuse is a national disgrace - let's not forget that

Friday, 21 June 2019

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sits down with Stuff acting political editor Stacey Kirk to talk about the Oranga Tamariki issue.

OPINION: Of all careers, right now one of the toughest must be that of an Oranga Tamariki social worker, protecting children whose lives are endangered by adults they love most dearly.

They're even described as harbingers of New Zealand's 'stolen generation'.

This outrage was provoked by an extremely unsettling video filmed when Oranga Tamariki obtained an ex parte court order to uplift a new baby from its mother at a Hawke's Bay hospital and the family objected.

Several inquiries are now underway.

There were nationwide demonstrations about the death of Moko Rangitoheriri.

* Babies are caught between the state and their families

* DHB chair would 'seriously consider' policy preventing state uplift of newborns until post-discharge

Deborah Coddington says instead of blaming Oranga Tamariki for too many children being uplifted, we should be solving the problem of why they're being removed in the first place.

* We finally know the true extent of abuse in state care. It is shocking

* The number of newborn babies removed from their parents is rising**

Removing at risk children from parents or carers is not a rare occurrence, but apparently the filming was a first, so reaction to the emotional scene was understandable. What mother wants to part with her newborn?

Mikara Reti who was five-months- old when he was killed by Trent Hapuku in January 2011.

But consider the filming we don't see, of children Oranga Tamariki (or CYFS in the past) didn't uplift in time, couldn't get a court order for, when family convinced the social worker drugs were banished from the house, when the child was (under the old legislation) left with wider family and foster care wasn't needed? If we're going to have balanced reporting, to be fair, reporters should cover the equivalent of these:

Trent Hapuku, 23, disturbed while playing a computer game, lashing out and belting five-month-old Mikara Reti so savagely the infant's liver split against his spine and he bled to death.

David Haerewa and Tania Shailer, baby-sitting three-year-old Moko Rangitoheriri, torturing him to death in various ways – kicking, stomping, biting him, rubbing faeces in his face, then when his body finally gives up telling medics he fell off the wood pile.

Livingstone organised Taupō's march for Moko Rangitoheriri who was killed by his caregivers in 2015.

Michael Kereopa, 'boyfriend' of the mother of six-month-old Gracie-May Mcsorley, left alone with her, stops her crying by delivering a fatal blow to the side of her head.

The Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the steps Oranga Tamariki takes when removing newborn babies under a court order. Published June 20, 2019

Three-year-old Tishena Crossland's hellish life with her father, David Crossland, ending with a beating so she would sleep at night – using a studded belt, sticks, shoes, wood, hands. She usually slept on a mattress in the hall with no blankets.

James Whakaruru, four, refusing to call his stepfather 'Daddy', beaten to death over Easter with a hammer, jug cord, vacuum cleaner pipe, punched, slapped, thrown against the wall, hit with a drawer, by his mother's boyfriend Benny Haerewa.

Lincoln Heyworth, four months old, killed by William Wakefield, boyfriend of the mother, because he couldn't stand looking at the baby 'and not seeing me'.

It's not hard to spot the common theme. Violent, narcissistic, selfish, immature, controlling men with no idea what it means to be partners and fathers. These are who we should blame for a stolen generation. These are the children we'll never recover. Furthermore, the abused children who survive are often so damaged it takes massive resources to keep them from damaging others and themselves when they grow up.

In nearly every fatal case the mothers expressed regret they'd trusted their babies with these thugs. It's a shame Oranga Tamariki can't remove the mothers along with their children from these murderous males, but frustratingly many of the women, like James Whakaruru's mother, go back.

Between April 2017 and March 2018, Oranga Tamariki received 13,966 'substantive findings of abuse' against 11,519 individual children.

Imagine if MPI received nearly 14,000 complaints in 12 months of substantive abuse against bobby calves. Do you think the dairy farmer owners would be allowed to keep raising cows? Similarly, picture an analogy with rodeo riders and their horses? I'm not advocating banning certain individuals from raising children; just illustrating the rough justice abused children receive when we're so casual about letting them remain with someone with a record of abuse or neglect.

No doubt Oranga Tamariki does err on the side of caution sometimes, removing children from families when the family thinks it can care for that child, but if that saves just one child from one belting, then that is good. If it saves one more child from exposure to meth and the associated violence, that's another good move.

Instead of blaming Oranga Tamariki for too many children being uplifted, we should be solving the problem of why they're being removed in the first place. Child abuse is a national disgrace.

Oranga Tamariki 's focus, unlike the old CYFS, is on early intervention child protection. As Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft says, the agency is still light-years away from achieving total success.

But for the sake of 11,500 children let's not lose our nerve because of one video.

The system may not be perfect but we know it's saving hundreds of children from horrific torture and death. If those were filmed, nobody would question Oranga Tamariki rushing in to uplift the children.

* Deborah Coddington is a retired journalist who won the 2001 Wolfson Press Fellowship and Qantas Feature Writer of the Year Award for a portfolio which included her story on the death of James Whakaruru.