Abuse in Care: Effects of state failures echo down generations, inquiry hears
Wednesday, 16 March 2022
A survivor of abuse as a ward of the state is terrified of what lies in store for his mokopuna as a result of the trauma he experienced.
The man, who can be identified only as MM, is in his 60s now and has been in and out of prison since he was a teenager. His two eldest sons have done time as well.
“It makes me feel like I have failed them as a father,” he said.
“I often wonder what a heck of a cycle that must be … First I have suffered this, now my children, and I have no idea what is in store for my mokopuna. It’s sad.”
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* 'I learned not to show weakness': A childhood in state care
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On Wednesday, MM addressed the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Māori experiences of abuse in state care between 1950 and 1999, hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei at its marae in Tāmaki Makaurau.
In his early teenage years he was sent to Warkworth to live with relatives, he said. There, he was beaten often, missed school to do chores, and was sexually abused by a cousin. Social welfare got involved once, but left him there.
At every opportunity to be saved, more trauma awaited. MM was sent to a boy’s home in Western Springs, Auckland, to a rapist who ran a “haven of sexual abuse”.
Then, at Ōwairaka Boy’s Home he was abused by staff, students and school teachers alike for years.
He went through three foster homes that didn’t want him, and spent a month in the adult unit of a psychiatric ward in Point Chevalier.
MM went on to spend his adulthood in and out of prison.
Abuse survivor and social worker Natasha Emery also gave evidence on Wednesday.
She told the inquiry all her family needed was a slightly bigger house, and her path into state care could have been avoided.
Emery and her brother Jason were raised by their grandparents until age 5 and 7, when they went to their father and step-mother where they endured abuse at both their hands, the inquiry heard.
When Emery was 11 and Jason 13, Jason and their father had a brutal fight, and Jason was taken into state care.
Emery’s grandparents tried to take her in, but they only lived in a one-bedroom council flat. They put her up on a couch and 11-year-old Emery acted out, desperate for some privacy and personal space, the inquiry heard.
After a couple of years of failed foster homes and stints at Hamilton Girls’ Home, she was offered a place at an uncle’s house. But he was the vice-president of the Black Power chapter.
Within six months, the man had been sentenced to jail time, and later died in prison.
Emery got pregnant as a teenager, and the child, James, was raised by his grandparents. It wasn’t her first choice, but she knew he would be safe with them. Looking back, she believes her experiences in state care deeply affected what happened next.
He followed his father into the gangs, and did numerous stints in jail, Emery said. She tried to support him and his four children throughout those years. When he died, aged 28, over 400 people attended his tangi.
Emery blamed her son’s death on the intergenerational trauma from her being placed in unhealthy and abusive environments like the foster homes and her uncle’s gang house. She told the inquiry it “bewilders” her that was an idea at all.
“I believe the environments he was placed in didn’t help. I possibly will never know the real reason but as his mother, I just hope that by writing my PhD and being a part of this process people will see the environments people are placed in while in state care can truly affect future generations,' she said.
Her brother, who spent several years being abused in state care, suffered immensely. He and his partner had five children together, some of whom have children of their own now.
Emery said she and her husband looked after some of them when they could. Today, some are in state care, emergency housing or homeless.
“Intergenerational trauma and a pathway of gang life, as a lot of people will know, is extremely hard to break from.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Emery’s son had spent time in state care.