'We felt like we were invisible' - Five Waikato siblings' abuse in care
Tuesday, 8 March 2022
Five Waikato siblings were forced to eat mouldy sandwiches, beaten with brooms and jug cords, and forced to preform “child labour” all while under the protection of the Crown.
As the first whānau to speak to the Abuse in State Care Royal Commission for Māori as part of a two-week hearing, the Waikato-Tainui victims – who chose to remain anonymous – spoke about the intergenerational trauma and racism their whānau had witnessed in care.
Dealing with countless caregivers who physically, mentally and sexually abused them until the ages of 16, AK said she felt “invisible” and “unworthy” of love.
“This whole experience has traumatised me and my siblings… and we still suffer with it today,” AK said.
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The eldest of the five, AK was only 9 when her and her siblings were uplifted for the first time.
Remembering only small details of her childhood before state care, AK said their parents fought a lot, struggled with alcoholism, but were “loving and kind” parents.
On February 9, 1996, four social workers and three police officers arrived at their home in the afternoon to take away the children, between the ages of 2 and 10, one by one while their dad was asleep in the next room.
Not knowing what was going on, AK recalls screaming, kicking and biting one of the social workers in a bid to get away.
“This lady grabbed me and man handled me and dragged me into the car and my face ended up hitting the window,” AK said.
“I was distressed. I didn’t know what was going on.”
Held up at the Tokoroa Refuge for three days with their mum, the siblings slowly were split up after CYFS – now Oranga tamariki – support workers deemed their mum incapable of “controlling” the children.
The siblings were shifted between different homes from 1996-1998 – with a brief period back with their mum – before being reconnected in September 1998 under the care of a family the commission has named the wharf family.
Spending four years with the wharf family AK said they had to “top and tail” sharing one bedroom with their six siblings with some of the wharf family’s own tamariki and mokopuna.
She said the first few months were OK, but very quickly their carer’s “demeanour changed.”
Forced to do “anything and everything” around the house, the siblings did all the chores around the house and were physically abused.
The physical abused involved anything from being punched in the face to being lashed with a jug cord or end of a broom.
AG, 6, – who hadn’t been taught how to vacuum – recalls being hit with the vacuum pipe.
“She was screaming at me telling me to vacuum like an adult. There was blood everywhere, and it left scars… on my thighs and a mark on my eye,” she told the panel while tearing up.
She confided in a teacher, but her foster family found out, and she returned to a ‘hiding’.
The youngest at four, AJ, was forced to eat mouldy sandwiches while other siblings had food withheld.
When the family moved to a farm the long days of work continued with them being forced to pull thistles out of the paddocks. Sometimes the children fainted in the heat.
“We weren’t allowed to have a break or a water break.”
When Oranga tamariki finally caught on to some of the abuse a year later it opted to work with the wharf family instead of seeking further placement for the six children.
This is despite the woman admitting on record to a social worker of her hitting the children and her intention to carry on.
She said the children deserved it and were an important “source of money” to her. She was thinking of adopting them long term.
The four years of violence and neglect under the hands of the wharf family finally came to an end in 2001, when AK spoke to a school counsellor.
The school counsellor made a case against Oranga tamariki leading to the removal of the siblings, however, the cycle of abuse in state care didn’t stop there.
Split up once again, the siblings lost connection with each other through their teens as they were moved from place to place.
Some carers did try, AK said, but it was too late.
The loss of connection to Māoridom, of whakapapa, reo Māori, and identity, as well as the physical and mental abuse of Māori in state care, led all siblings down similar paths.
Suffering from addiction, trauma and cultural alienation now, they say they now feel like they were robbed of their future and don’t belong anywhere.
“[Dad] was in the system as well. He was abused and all of that as well, and he still suffers with that today,” AK said.
“Things need to change.”