News & Events

Māori survivors of abuse in care want urgent change to Aotearoa’s care and protection system, which has seen whānau suffer significant racism, torture, slave labour and disconnection from whakapapa, an inquiry has heard. For the past two weeks, ngā mōrehu (survivors) have been giving evidence as part of a special hearing for Māori in the…

Māori abused in state care have spoken about the violent environments they were placed in as children, and how embracing their Māoritanga, their cultural identity, has helped them on their healing journey. Friday was the fifth day in a hearing for Māori survivors in Auckland as part of the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry into…

Abuse of children at Marylands School in Christchurch was so rife it was described as a state-supported, church-run brothel for paedophiles. But so far the spotlight has focused on a handful of individual abusers. An inquiry this week tried to find out how deep the rot went. Alan Nixon nearly had to burn a church…

Damning revelations from a former church fixer reveals that almost all St John of God Catholic brothers faced allegations of physical or sexual abuse. Steve Kilgallon reports. In 2002, Sydney clinical psychologist Michelle Mulvihill made 13 trips to New Zealand; visits which took her the entire length of the country. It wasn’t a pleasant experience:…

Dunedin victims of church abuse were likely to number even more than those shown in national figures released on Tuesday, a survivor’s advocate has said. The Catholic Church had released the figures which showed 1122 survivors had laid almost 1700 complaints naming almost 600 perpetrators of abuse. Male Survivors Otago manager Michael Chamberlain said the…

As many as one in seven Catholic diocesan clergy in New Zealand have been accused of abuse, according to an investigation by the church. But groups representing victims say that is likely to be a fraction of the actual abuse within the church, which often went unreported or unrecorded. The Catholic Church reported on the…

Corrections staff who are victims of sexual assault in prison are not being treated sensitively or offered adequate support, a staff union says. Sexual assault charges have been laid against prisoners in 17 incidents where Corrections staff were assaulted in the last five years. In that same period, another 44 allegations of sexual assault were…