New Zealand\u2019s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made a \u201cformal and unreserved\u201d apology in Parliament on Tuesday for the widespread abuse, torture and neglect of hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults in care, many of them Indigenous. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,\u201d Luxon said, as he spoke to lawmakers and a public gallery packed with survivors of the abuse. <\/p>\n
An estimated 200,000 people in state, foster and faith-based care suffered \u201cunimaginable\u201d abuse over a period of seven decades, a blistering report released in July said at the end of the largest inquiry ever undertaken in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility,\u201d Luxon said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWords do matter and I say these words with sincerity: I have read your stories, and I believe you,\u201d he added. The Prime Minister was apologizing on behalf of previous governments too, he said. <\/p>\n
The results were a \u201cnational disgrace,\u201d the inquiry\u2019s report said, after a six-year investigation believed to be the widest-ranging of comparable probes worldwide. Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 2019 \u2014 in a country that today has a population of 5 million \u2014 nearly a third endured physical, sexual, verbal or psychological abuse. Many more were exploited or neglected. <\/p>\n
They were disproportionately Maori, New Zealand\u2019s Indigenous people. <\/p>\n
In response to the findings, New Zealand\u2019s government agreed for the first time that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture, and pledged an apology to all those abused in state, foster and religious care since 1950. <\/p>\n
Luxon\u2019s government was decried by some survivors and advocates earlier Tuesday ahead of the apology for not yet having divulged plans for the financial compensation of those abused. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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