By Lucy Craymer
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Moeapulu Frances Tagaloa was repeatedly abused from the age of five to seven by a popular Catholic brother who taught at a school which neighboured the Catholic primary she attended in Auckland, New Zealand.
“He was a popular, well-known teacher but he was also a paedophile and unfortunately there were other little girls that he abused,” said Tagaloa, who said her abuse happened in the 1970s.
She didn’t remember the abuse until she was an adult and then she started to suffer flashbacks.
“It was very traumatic experiencing that trauma and I had to work through that,” she said.
Tagaloa was one of more than 2,300 survivors who testified to a New Zealand inquiry, or royal commission, into abuse in state and church care between 1950 and 2019.
The more than 3,000-page report from the inquiry, which is one of the longest and most extensive in the country’s history, was tabled on Wednesday in parliament and contained 138 recommendations, including calling for public apologies from New Zealand’s government and the heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches.
“I think if this government really cares about our vulnerable, and our children, they’ll put all the recommendations in place. And I really would like to see churches support all the recommendations,” said Tagaloa.
The inquiry narrates accounts from survivors who were subjected to abuse and torture including rape, sterilisation and electric shocks in state and faith-based care.
Those from the Indigenous Maori community were especially vulnerable to abuse, the report found, as well as those with mental or physical disabilities.
Anna Thompson, a survivor, told the commission how she was physically and verbally abused at a faith-based orphanage.
“At night, the nuns would strip my clothes off, tie me to the bed face-down, and thrash me with a belt with the buckle. It cut into my skin until I bled and I couldn’t sit down afterwards for weeks,” Thompson said in her testimony published in the report.
Jesse Kett spoke of how he was beaten and raped by staff in a residential school in Auckland when he was eight years old.
“Sometimes my abuser would be alone, but sometimes other staff members would watch,” he said in his testimony to the inquiry.
Several of the testimonies spoke of the impact the abuse had on their lives — many suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, anxiety and resorted to substance abuse and violence. Several of them spoke of attempting suicide repeatedly.
“Just the trauma of the memories of abuse they live with you all the time and you can get by the simplest of things every days,” said Tagaloa, who is now working to help other survivors.
Tagaloa said the establishment of the inquiry was an opportunity for her to tell her story. She has also been involved both in a survivor advisory role with the inquiry and now with the Survivor Experiences Service, which was set up to allow survivors to share their experiences.
The report recommended a transformation in the care given for children in schools, the care of the vulnerable and those with disabilities and Maori and Pasifika.
“I just think it’s a pathway for survivors to be able to get redress and it’s a pathway that will protect our children and our vulnerable for the future,” she said.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; editing by Praveen Menon and Michael Perry)
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