I haven’t read the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse of Children in Care, and I don’t intend to.
After years of working with children in care, I’m unwilling to again fill my head with their punishing stories.
However, the media response –that it’s all the state’s fault –is misleading and convenient. We are all at fault, but the sections of the community I consider the worst offenders are rarely pointed to. More of that later.
The horrors of abuse have become entangled in the very notion of taking children into care. The organised means of rescuing children from abuse and protecting them from harm is now seen, in some Māori circles in particular, as a cover for stealing children. And in all the years I have been observing public comment on children in care, I have not once seen this ludicrous notion –a gross insult to care workers –challenged.