February 17, 2022
Nation in sorry state say Sallies
The Salvation Army’s latest state of the nation report has uncovered a massive increase in sexual assaults and assaults against children in the past year.
Advisor Ronji Tanielu, a south Auckland lawyer, says it also found an increase in child poverty with 21,000 more children in benefit-dependent families and a housing crisis that has become a catastrophe.
On the positive side, prison numbers are at record lows with more people being paroled or doing community-based sentences.
“At the same time, there’s been huge surges in violent offending and sexual assaults. There’s less offending happening but what is happening is quite violent and very sexual in nature so I think this shows some of the big cracks that are in our society at the moment.” Mr Tanielu says.
He says despite promised of transformation by governments, there hasn’t been much change over the 15 years the Salvation Army has been doing its state of the nation reports with Māori and Pacific Islanders still the poorest and most vulnerable New Zealanders.