February 13, 2023
UN calls put NZ on child poverty
The United Nations Child Rights Committee have expressed concern about the overrepresentation of Māori children in the youth justice system and among those who committed suicide in closed institutions.
In its latest country report on progress towards implementing the Child Rights Convention, it recommended New Zealand develop an action plan to reduce the disparity in the rates of sentencing, incarceration and survival in detention of Māori children.
It would include addressing the connections between offending and neurodisability, alienation from whanau, school and community, substance abuse and family violence.
The committee also asked New Zealand to take child rights-based approach measures to end child poverty, noting the significant proportion of children, especially Māori and Pasifika children, who live in poverty with food insecurity and severe housing deprivation.
Peace Movement Aotearoa says it’s the first time the committee has included specific paragraphs on tamariki Māori as indigenous children.
It says the report shows it’s simply inconceivable to independent human rights experts how a comparatively wealthy country has such an appalling number of children and their families who do not have access to an adequate standard of living.