A Ngāi Tūhoe Professor of Indigenous Studies says inadequate protections for gang-affiliated tamariki during recent Ōpōtiki police raids are criminalising them.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon offered no apology for the October 21 police raids in Ōpōtiki, during which mokopuna as young as three witnessed their whānau being arrested across 15 homes.
Tracey McIntosh, from the University of Auckland’s Te Wānanga o Waipapa School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies, says testimonies from the Royal Commission’s report into Historic Abuse in State Care show the traumatic pathways this experience can lead these children down.
“You know, one of the absolutely ongoing themes across gang whānau was this experience of being treated as if they did not matter, and being recognized as criminals. They were expected to come rather than the tamariki they were at the time. We can’t treat tamariki as if they are the criminals they will become,” says McIntosh.
