July 11, 2019
Poor brown families targets in uplift epidemic
One of the midwives involved in blocking the uplift of a baby from Hawke's Bay Hospital says whānau who have spoken out against Oranga Tamariki taking their children have been subjected to a tirade of shame and blame from the public.
Jean Te Huia says the controversy has made many whanau realise they are not alone, and they have shared their experiences- and then been told they must have been bad parents who deserved to lose their tamariki.
Maori leadership have called the hui and the Whanau Ora commissioning agency is hosting and supporting it.
She says this weekend's hui will offer valuable support and will ensure the child protection agency can't hide behind its policies, once people see who is most affected.
"They're seen as not being capable of raising their children, but yet when you look at the underlying themes we have poor families, we have brown families, we have families who have no support, families who have no job, they don't have good housing, they don't have good support around them, they don't have the income, and of course we have stress on those families," Ms Te Huia says.
The families also don't have the resources to challenge Oranga Tamariki through the courts but there are cases where that has happened and the agency has been made to return the child.
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