September 29, 2017
Inquiry essential for state care fix
Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy says the removal of Maori children into welfare institutions by the state was the start of the systemic and mass imprisonment of Maori New Zealanders.
She told the Maori Women’s Welfare League annual conference in New Plymouth yesterday she suspected institutional racism is a big reason welfare homes were filled with mostly Maori children:.
But she says until there is a public inquiry we will never know for sure and importantly we won’t have the evidence needed to shape our current welfare system.
She says the least the Government can do is apologise and investigate, and it is appalling they refuse to do either.
More than 100,000 New Zealand children and vulnerable adults were taken by the state between the 1960s and 1990s and many were subjected to abuse.
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