February 15, 2017
Country can’t wipe hands of care scandal
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is backing a call for an inquiry into historic abuse in state residential facilities and foster homes.
The Human Rights Commission and iwi leaders say the Never Again, E Kore Ano campaing is about lifting the lid on what happened to many of the more than 100,000 children and young people taken from their families and put into state care from the 1950s to the 1990s.
The Government says no inquiry is needed because it is fixing Child, Youth and Family.
Mr Peters says that is short changing New Zealanders caught up in the system.
"You've got people who were seriously damaged by the circumstances of their treatment, the wrongness of their treatment, and i don't think a country should wipe its hands of those things, as painful as it might be and as embarrassing as it might be. We owe to to the victims to give them an inquiry and put the matter to rest as much as we can," he says.
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