New Zealand finds state, religious institutions failed to stop decades of abuse

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s wide-ranging independent inquiry into the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care over the span of five decades released a blistering final report Wednesday that the country’s state agencies and churches failed to prevent, stop or admit the abuse of those they were supposed to look after — even when they knew about it.

The scale of the abuse was “unimaginable,” and scrutiny of state and faith-run institutions lax and predators rarely faced repercussions, the report said.

In response, New Zealand’s government agreed for the first time that historical treatment of some children in a notorious state-run hospital amounted to torture and pledged an apology to all those abused in state, foster and religious care since 1950.

But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was too soon to divulge how much the government expected to pay in compensation — a bill the inquiry said would run to the billions of dollars — or to promise that officials involved in denying and covering up the abuse would lose their jobs.

The publication of findings by the Royal Commission — the highest level of inquiry that can be undertaken in New Zealand — capped a six-year investigation that followed two decades of similar probes around the world, echoing other nations’ struggles to reckon with authorities’ transgressions against children removed from their families and placed in state and religious care.

The results were a “national disgrace,” the inquiry’s report said. Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 1999 — in a country which today has a population of just 5 million — nearly a third endured physical, sexual, verbal or psychological abuse. Many more were exploited or neglected, the report said.

The figures were likely higher and accurate numbers would never be known because complaints in the past were disregarded and records were lost or destroyed. Luxon said the government would formally apologize to survivors on Nov. 12.