New Zealand has a dark secret, an epidemic of domestic violence which has brought to life the wrenching story of abuse in a dysfunctional Maori family depicted in the landmark movie Once Were Warriors.
The abuse problem has cast a shadow over a country more popularly seen as a charming and scenic backwater, famous for adventure sports and fine wines and as the setting for the award-winning Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
But politicians and rights activists say family violence is all too real. New Zealand has the third-highest rate of child murders in the world, according to Christine Rankin, chief executive of the For the Sake of the Children trust.
”Our problem is huge. Do not underestimate how enormous it is,” Rankin told Reuters.
Rankin’s trust said it had confirmed that 10 687 children were neglected or abused in the past year and that there were also 53 097 notifications of suspected child abuse — all in a nation of 4,1-million people.
A Unicef report last month found that between 18 000 and 35 000 children were exposed to domestic violence each year, with the problem so common that most New Zealanders know a child who has witnessed violence at home.
”A lot of people know about abuse in families. They see it and it is right under their nose but they are afraid to say anything,” Rankin said.
New Zealand’s nightmare
New Zealand’s leaders fear that the crisis, which a government taskforce has described as ”shameful” and an ”epidemic”, has grown to the point that it could damage the nation’s reputation.
In an extraordinary farewell speech, outgoing New Zealand Governor-General Dame Sylvia Cartwright drew a stark contrast between New Zealand’s reputation as a nation that helps troubled neighbours and its domestic abuse record at home.
Cartwright, whose term as representative of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth ended this month, praised New Zealand’s work in violence-hit countries such as East Timor and the Solomon Islands but said it was time to address its own ”nightmare”.
”Sometimes when I listen to a foreign leader praise our efforts in the environment or our willingness to assist those in war-ravaged countries, I hope that our dark secrets — for they remain hidden to the rest of the world — will never become known internationally,” Cartwright said on August. 2.
”I am concerned that these countries that so admire us might soon learn that we have a terrible rate of family and other violence,” she said.
Cartwright’s speech won praise for its unexpected frankness.
It was delivered as the nation battled to comprehend the brutal killing of three-month-old twins in Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, in June.
Warriors Still
Tiny Chris and Cru Kahui lived in a squalid south Auckland house shared by 10 adults, including their mother, Macsyna King.
King had been away overnight and took them to hospital when she returned, complaining that the twins were not feeding.
Medical examinations found they were brain dead after suffering severe head and other injuries. They were placed on life support but the machines were turned off five days later.
Nine adults were in the house at the time the infants suffered their injuries, many of them found to be drunk. Yet the twins’ Maori family has refused to cooperate with police and a painstaking investigation is still under way.
Amid nationwide soul-searching, Prime Minister Helen Clark described them as a ”Once Were Warriors” type family” — a reference to the harrowing 1994 movie, based on an Alan Duff novel, about urban dislocation and violence in a poor Maori family.
Clouding the domestic violence epidemic is the over-representation of indigenous Maori, proud descendants of a warrior race who make up 15% of the population.
Government figures show that Maori children under five years old are being admitted to hospital with ”intentional injury” at twice the rate of other children.
The deaths of the Kahui twins prompted a week-long series of articles in the New Zealand Herald newspaper under the title ”Warriors Still”.
It cited studies which show disillusionment, poverty, unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse contribute to the over-representation of Maori in domestic violence figures — patterns repeated in indigenous communities around the world.
Some Maori leaders say they have heard it all before and warn against assigning racial or cultural stereotypes.
”I remember 30 or 40 years ago when I was a kid people said Maori had a natural inclination to play the guitar, that Maori had a natural inclination to play rugby, Maori were good on bulldozers,” Maori lawmaker Hone Harawira said.
”I’ve stopped listening to that sort of carry on,” he said.
Others like Rankin say the problem is too big and too urgent to become bogged down in a cross-cultural slanging match.
”With the deaths of the Kahui twins I came out and said Maori have got a real problem in New Zealand,” she said.
”A lot of people came up and said thank you for saying it, while others came out and said it was racist. It is not racist.”
”It is a fact and we have got to find a way to address it and manage this,” Rankin said. – Reuters