Up to 250,000 children abused in state care

As many as 655,000 children went through different care institutions between 1950 and last year, and up to 39 per cent of them could have been abused, the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care will say in one of three reports to be presented to Parliament today.

They are the first of a series of reports from the commission, which was established in 2018 to respond to calls from survivors and their advocates for an independent inquiry into the institutionalisation and abuse of children, a large majority of them Ma¯ ori.

Judge Coral Shaw, the chair of the commission, said she was shocked when she saw the numbers. ‘‘It’s just astounding, it’s just extraordinary.’’

Minister of Public Service Chris Hipkins will present three reports to Parliament today: a statistical report, an economic impact report and a sweeping overview of the commission’s work to date. The interim report will be released at 3pm, but Stuff has obtained the other two reports in advance.

In the economic impact report, the Royal Commission tried to calculate the average lifetime cost for an individual abused in care and came up with a figure of $857,000 – $673,000 in pain and suffering and premature death, and $184,000 in healthcare, state costs and productivity losses.

The statistical report estimates that 655,000 children went through state welfare, psychiatric and disability institutions, church schools and care homes between 1950 and 2019. Between 17 and 39 per cent of them – as many as a quartermillion children – are likely to have been abused.

But even before it was officially released, experts have questioned the accuracy of the numbers in the statistical report,

which was compiled by Wellington-based consultancy Martin Jenkins.

Victoria University of Wellington criminologist Elizabeth Stanley

said some of the assumptions in the report did not stack up. After adjusting for multiple counting, she estimated that the true total of children going through welfare homes in this time period was more like 100,000.

Because one child could go through several institutions in a number of categories – for example, moving from a church school to a welfare home and then to a psychiatric hospital within a short space of time – they could be counted multiple times.

‘‘We need to do much more to understand how authorities transferred children between placements,’’ Stanley said. ‘‘My research showed that it wasn’t unusual for a child in social welfare care to experience dozens of placements in a few years.’’

The report acknowledged the risk of overlap and used a 1970s Christchurch study as a guide to adjust its figures. But this study was focused on Pa¯ keha¯ , while the majority of children in state care in the 1970s were Ma¯ ori.

Shaw said the estimates were ‘‘broad-brush indications, necessarily qualified by the limitations of the source data’’. ‘‘While we fully acknowledge that, this report is a clear wakeup call that the scale of the problem with abuse in care is even greater than previous estimates,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s just astounding, it’s just extraordinary.’’ Judge Coral Shaw Royal Commission on Abuse in Care