‘Horrendous damage’ done
Kath Coster is on a mission to make sure no child has to suffer the abuse she did. She is one of about 110,000 adults who were abused as children while in state or faith-based care – the subject of a Royal Commission of Inquiry. Cate Broughton reports.
When her mother died, Kath Coster curled her hair as she lay in an open casket. ‘‘Everyone kept rubbing her hair so I had to go back day after day and curl her hair because it was all flat, stuck against her head.’’
Coster’s mother gave her up as a baby, and later nearly killed her during three years of violent abuse.
That ended when Coster, then aged about 10, was removed and made a ward of the state.
It marked the beginning of years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of foster parents and girls’ homes. But when her mother died six years ago, Coster had long forgiven her.
‘‘I loved my Mum when she died because Mum took accountability. She carried it to the grave when she didn’t need to, because I was over it by that stage.’’
Coster, a member of the survivors advisory panel advising the Abuse in State Care Royal Commission, cannot say the same for the government – yet.
‘‘The state has never taken accountability for any damage it has done to me or any other children. And for me to move forward and know that lid has been put on, that accountability is the first step.’’
In her later years, Coster’s mother said she had given her up because she wanted a better life for her.
She was fostered to Pa¯keha¯ parents as their only child and knew nothing of her Ma¯ ori heritage. Coster has happy memories of her first seven years in their home, mainly in Central Otago, but later came to resent being stripped of her family and culture.
‘‘I thought I was white because my Mum, at that stage was Australian, and my Dad was English, and no-one told me.’’
When she was suddenly taken back to her own family, the change came as a huge shock.
Her mother did not cope with her arrival. The family had grown from three to six children, as Coster and two other siblings returned home around the same time. Her father was a heavy drinker and it was a volatile household. The abuse by her mother resulted in broken bones and at one stage her mother tried to drown her. Eventually the police were called, Coster was removed and she was made a ward of the state.
While the intervention meant she stayed alive, from the age of eleven Coster was subjected to sexual predators behind the closed doors of foster homes, as well as brutality in girls homes.
An elderly couple in Rangiora only accepted young girls and Coster soon discovered the foster father was a paedophile. He regularly molested her.
‘‘It was a really nice home apart from what he was doing and I didn’t know what was what because things were getting worse.’’
Coster became withdrawn and physically ill as a result of the abuse and the couple decided they didn’t want to keep her. She went to Strathmore Girls Home in Christchurch before being placed in another foster home in Motukarara, near Akaroa.
‘‘It was fine for two years. And then my foster father at the time decided he would try and repetitively have sex with me.’’
A scar on her leg remains to this day, a gash from barbed wire during a desperate attempt to escape the man. Coster’s foster mother became involved with another man, increasingly leaving Coster alone on an isolated rural property with the abusive foster father.
‘‘I used to sit in the bedroom sometimes and be too scared to come out and go to the toilet and there was a towel in the bedroom and I’d wet on that rather than go out into the hallway to take the chance that he’s going to be walking around somewhere.’’
A social worker realised what was happening and she was taken back to the girls home. Once there staff told her to take all of her clothes off to be photographed naked.
When she refused she was sent to ‘the cells’ where she remained for two weeks until reluctantly agreeing to the photograph. But she then learned she had to undergo an internal pelvic examination.
Terrified, she refused and was taken back to the cells for several weeks before finally succumbing.
The experience left her with a life-long terror of such tests.
‘‘Years later I ended up with cervical cancer because the horrific having much.’’
During her time at the girls home, she was frequently punished, and found the place more closely resembled a prison than a place for children. Coster said she was often made to feel ashamed of her ethnicity.
‘‘Being raised in Christchurch as a Ma¯ ori girl, especially in state care, you were not a good person.
‘‘I went to homes where I was asked if I would ever come white. The other kids would say ‘mummy if she cleans her skin off will she be like us?’
‘‘So I learned very quickly it probably wasn’t a good thing to admit, because we were looked at as scum, at that particular time.’’
The cultural dislocation made reconnecting with her biological family difficult, Coster said.
‘‘When I was growing up I didn’t fit in with the Ma¯ ori people smears side of was way too because they thought I was plastic, because I behaved more like a European person. From a European point of view I struggled because I was the wrong colour.’’
Coster spent 17 years coming to terms with her experiences with the help of a psychologist and her Christian faith. She knows the abuse will always be there with the power to overwhelm her, at any moment.
‘‘I struggle with the word survivor because we are still a victim at this stage. I believe we were a victim of the state – and can still be that.’’
The other members of the survivor advisory panel have become like family to her, she said. It had also been extremely stressful.
Coster said being involved in the inquiry inevitably triggered memories of the past but this had been exacerbated by mismanagement.
In September she and other panel members were sickened to discover the partner of another member was a convicted paedophile. Since attending contextual hearings for the Inquiry, held this month, Coster said her faith in the Commission had been restored and she was confident it would bring about positive change. Hundreds are expected to tell their stories to the commission. She said the panel had got over the episode and were committed to supporting the Commission to create ‘‘really good recommendations’’. Visiting her nephew in a boys home had motivated Coster to join the panel in the hope of lasting change.
‘‘Walking in to visit my nephew took me right back to the girls home.’’
Coster said apart from sexual abuse in foster homes she did not think much had changed.
‘‘With all my heart I want this inquiry to do the best it possibly can for people who are alive, people who are dead, and definitely for the children that need the change.’’
‘‘I struggle with the word survivor because we are still a victim at this stage. I believe we were a victim of the state – and can still be that.’’ Kath Coster