AN OPEN LETTER TO CHAPPIE TE KANI, CEO OF ORANGA TAMARIKI - MINISTRY FOR CHILDREN, CONCERNING UNDETECTED CHILD ABUSE

20 March 2023

AN OPEN LETTER TO CHAPPIE TE KANI, CEO OF ORANGA TAMARIKI - MINISTRY FOR CHILDREN, CONCERNING UNDETECTED CHILD ABUSE

Dear Chappie

I have never met you before, so I enjoyed getting the chance to know you a little through the article about you in Stuff yesterday.?You seem like a very decent person and I wish you and everyone at Oranga Tamariki the very best in improving the performance of the organisation on behalf of the children and young people of New Zealand.

LinkedIn seems to be a platform where people only indicate their support for individuals and their positions on issues; if people do not support the person or their views, they keep silent.?Therefore, I have no intention here of directing any reflections your way about how you or the organisation are doing in delivering on your various purposes – that is for some other forum.

LinkedIn, however, is the only platform by which I am able to communicate an open letter to you and I need to do this on one matter, given that it is some six months now since I emailed you about it and - despite prompting - I have still not received a response.

In my email I asked you:

“In view of the following:

• the statement on Oranga Tamariki's?website that 'we are dedicated to supporting any child in New Zealand whose wellbeing is at significant risk of harm now or in the future,'?
• the statement in the Oranga Tamariki publication At a Glance : Prevalence of Harm to Children in New Zealand that 'the current level of unreported harm to children in New Zealand is suspected to be significant;' and
• the letter I received from Oranga Tamariki on 14 February 2022 that 'Oranga Tamariki does not hold any information regarding current and potential strategies for increasing the level of reporting of harm to children that is currently unreported,'?

does Oranga Tamariki (and its predecessor organisations) consider itself to have been and to continue to be negligent in regard to those children having experienced or currently experiencing child abuse that was or is unidentified and, if so, does it accept any responsibility for the impacts of this abuse upon these children?”

This is the first time, as far as I am aware, that a survivor of unidentified child abuse has asked a state child care and protection agency such a question.?I am only able to ask such a question because I am fortunate enough to have healed sufficiently from the devastating impact of abuse on me and to have had sufficient experience in public affairs to recognise that this is a legitimate question for survivors to ask of the state and that they can do this with confidence in themselves and without fear of what others may think of their doing so.

It has taken me some 40 years to get to the point of being able to ask you this question.?During that 40 years I experienced a terrible sense of worthlessness resulting from the abuse I experienced as a child that went undetected by your predecessor organisations.?I would, therefore, really appreciate a reply to my email, not for my sake particularly but on behalf of all those experiencing or having experienced what I have experienced and who do not yet have the capacity to ask this question of you.

It would be really nice if in replying you took into account the way the state replied to the survivors of abuse in care when they first raised their concerns with your predecessors.?I really don’t want to have to struggle, like them, for 30 years to achieve justice on this matter.

For those who are reading this letter (and I, of course, include you here Chappie), this situation provides an interesting opportunity to reflect on how it is that we form a view about claims about justice.?Do you pay attention and think independently about a matter when someone makes a new claim about justice??Or do you wait until a claim receives sufficient attention (if it succeeds in that) to form a view??And if that is the case, how do you then form your view – how much is your view formation at that point a matter of your independent thought or a product of what is thought by those you look to for leadership on claims of justice??In other words, how much is your view of justice an independent construct or a product of the social norms within your peer group??To draw an analogy, what would your response have been the first time ever a woman claimed the right to vote?

My claim in brief is that survivors of undetected abuse have a just cause for action against the state where the state has failed to establish institutional settings that optimise the identification of and response to child abuse in the community.?The state in New Zealand has clearly failed to establish such settings.?Second, even where optimal institutional settings are in place those who nonetheless experience undetected abuse still have a just cause for action against the state in that they are effectively being required to bear the costs of the freedom we all enjoy through our ability to live in families without undue surveillance by the state.

Thank you Chappie for reading this letter.?I would be delighted to hear back from you, whatever the response.?There is nothing worse for a survivor of abuse than to be ignored.

I would also welcome any thoughts from anyone who has a view on the matters I have raised in this letter, whether in agreement or disagreement.?This issue has a course to run and it is important I hear all views on the matter to test my claims.?

Ngā mihi mahana

David King

Survivor of Unidentified Child Abuse

Independent Public Policy Analyst

Wellington

New Zealand