January 23, 2014
Criticism labels raids child abuse
WILLIE JACKSON
25102013
OPINION: It was great to see the comments from Professor Innes Asher on TVNZ's Marae Investigates last weekend regarding the police raids on Tuhoe and the township of Ruatoki in 2007.
Professor Asher was unequivocal with her criticism labelling that shameful day as the worst case of child abuse by the state in recent years.
She also said "young children who were held by armed police for up to nine hours had experienced lasting trauma. And if the children had been held by armed offenders in the same way, the state would have immediately rescued those children and given them some help and assistance and the children would have been on the front page of the papers and on your lead news item".
Also "because it was a state being the abuser here of the children, they've been hidden from view".
Professor Asher's opinion is hugely significant. She is a leading paediatric specialist, the head of the Department of Paediatrics Child and Youth Health at the University of Auckland, a respected academic and, importantly, Pakeha.
I say that because much of the criticism of the raids on Tuhoe have come from Maori and unfortunately mainstream New Zealand tends to dismiss much of what Maori say, particularly when Maori talk about the misuse of power from the state or institutionalised racism.
But that's exactly what Professor Asher has labelled the police raids.
She says the state only got away with this because these were Maori kids and she's clear that this was a form of child abuse that needs to be taken seriously and still needs to be addressed.
Many kids on that day were held by police and treated badly and she gives examples of kids who were taken away from their homes, held for more than nine hours, not fed and not allowed to go to the toilet.
The police were dressed in balaclavas with guns and families were treated like criminals. Could you imagine for one moment the police getting away with that sort of rubbish in Remuera or Devonport?
A number of those kids and families have been traumatised for life. The question now is what is the state going to do about that? There has been a lukewarm type of apology from the police, something along the lines of "well those who were affected we apologise to".
However there's been no real recognition of the stress and trauma that was inflicted.
Professor Asher is so right in her criticism of the police action. It was racism and state abuse, in my view probably the worst in this country over the last 50 to 100 years. It's time for a proper and formal apology from the Government and consideration must be given to financial compensation.
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