December 23, 2019
Policies threat to whanau Maori
The head of the Māori midwives roopu says National’s proposed social policies will make it harder for Māori mothers to keep their babies.
Jean Te Huia was at the centre of an incident at hawkes Bay Hospital earlier this year where a whānau prevented Ōranga Tamariki taking a six-day old baby.
The social media documentary on the incident led to a number of inquiries about the policies and practices of the child protection agency.
She says she’s still waiting for changes to policies under which 820 newborn babiues have been taken during the past three years, nine in 10 of them Māori or Pacific.
While the pressure needs to stay on the current Government to address the situation, National’s policies all seem to come down to Ōranga Tamariki taking babies rather than trying to fix the problems families get into because of poverty and stress.
"The solution is not Ōranga Tamariki. The solution has to rest with policies that enable whānau to live better, have better homes, better housing, live on an income that is able to feed their family and whānau, have good health care, and get good education," she says.
Jean Te Huia says politicians need to wake up to the intergenerational harm caused by taking children from their families.
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