Abuse in Care: Sisters Raped in Foster Family - Anglican Church, State and Police "Did Nothing"

By Michael Neilson
New Zealand Herald
December 8, 2020

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/abuse-in-care-sisters-raped-in-foster-family-anglican-church-state-and-police-did-nothing/VC2H5G27HAIJE64NPGINGPN2KI/

The love between two sisters shone through as one spoke of the horrific abuse they suffered together as children in foster, state and Anglican church care.

Ms M - whose name is legally protected - and her late sister - who came to be known as Janie - were both raped and violently assaulted while in a foster family arranged through Anglican Social Services from 1969 to 1974.

Ms M was again sexually assaulted only years later, aged 16, by a reverend in a family who would go on to legally adopt her.

In both situations, authorities were aware of abuse, but made no efforts to intervene to protect the girls.

"If people had truly wanted to help us it wouldn't have taken a lot to see we were being horrifically abused repeatedly, but people were blinkered," Ms M told the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care in Auckland on Tuesday.

"We were not bad children. We were abused, neglected, and left unprotected by the state and Anglican Social Services."

Janie died in 2009, age 51, from cancer, which Ms M believed was a premature death, due to the abuse.

Ms M - flanked in support by Janie's longtime partner, and a friend - thanked her late sister, whom she described as "fun-loving" and someone who "loved passionately".

"She would have stood alongside me to tell her story."