'I don't want their voices silenced': Last surviving sibling speaks at Abuse in Care hearing
Thursday, 10 March 2022
Content warning: This story discusses various types of abuse.
He was just four years old when he could hear his sister “screaming and crying” as she was sexually abused by her foster brother.
He was too small to reach the door handle and enter the room, “so he sat outside the door and cried”.
“He did this for two years.”
That’s what Tumohe Clarke told the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care on Thursday about the experience of two of his five siblings.
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Speaking in person, and via a pre-recorded video interview, Clarke recounted experiences he and his siblings had while in care.
He’s the only sibling still alive, so said he wanted to share his, and their, stories.
“We represent those who have joined the stars,” he said.
“My greatest desire is that we give voice to my seniors and juniors, those who did not live to provide their voice.”
Clarke (Ngāti Hauā and Ngāti Korokī Kahukura) was speaking on the fourth day of a two-week inquiry into the Māori experiences of abuse in state care between 1950 and 1999.
In one foster home, his sister – aged eight at the time - “was continually sexually assaulted” by her then 18-year-old foster brother, he said.
When the abuse was discovered by the 18-year-old’s mother, it was his sister that “got in trouble”.
“Even though we are separated, we can never forget,” he said.
“I don’t want their voices to be silenced and lost forever.”
Clarke’s journey into the state system, and that of his siblings, began in 1968 when his parents were institutionalised.
He said his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and, while he didn’t believe his father was as unwell as his mother, he was kept with her as he believed he “wouldn’t survive without her”, he said.
Clarke described harrowing incidents between foster placements, boarding schools and institutions, including the Mother Day gift of a cordless jug - “so to not get beaten by the cord”.
He also described the only time he cried in care: when the woman charged with looking after him was “cursing me with all the foul things she thought of my mother”.
He said that woman turned to psychological abuse only after her repeated beatings appeared not to affect him.
Clarke also spoke about the sexual abuse he suffered, from someone he described as a well known individual.
“The hard part was being forced into silence over it.”
He said he learned a lesson then too.
“Nobody listens to the children. And that needs to stop,” he said. “Listen to the children, there might be something in it.”
As well as the physical, sexual and psychological abuse, there was malnutrition.
“Oliver Twist? They saw nothing. We’re not talking about asking for more, we’re talking about asking for anything,” he said.
“We went to school hungry, came home hungry.”
He said this experience taught his siblings to steal, cheat, lie and hide food. Later, alcohol abuse became a coping mechanism for some.
Clarke also revealed some ways the abuse still haunts his every day life.
He is unemployed, but won’t take a benefit and is living off dwindling savings.
“I don’t trust being under that system,” he said. “I would rather die from poverty than accept their help.”
As he ended his testimony, Clarke said he had one other reason for speaking too, apart from giving voice to his siblings.
“It might help whānau of the future.”
Speaking to Stuff via phone in the wake of the hearing, Clarke said at times he didn’t believe he would survive long enough himself to share the story of his and his siblings experiences.
He said the process offered “closure, not so much on behalf of myself, but closure for those who didn’t survive physically”.