Woman abused in foster care forced to eat her own vomit

Wednesday, 15 June 2022

A witness, only identified as Ms ED, testified before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care about the abuse she experienced while in foster care as a child. Her testimony was led by counsel assisting Allan Cooke.

A woman targeted by multiple physical and sexual abusers while in care as a child says one foster mother withheld food from her for days, then force-fed her until she vomited and made her eat it.

The woman, now 49 years old, testified on Wednesday before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care into the treatment of survivors in the foster care system from 1950 to 1999.

The woman, identified only as Ms ED, was first uplifted from her parents when she was 18 months old and was in state care until she was 19 years old. She had 36 care placements, mostly in Christchurch, with different foster parents and children's homes.

When she was 9, she was placed in foster care with a couple where she was “treated like an animal”.

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“[The foster mother] was very cruel, she was physically abusive and would beat me until I was black and blue.”

Ms ED said when she wet her bed, the woman would rub her face in the wet sheets. Sometimes she would withhold food from her for days and then later force-feed her until she vomited. She was then made to eat her own vomit.

If she returned home late from Brownies, her foster mother made her sleep on the doorstep.

Ms ED often went to school with bruises, a black eye or a cut or swollen lip. The foster mother said if someone asked about it, she should say she walked into a see-saw.

Minister for the Public Service Chris Hipkins has described the decades of failures of redress for abuse in care survivors as 'a national disgrace'. (Video first published in December 2021)

Her longest placement was from the ages of 10 to 12 with a couple who forced her to call them Mum and Dad. Ms ED said the man sexually abused her and another foster child in their home.

At one point, Ms ED told her then-foster mother that one of her biological brothers had been sexually abusing her since the age of 4. The abuse, which included rape, happened whenever her brother had access to her, such as on weekends when they spent time at their parents’ home.

Ms ED said later as an adult she thought something must have happened to her brother to spark the sexual abuse he inflicted on her. “Normal 10-year-old little boys don’t rape girls.”

Ms ED said she did not hold social welfare staff responsible for what happened to her, but did criticise them for not picking up on “really strong red flags”.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care is hearing from various witnesses this week into the treatment of survivors of the foster care system from 1950 to 1999. (File photo)

“I would like an apology from the social workers that did this, that ignored this. From the foster parents that did this.”

Boy left so thirsty he drank used bathwater

Witness Stephen Paul Shaw told the inquiry he was in state care from 1955 to 1972.

Shaw was first sexually abused at the age of 3 by another foster child, a 13-year-old girl, who lived with the same foster family in Dannevirke. He was regularly beaten by his foster parents at the time.

A screenshot of Stephen Paul Shaw testifying before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care.

He suffered more physical abuse while with a foster family in Porirua. He remembers his foster father once beating him so viciously that he suffered a suspected fracture to his skull. He never received medical treatment for these injuries.

Shaw said he had a CAT scan done a few years ago which showed he had suffered several fractures in his skull and face as a child.

He was 8 years old when he was placed with a foster family in Christchurch where his foster father repeatedly sexually violated him.

“It was a constant thing the whole time I was there. There was never anyone I could tell.”

At one foster home there were strict rules about how much water the children were allowed to drink. Shaw said he would be so thirsty that he would drink the bathwater after other children had already been bathed just to quench his thirst.

He spoke about various incidents of psychological abuse, describing one incident where he was made to stand in a corner with his hands behind his back for 22 days.

“It was soul-destroying.”

Another foster couple did not allow him to go to the bathroom after bedtime, so he had to urinate on his bedroom floor during the night.

He recalled one occasion when he was 10 years old and he heard his then-foster father saying: “If we did not have that boy, we would not be able to afford our TV set.” Shaw said he was devastated to realise he was simply a source of income to his foster parents.

Shaw said he was still waiting on a personalised written apology from the minister responsible for what the Government did to him.

Associate professor Emily Keddell says while there will always be cases where children need to be removed from their immediate environment for their own safety, the report focussed largely on how to prevent the need for children to come into state care. (File photo)

People ‘need good skilled support’

Associate professor Emily Keddell and Dr Ian Hyslop, both former social workers and current academics, spoke about a report they had prepared on what needed to change in the current child protection system.

The authors said the inquiry was an opportunity to rethink the power balance between the Crown and Māori.

The current system ended up with biassed outcomes for many reasons. These included that Māori and Pasifika are more likely to live in poor communities and more likely to be reported to the system, that relative poverty is a result of history including colonisation, and that racist attitudes and beliefs can create unfair outcomes inside the child welfare system.

Keddell referred to a study done in 2019 that showed that children living in high deprivation areas were 9 times more likely to enter state care. The study also found that you have 35 times the chance of having a family conference held about your whānau if you lived in the most deprived area compared to the least deprived.

“People at risk of losing their children need good skilled support. Some people have painful histories and some people are isolated. It takes time and effort - and sometimes money - to build support systems that can last.”

The report said community organisations and iwi and hapū need to be major players in the planning and design of a state care system.

“At present there is a big gap caused by Oranga Tamariki withdrawing from responsibility and community organisations not having the resources or authority to pick up the slack.”

Hyslop and Keddell said child welfare needed to be seen as a social or public health problem rather than it being all about the behaviour of individuals.

“A new independent governing body needs to be set up to plan and implement the development of a new child and family welfare and protection system, especially for Māori. We need to take this chance because it may not come again.”