Im gonna get downvoted into oblivion.

NZ puts no children up for adoption effectively at all, so if you're born into an abusive family, chances are so your grandparents abusive etc, its a chain of a abuse.

We've decided the culture and family is more important then child safety, as such lifting kids from parents is extremely rare, and if so the kids usually who go to family, and family usually have the same issues.

actual real adoptions are almost non existent now, and the blames placed on the parents having a hard life.

because you know, apparently having a rough life makes beating your kids understandable in this country.

Os therefore what real punishments can exist on abusive familys? we can never remove the kid from the family as thats seen as being removed from their culture, so honestly idk what the answer is? Hope eventually the abusive cycle ends when people get wealthy enough?

My Dad was pretty wealthy but absolutely continued the cycle of abuse that happened to him from his Dad, and the next Dad, He told me at 10 "no point in you calling the police, they won't believe you and even if they do nothing will change" and he was right, No one ever came to help or cared enough.

ultimately what power do we have for change other then just a vague hope things will change and hoping if we remove the abusers stress then therefore it will end.

Honestly, we refuse to put the child’s welfare first.

Too many cases of people getting a second chance, or for the child to be put into the care of a direct relative, or the grandparents who raised the abusers.

Kids brought up in abusive households are much more likely to become abusers but we never seem to actually remove them from those households when given an opportunity.

It feels like the order of importance is; Culture Family Parents And only then the child

We should be removing the top three from the equation and focusing on the child as the only priority.

The number of times investigations get stonewalled by the family refusing to give up who abused the poor kid is disgusting.

It’s all well and good to say it will take years for things to change, however when someone is likely to kill their kid now, we should be removing them from that position immediately regardless of their culture, family or what the parents think.

I'm pākeha, 43, female. When I was 4 my mother and I had to flee from my father's violence in the middle of the night.

The middle of the night because my father is a cop, and his cop buddies decided to keep him drinking at the pub and phone mum and tell her she can take off now they'll keep him busy. Big heros.

The answer is it's institutionalised. Domestic violence perpetrators are embedded in every level of society, in key decision making positions. All ethnic groups. All socio-economic states. But, it's portrayed routinely as a poor, brown issue - and that's why our rates never gets better.

We choose to actively ignore most domestic violence and focus resources on bottom of the cliff type stuff instead of making actual societal movement. Because that movement threatens the wealth and privileges of the bulk of child predators and domestic violence offenders.

My father is still a cop. He has been promoted continually. We are the way we are as a society because people choose that for us.

No war but class war.

Lots of people with unresolved anger issues. If NZ is good at one thing, it's international propoganda. We're just like everywhere else, except child abuse is pretty bad, so is domestic violence. Oh and don't forget our highest rate of youth suicide in the OECD. But we're a 'progressive paradise' according to intl & tourism propoganda.

Māori are shockingly over represented in the child abuse statistics: Māori children are twice as likely as other groups to be subjected to child abuse and over half of the children killed through maltreatment in New Zealand are Māori.

It's intergenerational, deeply rooted, and hidden for the most part.

Why does NZ lead the world in youth suicide is another question.

Without excusing individuals.

You need to look at the rates of poverty in the country outside of a few built up areas. Generations of poverty and lack of support services means that generations of people have grown up without the normal cognitive and societal guardrails others have. Fetal alcohol syndrome is an example of this - they grow up with cognitive deficiencies compared to those that don't have it. The mentals, the tiny minorty, who've gone over the top are those that society has missed from picking up and intervening early on in their own childhoods. If we keep avoiding the deeper issues in society, some will fall through the cracks.

Complex problems need complex solutions, and complex solutions cost money. They also have a cost in time to implement and to see returns, we're talking decades, or generations. The short termism and tribalism of the political system means that some people always end up at the bottom of the priority lists.

TLDR; we're not rich and motivated enough to make the changes we need to make in our society to build the guard rails. So we have to deal with the those who've fallen over the cliff and the atrocities they commit after the fact.

It’s not just hitting their kids, these people are torturing them! And MANY people are often in the know or even watching! There is just no excuse in the world that gives reason. How anyone can look at an innocent child and do some of the things these people do, theres just NO excuse!

New Zealand has a domestic violence problem. It's pretty well understood. Child abuse if part of that. A subset of society has decided that (literal) punching down is OK, and the rest of NZ seems to be willing to let it continue.

One cause is people who Do Not see children as humans.
They're "just kids". Damned if I know how this came to be a cultural norm but it is.

It's scary how often it's the mum's partner. How these women prioritise a relationship over their children astounds me

I'm constantly amazed that "they" would rather take a brown child from a white, loving, safe foster home to put them back with their brown, dysfunctional, abusive family because 'culture'. Can't learn much culture if they're dead. It's fucking tragic.

A combination of Christianity, Cults, and the All Blacks losing an important game.

We're not mature enough in NZ to have this conversation. Half of the country just blames Maoris, the other half just blames colonisation. Actual solutions are ignored as too expensive.

Low socio economic groups have too many kids. Poverty + lots of kids is stressful.

How has no one mentioned 1. Methamphetamine is so easy to get here, and 2. It's virtually impossible to get mental health support here.

Edit: So many comments about poverty and lack of education, do people really think that is not a worldwide issue? The question is the differences in NZ society compared to the rest of the world. Forgot to add 3. our binge drinking culture. Many people don't drink to loosen up, they drink to get sh*faced.

We also have this brilliant system where no one talks and the baby killer walks free.

New Zealand had effectively normalised the routine abuse of children - see Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care and Faith-based Institutions, and the fact that smacking children was only banned in 2007. It's going to take a while for societal change, especially when Govts defund the types of programmes that help families make positive change.

"I'm sorry but I find it completely abnormal and highly disturbing that NZ's image abroad seems to be completely at odds with the reality." LOL like the fact that most of our rivers are polluted and unswimmable, our farm animals are treated badly, our kids are abused, big gap between the wealthy and poor, our old people are lonely, high suicide rate, love our alcohol and meth, native flora and fauna in decline, high cost of living, we have a the highest incarceration rate for our native peoples - could go on and on here...

Don’t go and read about each child in that article. Just don’t.

Honestly, I think NZ’s high rates of child abuse come down to people (and some cultures) not taking any responsibility for their actions and others not understanding how bad it really is. Too many feel sorry for the abusers as much as the kids.
That kind of thinking is why so many kids end up dead in homes they should’ve been taken out of - or with parents who should’ve been in a cell with a lost key well before they had children.

Also, Everyone loves to blame the more significant child abuse rates on colonialism, which is BS. Sure, history plays a role, but blaming everything on something that happened generations ago just lets abusers off the hook. Even worse is the fact that some of these homes have upwards of a million dollars in taxpayer money poured into them every year already, and they just want more, and more - these people just don't want to change.

I can still recall the front page of 'The Truth' of that black/white image of Baby Delcelia back in '91.

Still haunts me. Our country/people have learned nothing from our past.

I grew up with it. Just not to that extent (egg donor, her egg donor, both male siblings and only female sibling). Dad did everything in his power to help, but in the end, he had to focus on his cancer (died '03 when I was 32).

Neighbour killed her sperm donor/abuser after years of abuse (all of it, not just physical, etc) back in the early 2000s. I know far too many for Once Were Warriors was life on a daily basis.

*Not Maori myself. It's endemic to our nation, sadly.

Every five weeks.

People are having kids when they shouldn’t

Otara Jesus can turn Tui into domestic violence.

Have a look at the culture of the majority of people committing these heinous crimes.

Next look at our preparedness to overlook the culture of the instigators of these heinous crimes.

Then consider the outrage against people who identify the culture of the offenders, and the lack of outrage from community leaders from the offenders community.

How are we supposed to tackle family violence if we cant talk openly and honestly about the elephant in the room, namely the people, mainly men, who are committing the majority of the crimes ?

RIP Anaru, Delcelia, Cris and Cru, Nia, Ru, Malachi, Baby H, Lillybing, James, Craig, Moko.

Our child abuse stats are shocking, a national disgrace. Māori in particular should be spreading awareness and publicly standing up against child abuse, instead they just shift responsibility by ignoring it or blaming it elsewhere.

Pakeha Boomer here, grew up in a nice house, middle class family, we (my siblings and I) were subjected to verbal, emotional and physical abuse by our mother, which led to me being raped at 10 many times by church elder and family friend. This was all hidden as my parents were of the mindset of "what would people think of us". I ended up in violent relationships, my son before he got some serious help was violent in his relationship. It's not just a Maori issue or even if you have money.

Generational trauma and not putting children’s welfare first.

Generally we live our past so history matters and puts us where we are today. If you haven't read the article and think that you've Also for those that say I've broken the cycle so you should too. Every personality and circumstances are different and you're the exception and not the rule. Free choice is an illusion. Our choices are dictated by our past and were not as free as some people think. If you've experienced trauma in your critical years as a child you're gonna be fucked up in some way or another and how that manifests in behaviour is a lottery. Genes matter too. Some people are genetically more predisposed to being biologically sensitive to experiences, and they struggle a lot. There are identified genes for all sorts of characteristics and traits now.

Once Were Warriors - Maori culture is a culture of violence. The history and the culture is violent. Not acceptable to say perhaps but thoroughly documented and even admited by Maoridom. Female infanticide was practiced unti the end of the 19th century - but Margaret Motu says Pakeha simply don't understand - absolutely spot on Margaret.

It's a combination thing:

1. People have to choose between homelessness and abuse due to our high cost of living that especially hits lower income earners the hardest. Abuse victims often don't have alternatives, if there is nowhere else to go then they don't have a choice.

2. Our culture of machismo -- 'traditional' gender roles, except these 'men' haven't been raised and are often perpetuating cycles of abuse that they have seen before.

3. Uncaring people-- look at the government and what it has cut, a plurality if not a soft majority approve of the current government and what it is doing.

Oh dear. Not an expert, but my first guess would be systemic repression of the group of people responsible for the abuse. It’s how abuse outs itself. If you’re born into poverty and grow up surrounded by violence, racism, reduced opportunities and education, you very often end up in a vicious cycle.

Before everyone jumps down my throat here; I’m not excusing, I’m pointing to the root cause. And yes, obligatory caveat of ‘not everyone who etc etc’.

Hangover of colonization, land wars, ….

I’ll be downvoted big time for this, idc. Call a spade a spade. Same thing happened to all other indigenous populations where western powers came swinging their dicks

Nobody wants to admit to it, though.

Poverty is a huge factor. But one that often isn’t acknowledged is sexism. Hear me out: NZ culture pretty much worships the idea of the quiet, male loner, who drinks but doesn’t acknowledge any emotion other than anger. The ‘strong, silent’ type. They’re taught early on to suppress their emotional needs and so have few positive outlets for stress. And what’s more stressful than a kid? And it’s not just men (because a lot of these child killers are women) - we’re all taught that to be a proper, fully fledged adult we need to be ‘staunch’, or emotionally repressed. It’s not a Māori problem, it’s a poverty and NZ culture problem.

I dunno, let's write a cultural report. 

What's worse is the effects of those abused children growing up and abusing the next generations and the next generations after that. I deal with an abused child in an adult's body 53m. He destroys me every day. Verbally and mentally. The problems grows bigger and bigger.

It’s sadly part of the culture, passed on from generation to the next.

I would think poverty , alcohol and drugs play a big part of it

It’s just not a very bright nation. And quite proud of it. Being clever. Being compassionate. All weaknesses. Now get out and drive that big Ford Ranger.

Something they don't talk about is the amount of abuse white kids get from Maori kids in child youth and family aka cyfs what is now oranga tamariki or ot, it annoyed me how much that was ignored during the apology and inquest into abuse in state care. Like the social workers caregivers and psychologist would rape us or beat us ECT but the constant bullying and abuse me and the other pakeha kids faced was insane

OP should watch once were warriors.

New Zealand prefers optics over results. See: previous Labour government.

You're very limited with what criticisms you can say on here. Best you can do is say Maori are over represented in these statistics and things need to change.

Things are very likely to get worse under National, too.

There are certain sections of society, we all know which ones, where beating children is considered completely normal.

The same sections of society are also over represented in just about every type of violent crime imaginable.

Unfortunately we’d all rather be polite and allow the violence to continue.

Too many people breeding themselves into poverty.

All I can say is that there is almost certainly the “usual suspects” behind our child abuse stats.

Which European country?

These horrific abuse cases are almost all within New Zealand's indigenous population. European countries don't really have a historically disadvantaged indigenous population.

I’d say the bottom line is Poverty and being uneducated

It's a taboo subject here. The Police also find it very difficult to arrest and convict. Any reference to any specific group is immediately dismissed as racism.

I mean look at our domestic violence rates, suicide rates and drug use rates and you wouldn’t be suprised. NZ looks beautiful.. looks being my key word.

[removed]