New Zealand’s inquiry into systemic abuse follows 2 decades of similar probes worldwide

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand is the latest country to wrestle with its history of the cruel, systemic and commonplace abuse of children and vulnerable adults in the care of state and faith-based institutions.

Its six-year independent inquiry, presented to Parliament on Wednesday, also considered mistreatment of children in foster care and vulnerable adults. The authors said it is the widest-ranging exploration of abuse and neglect of people in care ever conducted worldwide. They decried the widespread abuse and neglect of hundreds of thousands of people in care between 1950 and 1999 as a “national disgrace” and made 138 recommendations.

Previous New Zealand governments had resisted holding such an inquiry.

Other countries have conducted similar investigations over the past two decades. Among them:

— Australia held two recent inquiries into the abuse of children and disabled people. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse ran from 2012-2017 and scrutinized public, church and private institutions — including child care, cultural, educational, religious, sporting and other organizations. Then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison made an emotional public apology in 2018 for the systemic sexual abuse of children in Australia. A second Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability operated from 2019-2023, examining mistreatment of disabled people in all areas of society.

— Two decades earlier, Australia investigated its systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families in the report “Bringing Them Home,” which followed a national inquiry from 1995-1997 into the so-called Stolen Generations of young Aboriginal people and Torres Strait