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A new documentary of the investigative journalist Aaron Smale details the abuse of hundreds of thousands of neoZelandes in service and the long shadow he throws over our nation.
In July 2023, the Royal Commission on Care Abuse Inquiry released its final report, confirming what the survivors had known a long time ago: that more than 200,000 people-children-abused, tortured or neglected while under state care or faith-based institutions in Aotearo. It was a historic milestone in a decaded struggle for truth and justice.
But how do you start telling the story of this abuse? How do you capture the scale of a system that chewed generations?
Journalist Aaron Smale, producer of the sons stolen from Aotearoa, league The task of “putting your hand in a grain silo and pulling a handful.” Your 106 -minute documentary, produced in partnership with Awa Films, does not try to offer a clean or complete summary. Instead, it provides a confronted and emotionally worn out platform for those who lived in it.
The documentary opens with survivors sharing competition and initial memories – childhood instant before the system intervene. While some speak of difficulties, there is a shared feeling that being taken in care was not only unnecessary, but deeply harmful.
The disproportionate numbers of those who are Maori were not by chance. Smale traces this violence back to its roots – not in the formation of social well -being departments, but in colonization itself. He uses the 1994 film has been Warriors as a provocation: How did Maori go from living in rural and functional communities to trauma and the displacement portrayed in that movie?
To answer this, the stolen children move through history. The British arrival. The wars. The loss of land. MAORI Participation in World War II and the effects of post -war dislocation. The late Bom Gillies, the last member of the Maori Battalion, remembers comrades returning home from Europe to a country that no longer felt like theirs – “many of them turned to Grog,” he says.
And then came the policies. Urbanization. Goods -Student interventions. Institutionalization. Abuse.
What comes up is a clear connection: colonization never ended. Simply changed shape.
One of the most attractive characteristics of the documentary is how it traces the path of state control – care, youth justice, adult prison and the mental health system. File filming emphasizes the attitudes that allowed this system to flourish, but it is the testimonies of the survivors who reach the most.
We closely follow a handful of them: led to state care as children, diverted between houses, locked, medicated, beaten, sexually assaulted. For many, it ended in gangs – not always for a feeling of belonging, but often by pain.
“I never joined the gang for the brotherhood or family,” says Milton, one of the most attractive voices in the movie. “I joined nothing but chaos and anarchy. Because now, it was time for return.”
It is a repeated pattern throughout the film: state -sanctioned trauma leads to criminalization, which leads to additional punishment.
Among the most disturbing chapters is the treatment of the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital movie. The survivors describe being subjected to electroconvulsive therapy by Selwyn Leeks, who supervised the adolescent unit in the 1970s. It is described as torture. Garlic -Porro died before he could be held responsible.
Most worrying is how normalized this abuse was, how many people look away.
The final section of the film focuses on the long and tiring struggle for justice. He covers the Royal Commission, the possible crown excuses and the frustration of survivors with the lack of tangible results.
For many, the apology sounds hollow. Since then, thousands of survivors have passed, your whānau is unlikely to receive recognition or compensation.
What justice means in this context is not always clear – but clearly is not what is on offer today.
Aotearoa’s stolen children are raw, unshakable and necessary. Smale surviving centers without sanitizing their stories, and weaves together history, testimony, and systemic criticism in a way that honors complexity without losing consistency.
There are times when the number of historic voices and layers may seem overwhelming – but perhaps that is the point. This was overwhelming. It is still.
In the end, I was shaken, angry and grateful. Grateful to those who told their stories. Grateful for the education I had – it fails as it was, it was nothing like that.
This is not an easy clock. But it is essential.
The stolen children of Aotearoa debut tonight at 8:30 pm in Whakaata Maori and will be available to see about Maori+.
This is journalism of public interest funded by New Zealand in the air.
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