Name Tania Kinita
Hometown Hawkes Bay 
Age when entered care 14 years old 
Year of birth 1971
Time in care 1985‒1989
Type of care facility Family homes, foster care.
Ethnicity Māori (Ngāti Hineuru, Ngāi Tahu, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa)
Whānau background Tania has one half-brother and four sisters.
Current Tania has five tamariki and two mokopuna.  

Ko Titiokura te maunga 
Ko Mohaka te awa 
Ko Te Haroto te Marae 
Ko Mataatua te waka 
Ko Ngāti Hineuru te iwi 
Ko Te Rangihiroa te tangata 
Raua 
Ko Kakaramea te maunga 
Ko Waikato te awa 
Ko Ohaaki te Marae 
Ko Puaharangi Manunui 
Ko Ngāti Tahu/Ngāti Whaoa te iwi
Ko Te Rama te tangata 

My whānau name was originally Kingita, but the mana of our name was altered when my whānau had to sign for wages and the employers couldn't read or pronounce our name correctly, so the 'g' was removed and our whānau carried Kinita on. There is a deep history surrounding our experiences of land confiscation, wrongful arrest and the imprisonment of my tīpuna over at the Chatham Islands. The theft of my culture and my right to te ao Māori is entrenched in my whakapapa, and this is the ancestral history load that I carry with me, or the muri kawenga that sets the scene for my experiences of abuse.

My maternal grandfather served in Turkey in WWII, and he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My mother had a strict upbringing and is a survivor of sexual assault. My father served in the war in Vietnam and suffered undiagnosed PTSD; there is also a history of sexual abuse in his generation. My mother and father parented out of this background of trauma, of mental health issues, of alcohol and drug abuse and intergenerational sexual abuse. When my mother was hapū, she wanted a son because she already had two daughters before me. I had a twin, but my mother miscarried my twin while she was hapū and this is when the disconnection between me and my mother started. This disconnection was the foundation of our relationship.

I was 14 years old when I was made a State ward. I was told that my parents no longer had any rights to me and I belonged to the Crown. This made no sense to me. I am not a piece of land.

We grew up around violence. The violence we experienced and witnessed as kids was almost always connected to alcohol. My dad would sexually abuse me when they were drunk or when my mother was working. My father was very good at instilling a type of wairua of separation between myself and my sisters, and myself and my mum. We never spoke to each other about the abuse we were suffering until eventually I built up the courage to speak to my older sisters about the abuse and tried to create a plan for us to escape. For my dad to sexually abuse us he had to essentially remove aspects of te ao Māori from our life, because he wouldn't be able to abuse us if there was wrap-around community support. He tried to put a wedge between my mother and I, so that there was no communication with her about the abuse.

I ran away with my cousin, but Social Welfare caught up with us and asked me to disclose what had happened and why I had run away from home.

I told them that what I said was not to be repeated to my mother as it would rip her to pieces. I had memorised everything about the abuse from my father. The time of day, what he was wearing, where he placed the knife that locked the door, where my mother was. So, it was quite easy to tell them. But they breached my confidentiality and sent my mother the report of everything I had disclosed, without telling me. This completely broke my trust. Reading the report, my mother tried to kill herself and then decided I was a liar.

They took me to hospital to have an internal examination and I was absolutely petrified. I had no trust or confidence in these people, and I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. A few days later they took me to court to emancipate me from my parents. I didn’t understand what was happening.

My first placement was Kingsley Family Home, run by a Māori Mormon couple. Most of the children who were placed in Kingsley were put in there because they committed a crime. This was confusing for me because the only crime I committed was running away from home and disclosing the abuse by my father. My first week in Kingsley was frightening; the social workers never explained what was happening or tried to talk to me to see how I was feeling. There was a policy at the time that stated that Māori children needed to be placed in a home that had at least one Māori caregiver. So, when I think back, I think that my placement at Kingsley was intentional. The issue with this practice is that there was nothing at the time that required Social Welfare to look at options within the child's own whānau.

After Kingsley, I was placed with a foster family and they were loving. But my social workers heard that my foster mother had struck up a relationship with my parents, and my dad wasn’t allowed access to me, so they moved me. They put me in a car with a black plastic bag filled with all my belongings and took me to my next home. You know you’re a foster kid if all your belongings can fit in a black plastic bag.

I was never part of the decision to move me, and I had all these thoughts like; Why was nobody talking to me, why can't I choose where I live, why can't I live with my Aunty, why do I have to live with strangers? When the car pulled up at the next home, my thoughts were racing – I knew the family and I didn't feel safe here. My concerns didn't matter to my social worker, he dropped me off and was on his way.

My foster father’s demeanour was imposing and intrusive. The way he sat, the way he looked at me and the way he spoke to me made me uncomfortable as a teenage girl. I remember him saying things like "You're a fox, and you love it, you love the power of knowing that men drop at your feet". This was a whole new language that I didn't understand, and I was confused by comments like this. This was also when I got my first hiding for being "too lippy".

My foster father was extremely violent and abusive. He knocked me out, pummelled my face black and blue, cracked my cheek bones, broke my nose, sprayed my blood up the walls and kicked me senseless. My social worker came to a meeting and all he said to my foster father was, “that’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?” and sent me home with him again. I completely shut down at this point. No one listened to my voice, and nobody wanted a broken teenage girl. 

My foster father constantly made comments with sexual undertones and invited older men to come to the house and spend time with me, bartering prices with these men to marry me. On one occasion a man came to our house and asked me to marry him. He was getting closer and closer in my personal space and I wanted to be left alone. I told him I was only a kid and I did not want to marry him. That night he got drunk and committed suicide. My foster father blamed me for him taking his own life and gave me a hiding. 

I felt like I could never win. I was just trying to survive being there. I could never comprehend how Social Welfare could approve those people to be paid caregivers, they were just as bad as some of the parents and homes that most of us came from.

When I turned 17, I left my foster home. I left there a shell of a human. I was dissociative, like a zombie. There was no transition plan for me, and I had no money, no understanding of how to make money or how to apply for a job. Social Welfare had located a relative who was willing to care for me, my Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie was heartbroken when he discovered that I had been in care all those years and that they didn't try to locate or notify him about my situation earlier. It broke me to know that he was always waiting and ready to care for me.

I’m aware that my foster father works in an evangelical Christian church and is part of a men’s programme. I have no words for how let down I feel, not just for me but for everyone he continues to ‘help’.

Today I’m the proud mother of five tamariki, and four pēpi in heaven who I miscarried. I have two beautiful mokopuna too. When I went on to have my own tamariki, I realised I didn’t know what a healthy family looked like. I was so used to taking care of everyone else that I didn’t know what a good mother looked like, or a good wife. I had to watch other people to see what these qualities were and teach myself.

Once I had my own children, I grew to despise my mother. I couldn’t understand how she didn’t defend us, as I would die for my tamariki. Today I have no relationship with my parents. Occasionally, I popped in to see my father before he died to see how his health was and whether he was prepared to say sorry. That day never came. 

Being made a ward of the State stripped me of all connection to my identity and the opportunity to learn reo. A true apology would be them supporting me to reconnect with my culture and funding my social work degree. This trauma has left me with a huge sense of loss. I am still fighting to decolonise myself today. The work I need to do to reconnect to my cultural identity falls on my shoulders alone.

I don’t know if the PTSD ever goes away. I have moments in the day when the monologue is not okay. I’ll get a flashback because someone looks similar to somebody. I’m extremely sensitive to noise, and children screaming is a trigger for me. The doctor said I had bipolar and needed to be on medication. Couldn’t I just be sad? I’d never given myself permission to cry and grieve. Labelling me and forcing me to take anti-psychotic drugs was not tikanga.  

Romiromi healing has been my therapy and balances my wairua and mauri, helping me to recover from the years of trauma I faced. I fight with every ounce of me that I have to heal. At 50 years old I can say that I love the life I have created for myself. I have an inner drive and strength to heal and restore my mana. I will not be another Māori statistic. I don’t know where this strength came from, but I don’t just want to survive – I want to thrive.[60]

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