Global News Podcast - Almost one in three people in care abused in New Zealand

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

A public inquiry finds 200,000 people suffered abuse over the past 70 years. The prime minister, Christopher Luxon, called it "a dark and sorrowful day in the country's history". Māoris and people with disabilities were particularly affected. The publication follows a six-year investigation. Also: Typhoon Gaemi is battering Taiwan with powerful winds and torrential rain, and Janet Jackson on growing up in one of music's most famous families.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 13 hours GMT on Wednesday the 24th of July.

An inquiry in New Zealand finds nearly a third of people in care were abused over the past 70 years. Taiwan is hit by Typhoon Gemi. And a plane has crashed in Nepal. Only the pilot survived. Also in the podcast, as Benjamin Netanyahu visits the US, the mother of a hostage calls on the Israeli Prime Minister to do a deal to free the captives in Gaza. I'm not losing hope at any point, but these are critical moments. I'm asking and hoping that our prime minister's commitment to this will be his first priority.

And how the leg of a surfer washed up on a beach after a shark attack. But first to a shocking statistic from New Zealand. Nearly a third of people in care over the past seven decades were abused. A public inquiry found that 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults had experienced some form of abuse in state and faith-based institutions from 1950 onwards, with the indigenous Maori community particularly badly affected. The victims suffered rape, sterilisation and electric shocks. Here are some of the survivors who came forward. I didn't remember my abuse until I was an adult and started getting flashbacks.

And that was very traumatic. Just the trauma of the memories of abuse, they live with you all the time. It's the start of healing with everything that's happened over the last six years. And hopefully the government will listen and change. And it's just the start of the journey for many. For decades they told us we made it up. So that's today as historic and acknowledges all the survivors that have been courageous and strong enough to share their stories and come on board.

The New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon apologised on behalf of the state. Thank you for your exceptional strength, your incredible courage and also your confronting honesty. I cannot take away your pain but I can tell you this, today you are heard and you are believed. The state was supposed to care for you, to protect you, but instead it subjected you to unimaginable physical, emotional, mental and sexual abuse. This is a dark and sorrowful day in New Zealand's history. I heard more about the scandal from our correspondent Katie Watson. There were 655,000 people in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019.

200,000 of those were abused, even more were neglected. 2,300 survivors came forward and the abuse, as you've mentioned that was rape there was sterilization electric shocks there was also people who were denied basic necessities such as privacy clothing and food so there was a whole catalogue of abuses that has taken six years Royal Commission it's the highest level of inquiry in New Zealand. And of course, these dreadful, dreadful findings. The report says the indigenous community suffered more than most. Did it explain why? That's right. It singled out that the indigenous Maori community also were, they faced racism, also cultural neglect. Many were unable to speak their own

language. Certainly, there was a predominance of those who were disabled who were also singled out in the report. I mean, this was a huge amount of abuse among the population of those who were in care, the children, young people, vulnerable adults, but certainly the indigenous Mara community were particularly at risk. The report covers the period 1950 to 2019. So until relatively recently, it also says the abuse peaked in the 70s. So have things now changed? Well, things like electric shock therapy, that was something that really peaked in the 1970s. I mean, this report looked at up until 2019. So really recently. But of course, we've heard from the Prime Minister saying that

this now needs to be taken seriously. And obviously, that he has apologised. It's going to be a formal apology in November. There are also a huge amount of recommendations, 138 recommendations that the report has asked for. So that's what we're going to see. And these include compensation. The government's already acknowledged that the compensation could be billions of dollars. And it's also asked for public apologies, not just from the government, but also from different religious organisations. So the Pope and the Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Church. This is a wide ranging inquiry that's pinpointed a lot of problems right at the top of organisations. And it's asking for those apologies.

Now, you mentioned compensation, but might there be prosecutions? Well, I mean, the Prime Minister said that they're going to be talking to survivors groups and obviously taking the next steps and compensation is obviously one of the biggest issues for the survivors. So this is going to open up a huge amount of reflection of legal processes and, of course, a huge amount of pain of legal processes and of course a huge amount of pain to go through and those apologies. So the next few months and years of course will be a very difficult time for New Zealand. Katie Watson talking to me from Sydney. As we record this

podcast Taiwan has been hit by its strongest typhoon in nearly a decade. The storm made landfall on the northeast of the island, bringing heavy rain and high winds. Forecasters say central areas of Taiwan could have more than a metre of rain. Before the typhoon arrived, these fishermen in the northeast secured their boats. I'm very nervous. No typhoon has landed here in the past eight years. So I quickly came to tie up my boat. I'm very nervous. No typhoon has landed here in the past eight years, so I quickly came to tie up my boat. I'm very worried.

I came over to the boat because the tide had moved it. I need to tie it up again. Shortly before we recorded the podcast, we got an update from Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in the Taiwanese capital. We understand the typhoon has now come ashore on the east coast, the northeast coast of Taiwan, about 50 miles away from where I'm standing. So over there, over the mountains behind me here, they are already experiencing very destructive winds. I've seen some recent video taken in the last hour with gusts that look like they're well over 100 miles an hour in the streets of Elan, which is a city over the other side of the mountains on the east coast. There have already been reports of lots of trees being brought down by the strong winds. And

indeed, we have now got the first report of one death of someone who was riding their motorcycle. And very sadly, a tree came down and hit them and killed them. So clearly it is very dangerous to be outside along the east coast of Taiwan already this afternoon. The storm is going to move across the island later today and into tonight. And indeed, it's expected to come right over the top of the capital here in Taipei. You can see the conditions here. It's raining heavily. We're getting gusts of winds,

but this is expected to get a lot stronger in the next few hours. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Taiwan. A plane has crashed on takeoff at Kathmandu International Airport in Nepal. Footage from the scene showed wreckage on fire in a grassy area below the runway while black smoke pours into the air. Police say 18 people on board died, with only the pilot surviving. Ram Kumar witnessed the crash. I was inside a shop when the plane accident occurred. There was a very loud noise. It sounded like maybe a truck had overturned on the road. We ran after we saw the

crash. The plane then hit the ground and caught fire. We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion so we ran away again. Nepal has a reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the world for air travel thanks to its mountainous terrain and the use of small planes to reach remote areas. I got an update from Sanjaya Dhaka from the BBC Nepali service in Kathmandu. This morning at the local time 11 minutes past 11 an airline scaring 19 people crashed immediately after takeoff from the airport in Kathmandu. 18 bodies have been recovered so far according to the Civil Aviation Authority and the captain was rescued and has been taken to hospital. Do we know about what happened? Did the

plane actually get off the runway before crashing? According to the officials of the Saudi Airlines, it is a private airline that operates in the domestic sector of Nepal. It was doing an annual maintenance check mission and was carrying its staffs and technicians. And immediately after takeoff, it crashed. It was headed towards Pokhara, but the accident happened minutes after the takeoff in Kathmandu airport. It crashed just near the airport. And this is just the latest in a series of aviation accidents that has affected Nepal over the years.

That is correct. This is the fourth fatal accident in the last five years in Kathmandu, in Nepal. And if you talk about past accidents, Nepal has been quite prone to air accidents. And since 1946, there have been nearly 70 accidents and that has led to nearly 900 deaths. The BBC's Sanjay Dakkal in Kathmandu. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to be given the rare honour of addressing a joint session of the US Congress in Washington in the next few hours. But back home in Israel, he remains under enormous pressure from the relatives of hostages

still being held in Gaza. They urged him not to travel until he'd sealed a deal with Hamas for the captive's release. Last week, some of the families published photos of their loved ones before and during their ordeal. Ayelet Levi Shachar is desperate to bring her 20-year-old daughter Nama home. She spoke to Barbara Pletusha. She's a girl of values, a peace seeker, and she's a good sister to her siblings. She's a good daughter, although she likes to fight with her mom, which just means that she's very normal. I think she's very strong. Your face lights up when you talk about her. I miss her very much,

and I worry, but when I talk about her, it's like she's here with me, and of course I love her. Tell me about releasing the photos now of her and some of the other young women who are in captivity. This is a part of the frames from a film that was taken by the Hamas somewhere in the very beginning after the kidnapping. He decided to publish it and to show this to the world, especially in this very critical moment of negotiation. This is the most important point that we have arrived at for closing a deal in order to save

them. So are you hopeful then? Yes. I'm not losing hope at any point, but these are critical moments. The prime minister is going to the United States and asked if you'd come along on his plane, and you said you would not accompany the prime minister on his plane. Why is that? I just feel that the focus right now is on the talks and on the negotiations and on getting this deal sealed and bringing our hostages back home. I just think this is not the right time for this. Do you think it might lead to a delay on this issue? It might lead to a delay. It might lead to a distraction. I'm asking and hoping that our prime minister's commitment to this will be his first priority. How important do you think the U.S. role is? I think the U.S. plays a critical role in the negotiations. They're reaching the point of breaking a deal. Both sides are coming closer with their demands.

And, you know, even saying that, it sounds wrong to me because how can you be talking about demands when you're talking about my daughter's life? We are over nine months, so I'm actually feeling desperate. It has to happen. It has to happen. Ayelet Levi-Shachar talking to Barbara Platascha. The authorities in Australia have praised the efforts of an off-duty policeman whose quick thinking might have saved the life of a surfer

and possibly his leg after a shark attack. The 23-year-old man is in a serious but stable condition in hospital. His leg was severed while he was surfing on Australia's east coast. Sean Wales has the story. Kai McKenzie was surfing at Port Macquarie, 400km north of Sydney, when on Tuesday he was brutally attacked by a great white shark. He managed to catch a wave to shore, but his leg had been completely severed. Thankfully for the surfer, an off-duty policeman was walking his dog on the beach at the time.

He used the dog's lead to form a tourniquet, stemming the bleeding from Kai McKenzie's leg before he was taken to hospital. As for the severed part of the surfer's leg, it has now been retrieved after washing up on the beach and has also been taken to hospital where doctors are assessing whether it might be possible to reattach it. A fundraiser to support his recovery has already raised 60,000 US dollars. The sponsored surfer had only recently returned to the ocean. He posted on social media that he had fractured his neck earlier in the year. Four people were killed by sharks in Australia last year. The majority of shark attack incidents occur in remote or regional areas.

Sean Wales. And still to come on the Global News Podcast. No, my first name ain't baby. It's Janet. Miss Jackson, if you're nasty. And still to come on the Global News Podcast... Janet Jackson on growing up in one of music's most famous families. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. The Ethiopian government has sent a disaster response team to a site where two landslides killed more than 200 people. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the team would help coordinate operations there. The government plans to evacuate people living in the surrounding area due to the risk of more landslides.

Paul Hansley is the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ethiopia. So look, I mean, on Sunday, there was a first landslide that affected this district, Gopha district in southern Ethiopia, burying a number of houses, including three families. And then on Monday, as rescue efforts were underway, an even bigger landslide buried a far greater area. The death toll as it stands is around 229. A number of people have been rescued and there's at least 12 people injured in hospital. The government and partners have dispatched a number of relief items and further teams to conduct more assessments today. That includes assistance in terms of food and medical items and water and sanitation.

The government's also establishing an incident command post under the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission, which we're embedding staff to assist with. I spoke a short while ago with one of my colleagues on the ground who was telling me one of the biggest concerns now is for the more than 10,000 people who live in these two communities that have been affected by this landslide who need to move off the area there as concerns still about the stability of the slope as the rains are continuing. Let's look at the more than 10,000 people who you say need to be moved. Is there a sense of where they could be moved to? So we're working together with the local authorities on that to

ensure that they can be out of harm's way and provided with the assistance they need. We're also trying to support the government with international expertise to look at the stability of the slope and to make sure that people are not going back prematurely. I think the other thing to say, though, is that Ethiopia is a country that's regularly affected by extremes of the weather. I mean, already this year, we're responding to a drought emergency, as well as the impacts of conflict, where we're trying to assist 15 million people together with the government for a drought that was driven by the El Nino effect last year, trying to, we've been trying to mobilize over $3 billion, a response that's woefully underfunded. And now with the extremes of rain coming, we also see more of the, expect more of these

kind of emergencies to continue. How are the recovery efforts coming along? So the government has deployed teams. I think, sadly, with landslides, it's uncommon to find large numbers of people alive, unlike in an earthquake situation. The first responders were, of course, the local community and the local authorities. This is a remote area in a mountainous part of southern Ethiopia. So also getting heavy earth moving equipment into the area has been quite a challenge, particularly given the condition of the roads. Paul Handley, UN humanitarian coordinator for

Ethiopia, talking to Victoria Uwankunda. A choice between fear and hate, that is the argument Kamala Harris is making as she appeals for Americans to vote for her in November's presidential election. She addressed supporters in the battleground state of Wisconsin on her first official rally since becoming the de facto Democratic candidate. Just look at how we are running our campaigns. So Donald Trump is relying on support from billionaires and big corporations. On the other hand, we are running a people powered campaign. And we just had some breaking news. We just had the best 24 hours...

APPLAUSE ..of grassroots fundraising in presidential campaign history. Well, in its most recent update, the Harris campaign said it had raised $126 million so far. Donations are important to both the Democratic and Republican parties, and a lot of time and effort goes into fundraising, as well as wooing big business and industry figures to boost funding. Thad Kousa is a professor of political science at the University of California.

He's been talking to our business reporter, Sean Farrington. Well, what we've seen in the past 24 hours with Kamala Harris's record-breaking call, that was fueled by donations from 880,000 individual Americans, so nearly a million people have given to this campaign. That's different from both where Donald Trump has been raising his money, but also different from where the Biden-Harris campaign raised their money so far. So each campaign has raised nearly half a billion dollars, if you include both the direct contributions that they've gotten and the outside money going through groups that we call super PACs. And those have really relied on big donors, big businesses, large billionaires like Donald Trump's number one

donors, but also major venture capital firms who are two of the three biggest donors to what was then the Biden-Harris campaign. What Kamala Harris really bragged about in the last couple of days has been her shift towards a smaller set of grassroot donors giving smaller amounts, but much more active, much larger number of people. And do you think, will the donor picture change at all for the Republican Party now and for Donald Trump now that it's looking like it's going to be Kamala Harris that he's up against? Well, Donald Trump has been an incredible fundraiser this year. Joe Biden came into the campaign with a big edge in money, right, as incumbents often do. But as Donald Trump's campaign took fire, he used everything that drove his campaign,

all of the court appearances, his convictions even, he used those as fundraising opportunities and was able to raise, I believe, $130 million in the last quarter. So he's really caught up and actually now has a slight lead on Kamala Harris. And a lot of that is because he's been using the attention that he captures constantly in American politics to also galvanise a large set of small donors. Thad Koussa, Professor of Political Science. King Charles has never hidden his passion for the environment. As heir to the throne, he was well known for campaigning on green issues. Now he is the British monarch, he seems determined to make the royal operations a

bit more eco-friendly, with a number of initiatives revealed in the Crown's latest financial report, as I heard from our royal correspondent, Johnny Diamond. It's important to note this is part of a long process, because not just the current king when he was Prince of Wales, but also the late Queen's husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, have both for decades been going on about greenery, environmentalism, waste consumption, etc, etc. And so the stuff that we got this year, which is, you know, it's nibbling at the edges, it's about sort of putting cars with sustainable fuel and putting some solar panels up and stuff like that. It really is part of a piece. It is just notable. And it marks up the fact that environmentalism probably has its most senior and active defender in its most influential position

being the king not just of the United Kingdom, but what, another 14 or so realms. And every time there is an announcement like this, you are reminded of the king's position and his beliefs. I did, though, see one suggestion that the royal household is going to get two new helicopters. Is there a contradiction there? Or is that just the way they need to get around? Look, some people will see a contradiction in their energy intense lifestyle. Let's not beat about the bush, helicopters, chartering planes, a train of their own, you know, all of that stuff that they would argue enables them to do the job they do, which is relatively active and mobile head of state or head of states and any pledge towards environmentalism some

people will see a complete contradiction in those two positions other people feel that it's fairly easy to justify if you're going to go and spread the word and do the job you do so clearly the compromise for the king has been i will continue broadly, in the manner to which I am accustomed, but I will do everything I can to make sure that in every action that the household, the palace, the crown carries out, it's as green as possible. So those two new helicopters, yes, they replaced two old helicopters, which makes them, I guess, more efficient, but they're also able to take a lot more sustainable aviation fuel. You know, this stuff is thought about and has been thought about hard

by both the king and the people around him now for decades. Our royal correspondent, Johnny Diamond. Janet Jackson, the youngest of the most successful family in show business, has revealed she abandoned dance classes as a child and became self-taught after abuse from teachers. The singer is in the middle of a world tour celebrating a career spanning five decades. She's been talking to our music correspondent, Mark Savage. I started when I was seven. I don't ever remember being asked. I just remember doing it. She is the youngest child of the Jackson family, but Janet never intended to

become a musician. In fact, she told her father that she wanted to be a horse racing jockey or a lawyer. But after turning Michael into a megastar, Joe Jackson had other ideas. We had a studio at home growing up and I had written my first song when I was nine years old. Can you sing it? De-de-da-de-da, de-de-da-de-da, de-de-da-de-da, fantasy, something like that. And I played everything on it, and I sang on it. Left the team and went to school the next morning. Came home from school, and I hear the song that I had just put down being played. I was so embarrassed.

And then my father said, you're going to sing. And I said, no, no, I want to go to college and study business law. And he said, no. And when your dad decided something, you couldn't deny him, right? It was kind of hard, because he, I mean, look at where he let my brothers. When I was 17, I did what people told me. I did what my father said and let my mother mold me. By the age of 18, Janet was making music on her own

and rivaling her brother Michael as one of pop's best dancers. And surprisingly, she was entirely self-taught. Mother tried when I was very little, putting me in ballet. And my teacher, she hit me. I was young, I was little, maybe four, five. So Mother took me out. Years later, when I was 14, she put me into a private class. And my instructor got a little too close to me and I felt very uncomfortable.

So I never really studied. Shy and reserved as a child, her confidence grew when she hit the recording studio. You've come up with a line that's stuck with you through your whole career. My first name ain't baby, it's Janet. No, my first name ain't baby, it janet no my first name ain't baby it's janet miss jackson these guys started harassing my friend and i and i was really really bothered and really upset so that's how the whole song nasty came about it was your response to them yeah and i think it's a difficult thing in this industry to be, particularly in the 80s, an assertive woman.

What were the barriers you came up against? Oh, God. In the industry, worse than anything, being told, no, you're a girl, you can't do that, girls don't do that. More than once. What sort of thing? One of the songs that they were hesitant about was Together Again. Why so?

I think it was because of the era of AIDS and all that was surrounding it. But, you know, I had lost a lot of friends and a lot of people that I knew to it and I wanted to write. It was heavily on my mind. And she's written other songs about political and social issues,

covering everything from racism and poverty to school shootings. Looking back now, are you discouraged that we're still talking about the same issues? I know, it's crazy, isn't it? It's sad. Just thinking about a lyric in Scream. Oh my God, can't believe what I saw as I turned on the TV. This evening, I was disgusted by all the injustice. Have we made some strides? Yeah, I think we definitely have. But there's still so much further to go. That message is woven into her current tour,

and Janet hopes fans leave the shows inspired. Feeling that, OK, even if you made a difference in one person's life, that's success. Janet Jackson was talking to Mark Savage. That's all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Alicia Thursting and produced by Tracy Gordon. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts.

But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Thank you.