ECT Consent Project | Melanie’s Story

Hon Jacinda Arden PM of New Zealand

I would like NZ to respect their obligations to the UN Convention Against Torture. We want an independent and impartial investigation of our cases. We want a public and unreserved apology. We want public acknowledgement of what occurred. We want a Royal Commission or Commission of Inquiry that is independent, impartial, open and public (we don’t want our histories buried by a government in damage control which forms the CLAS which is forbidden from making a public or ministerial comment). Yes, shockingly we want what was afforded to institutional abuse survivors in every other commonwealth jurisdiction – an inquiry that acknowledges and validates our trauma  We want to protect future generations of children from the monsters we encountered as children through policies and law. With public knowledge comes public accountability. Thus, we want a public inquiry. Your government through the CLAS has engaged in a cynical cover-up  We want adequate redress for the carnage that the abuse caused. We want access to the courts where the State doesn’t invoke the statute of limitations defences. Basically,  all political smoke and mirrors aside, we want NZ to respect its obligations to the UNCAT. Until then we will keep fighting. The NZ state abused me once- shame on you. But to abuse me twice – shame on me. Isn’t going to happen and we aren’t going away until we get meaningful justice. And the NZ Governments inaction to do anything meaningful about it. We have never been offered any rehab to get over the trauma we where put through and the govt has spent in excess of 20 million on lawyers fighting us at the UN and making it as difficult as they can to prevent us having our say

and as for the NZ Police investigation and then their apology for overlooking an eyewitness to at least one case and so Dr Selwyn Leeks could have been brought to justice for the torture and sexual abuse he put us threw I escaped lake Alice and lived in fear like an escaped criminal from 15 till I was 36 and found out the place had been closed down my whole life was stolen by being put into lake Alice as a ward of the state I still have vivid nightmares even today which affects my whole family I have permanent memory loss and cognitive problems due to all the ECT most while I was awake and naked locked in a cell with nothing but a bucket for a toilet and you say all NZers have an equal chance at life!  So I rot on an invalids benefit because ACC refuse to recognize ECT as medical misadventure and never had access to get treatment for this as most MPs have selective memory as well here is so info 

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/11/16/325081/inquirys-filings-will-lead-to-royal-omission

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/11/glimmer-of-hope-for-lake-alice-state-abuse-survivors.html

https://www.facebook.com/groups/190198281412498/

TV3 Documentary "Let Us Spray" -- Censored from New Zealand Television

I still have speech problems 11 years after ECT

ECT Destroys Lives

ECT: Please Watch Before Undergoing Electroconvulsive Therapy

Both NZ National and Labour Partys Fails to comply with UN ruling over torture of children

United Nations

CAT/C/GC/3



Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment

Distr.: General

13 December 2012



Original: English



Committee against Torture

 General comment No. 3 (2012)

 Implementation of article 14 by States parties

1. This general comment explains and clarifies to States parties the content and scope
of the obligations under article 14 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Each State party is required to “ensure in
its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable
right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as
possible.” The Committee considers that article 14 is applicable to all victims of torture and
acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (hereafter “ill-treatment”)
without discrimination of any kind, in line with the Committee’s general comment No. 2.

2. The Committee considers that the term “redress” in article 14 encompasses the
concepts of “effective remedy” and “reparation”. The comprehensive reparative concept
therefore entails restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of
non-repetition and refers to the full scope of measures required to redress violations under
the Convention.

3. Victims are persons who have individually or collectively suffered harm, including
physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of
their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that constitute violations of the
Convention. A person should be considered a victim regardless of whether the perpetrator
of the violation is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted, and regardless of any
familial or other relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. The term “victim” also
includes affected immediate family or dependants of the victim as well as persons who
have suffered harm in intervening to assist victims or to prevent victimization. The term
“survivors” may, in some cases, be preferred by persons who have suffered harm. The
Committee uses the legal term “victims” without prejudice to other terms which may be
preferable in specific contexts.

4. The Committee emphasizes the importance of victim participation in the redress
process, and that the restoration of the dignity of the victim is the ultimate objective in the
provision of redress.

5. The obligations of States parties to provide redress under article 14 are two-fold:
procedural and substantive. To satisfy their procedural obligations, States parties shall enact
legislation and establish complaints mechanisms, investigation bodies and institutions,
including independent judicial bodies, capable of determining the right to and awarding
redress for a victim of torture and ill-treatment, and ensure that such mechanisms and


bodies are effective and accessible to all victims. At the substantive level, States parties
shall ensure that victims of torture or ill-treatment obtain full and effective redress and
reparation, including compensation and the means for as full rehabilitation as possible.

 Substantive obligations: the scope of the right to redress

6. As stated in paragraph 2 above, redress includes the following five forms of
reparation: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-
repetition. The Committee recognizes the elements of full redress under international law
and practice as outlined in the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy
and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and
Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (Basic Principles and Guidelines).1
Reparation must be adequate, effective and comprehensive. States parties are reminded that
in the determination of redress and reparative measures provided or awarded to a victim of
torture or ill-treatment, the specificities and circumstances of each case must be taken into
consideration and redress should be tailored to the particular needs of the victim and be
proportionate to the gravity of the violations committed against them. The Committee
emphasizes that the provision of reparation has an inherent preventive and deterrent effect
in relation to future violations.

 1 United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims
of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International
Humanitarian Law, General Assembly resolution 60/147.

7. Where State authorities or others acting in their official capacity have committed,
know or have reasonable grounds to believe that acts of torture or ill-treatment have been
committed by non-State officials or private actors and failed to exercise due diligence to
prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish such non-State officials or private actors in
accordance with the Convention, the State bears responsibility for providing redress for the
victims (general comment No. 2).

 Restitution

8. Restitution is a form of redress designed to re-establish the victim’s situation before
the violation of the Convention was committed, taking into consideration the specificities of
each case. The preventive obligations under the Convention require States parties to ensure
that a victim receiving such restitution is not placed in a position where he or she is at risk
of repetition of torture or ill-treatment. In certain cases, the victim may consider that
restitution is not possible due to the nature of the violation; however the State shall provide
the victim with full access to redress. For restitution to be effective, efforts should be made
to address any structural causes of the violation, including any kind of discrimination
related to, for example, gender, sexual orientation, disability, political or other opinion,
ethnicity, age and religion, and all other grounds of discrimination.

 Compensation

9. The Committee emphasizes that monetary compensation alone may not be sufficient
redress for a victim of torture and ill-treatment. The Committee affirms that the provision of
monetary compensation only is inadequate for a State party to comply with its obligations
under article 14.

10. The right to prompt, fair and adequate compensation for torture or ill-treatment
under article 14 is multi-layered and compensation awarded to a victim should be sufficient
to compensate for any economically assessable damage resulting from torture or ill-
treatment, whether pecuniary or non-pecuniary. This may include: reimbursement of


medical expenses paid and provision of funds to cover future medical or rehabilitative
services needed by the victim to ensure as full rehabilitation as possible; pecuniary and
non-pecuniary damage resulting from the physical and mental harm caused; loss of
earnings and earning potential due to disabilities caused by the torture or ill-treatment; and
lost opportunities such as employment and education. In addition, adequate compensation
awarded by States parties to a victim of torture or ill-treatment should provide for legal or
specialist assistance, and other costs associated with bringing a claim for redress.

 Rehabilitation

11. The Committee affirms that the provision of means for as full rehabilitation as
possible for anyone who has suffered harm as a result of a violation of the Convention
should be holistic and include medical and psychological care as well as legal and social
services. Rehabilitation, for the purposes of this general comment, refers to the restoration
of function or the acquisition of new skills required as a result of the changed circumstances
of a victim in the aftermath of torture or ill-treatment. It seeks to enable the maximum
possible self-sufficiency and function for the individual concerned, and may involve
adjustments to the person’s physical and social environment. Rehabilitation for victims
should aim to restore, as far as possible, their independence, physical, mental, social and
vocational ability; and full inclusion and participation in society.

12. The Committee emphasizes that the obligation of States parties to provide the means
for “as full rehabilitation as possible” refers to the need to restore and repair the harm
suffered by a victim whose life situation, including dignity, health and self-sufficiency may
never be fully recovered as a result of the pervasive effect of torture. The obligation does
not relate to the available resources of States parties and may not be postponed.

13. In order to fulfil its obligations to provide a victim of torture or ill-treatment with the
means for as full rehabilitation as possible, each State party should adopt a long-term,
integrated approach and ensure that specialist services for victims of torture or ill-treatment
are available, appropriate and readily accessible. These should include: a procedure for the
assessment and evaluation of individuals’ therapeutic and other needs, based on, inter alia,
the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (The Istanbul Protocol); and may include
a wide range of inter-disciplinary measures, such as medical, physical and psychological
rehabilitative services; re-integrative and social services; community and family-oriented
assistance and services; vocational training; education etc. A holistic approach to
rehabilitation which also takes into consideration the strength and resilience of the victim is
of utmost importance. Furthermore, victims may be at risk of re-traumatization and have a
valid fear of acts which remind them of the torture or ill-treatment they have endured.
Consequently, a high priority should be placed on the need to create a context of confidence
and trust in which assistance can be provided. Confidential services should be provided as
required.

14. The requirement in the Convention to provide these forms of rehabilitative services
does not extinguish the need to provide medical and psychosocial services for victims in the
direct aftermath of torture, nor does such initial care represent the fulfilment of the
obligation to provide the means for as full rehabilitation as possible.

15. States parties shall ensure that effective rehabilitation services and programmes are
established in the State, taking into account a victim’s culture, personality, history and
background and are accessible to all victims without discrimination and regardless of a
victim’s identity or status within a marginalized or vulnerable group, as illustrated in
paragraph 32, including asylum seekers and refugees. States parties’ legislation should
establish concrete mechanisms and programmes for providing rehabilitation to victims of
torture or ill-treatment. Torture victims should be provided access to rehabilitation


programmes as soon as possible following an assessment by qualified independent medical
professionals. Access to rehabilitation programmes should not depend on the victim
pursuing judicial remedies. The obligation in article 14 to provide for the means for as full
rehabilitation as possible can be fulfilled through the direct provision of rehabilitative
services by the State, or through the funding of private medical, legal and other facilities,
including those administered by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in which case
the State shall ensure that no reprisals or intimidation are directed at them. The victim’s
participation in the selection of the service provider is essential. Services should be
available in relevant languages. States parties are encouraged to establish systems for
assessing the effective implementation of rehabilitation programmes and services, including
by using appropriate indicators and benchmarks.

 Satisfaction and the right to truth

16. Satisfaction should include, by way of and in addition to the obligations of
investigation and criminal prosecution under articles 12 and 13 of the Convention, any or
all of the following remedies: effective measures aimed at the cessation of continuing
violations; verification of the facts and full and public disclosure of the truth to the extent
that such disclosure does not cause further harm or threaten the safety and interests of the
victim, the victim’s relatives, witnesses, or persons who have intervened to assist the victim
or prevent the occurrence of further violations; the search for the whereabouts of the
disappeared, for the identities of the children abducted, and for the bodies of those killed,
and assistance in the recovery, identification, and reburial of victims’ bodies in accordance
with the expressed or presumed wish of the victims or affected families; an official
declaration or judicial decision restoring the dignity, the reputation and the rights of the
victim and of persons closely connected with the victim; judicial and administrative
sanctions against persons liable for the violations; public apologies, including
acknowledgement of the facts and acceptance of responsibility; commemorations and
tributes to the victims.

17. A State’s failure to investigate, criminally prosecute, or to allow civil proceedings
related to allegations of acts of torture in a prompt manner, may constitute a de facto denial
of redress and thus constitute a violation of the State’s obligations under article 14.

 Guarantees of non-repetition

18. Articles 1 to 16 of the Convention constitute specific preventive measures that the
States parties deemed essential to prevent torture and ill-treatment. To guarantee non-
repetition of torture or ill-treatment, States parties should undertake measures to combat
impunity for violations of the Convention. Such measures include issuing effective, clear
instructions to public officials on the provisions of the Convention, especially the absolute
prohibition of torture. Other measures should include any or all of the following: civilian
oversight of military and security forces; ensuring that all judicial proceedings abide by
international standards of due process, fairness and impartiality; strengthening the
independence of the judiciary; protecting human rights defenders and legal, health and
other professionals who assist torture victims; establishing systems for regular and
independent monitoring of all places of detention; providing, on a priority and continued
basis, training for law enforcement officials as well as military and security forces on
human rights law that includes the specific needs of marginalized and vulnerable
populations and specific training on the Istanbul Protocol for health and legal professionals
and law enforcement officials; promoting the observance of international standards and
codes of conduct by public servants, including law enforcement, correctional, medical,
psychological, social service and military personnel; reviewing and reforming laws
contributing to or allowing torture and ill-treatment; ensuring compliance with article 3 of
the Convention prohibiting refoulement; ensuring the availability of temporary services for


individuals or groups of individuals, such as shelters for victims of gender-related or other
torture or ill-treatment. The Committee notes that by taking measures such as those listed
herein, States parties may also be fulfilling their obligations to prevent acts of torture under
article 2 of the Convention. Additionally, guarantees of non-repetition offer important
potential for the transformation of social relations that may be the underlying causes of
violence and may include, but are not limited to, amending relevant laws, fighting
impunity, and taking effective preventative and deterrent measures.

 Procedural obligations: implementation of the right to redress

 Legislation

19. Under article 2 of the Convention, States parties shall enact “effective legislative,
administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its
jurisdiction.” As clarified by the Committee in its general comment No. 2, “States parties
must make the offence of torture punishable as an offence under its criminal law, in
accordance, at a minimum, with the elements of torture as defined in article 1 of the
Convention, and the requirements of article 4.” The failure of States parties to enact
legislation that clearly incorporates their obligations under the Convention and criminalizes
torture and ill-treatment, and the resulting absences of torture and ill-treatment as criminal
offences, obstructs the victim’s capacity to access and enjoy his or her rights guaranteed
under article 14.

20. To give effect to article 14, States parties shall enact legislation specifically
providing a victim of torture and ill-treatment with an effective remedy and the right to
obtain adequate and appropriate redress, including compensation and as full rehabilitation
as possible. Such legislation must allow for individuals to exercise this right and ensure
their access to a judicial remedy. While collective reparation and administrative reparation
programmes may be acceptable as a form of redress, such programmes may not render
ineffective the individual right to a remedy and to obtain redress.

21. States parties should ensure that their domestic laws provide that a victim who has
suffered violence or trauma should benefit from adequate care and protection to avoid his
or her re-traumatization in the course of legal and administrative procedures designed to
provide justice and reparation.

22. Under the Convention, States parties are required to prosecute or extradite alleged
perpetrators of torture when they are found in any territory under its jurisdiction, and to
adopt the necessary legislation to make this possible. The Committee considers that the
application of article 14 is not limited to victims who were harmed in the territory of the
State party or by or against nationals of the State party. The Committee has commended the
efforts of States parties for providing civil remedies for victims who were subjected to
torture or ill-treatment outside their territory. This is particularly important when a victim is
unable to exercise the rights guaranteed under article 14 in the territory where the violation
took place. Indeed, article 14 requires States parties to ensure that all victims of torture and
ill-treatment are able to access remedy and obtain redress.

 Effective mechanisms for complaints and investigations

23. The Committee has, in its concluding observations, identified other State obligations
that shall be met in order to ensure that the article 14 rights of a victim are fully respected.
In this regard, the Committee underscores the important relationship between States parties’
fulfilment of their obligations under article 12 and 13, and their obligation under article 14.
According to article 12, States parties shall undertake prompt, effective and impartial
investigations, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been
committed in any territory under its jurisdiction as the result of its actions or omissions and,


as set out in article 13 and affirmed by the Committee in its general comment No. 2, ensure
that impartial and effective complaints mechanisms are established. Full redress cannot be
obtained if the obligations under articles 12 and 13 are not guaranteed. Complaints
mechanisms shall be made known and accessible to the public, including to persons
deprived of their liberty, whether in detention, psychiatric facilities, or elsewhere, via, for
example, telephone hotlines or confidential complaints boxes in detention facilities, and to
persons belonging to vulnerable or marginalized groups, including those who may have
limited communication abilities.

24. At the procedural level, States parties shall ensure the existence of institutions
competent to render enforceable final decisions through a procedure established by law to
enable victims of torture or ill-treatment to secure redress, including adequate
compensation and rehabilitation.

25. Securing the victim’s right to redress requires that a State party’s competent
authorities promptly, effectively and impartially investigate and examine the case of any
individual who alleges that she or he has been subjected to torture or ill-treatment. Such an
investigation should include as a standard measure an independent physical and
psychological forensic examination as provided for in the Istanbul Protocol. Undue delays
in initiating or concluding legal investigations into complaints of torture or ill-treatment
compromise victims’ rights under article 14 to obtain redress, including fair and adequate
compensation and the means for as full rehabilitation as possible.

26. Notwithstanding the evidentiary benefits to victims afforded by a criminal
investigation, a civil proceeding and the victim’s claim for reparation should not be
dependent on the conclusion of a criminal proceeding. The Committee considers that
compensation should not be unduly delayed until criminal liability has been established.
Civil liability should be available independently of criminal proceedings and the necessary
legislation and institutions for such purpose should be in place. If criminal proceedings are
required by domestic legislation to take place before civil compensation can be sought, then
the absence of or undue delay in those criminal proceedings constitutes a failure on the part
of the State party to fulfil its obligations under the Convention. Disciplinary action alone
shall not be regarded as an effective remedy within the meaning of article 14.

27. Under article 14, a State party shall ensure that victims of any act of torture or ill-
treatment under its jurisdiction obtain redress. States parties have an obligation to take all
necessary and effective measures to ensure that all victims of such acts obtain redress. This
obligation includes an obligation for State parties to promptly initiate a process to ensure
that victims obtain redress, even in the absence of a complaint, when there are reasonable
grounds to believe that torture or ill-treatment has taken place.

28. The Committee strongly encourages States parties to recognize the Committee’s
competence to consider individual complaints under article 22 to allow victims to submit
communications and seek the views of the Committee. The Committee furthermore
encourages States parties to ratify or accede to the Optional Protocol to the Convention
against Torture in order to strengthen preventive measures against torture and ill-treatment.

 Access to mechanisms for obtaining redress

29. The Committee highlights the importance of the State party affirmatively ensuring
that victims and their families are adequately informed of their right to pursue redress. In
this regard, the procedures for seeking reparation should be transparent. The State party
should moreover provide assistance and support to minimize the hardship to complainants
and their representatives. Civil proceedings, or other proceedings, should not impose a
financial burden upon victims that would prevent or discourage them from seeking redress.
Where existing civil proceedings are unable to provide adequate redress to victims, the


Committee recommends implementing mechanisms that are readily accessible to victims of
torture and ill-treatment, including the establishment of a national fund to provide redress
for victims of torture. Special measures should be adopted to ensure access by persons
belonging to groups which have been marginalized or made vulnerable.

30. Judicial remedies must always be available to victims, irrespective of what other
remedies may be available, and should enable victim participation. States parties should
provide adequate legal aid to those victims of torture or ill-treatment lacking the necessary
resources to bring complaints and to make claims for redress. States parties shall also make
readily available to the victims all evidence concerning acts of torture or ill-treatment upon
the request of victims, their legal counsel, or a judge. A State party’s failure to provide
evidence and information, such as records of medical evaluations or treatment, can unduly
impair victims’ ability to lodge complaints and to seek redress, compensation and
rehabilitation.

31. The State party should also take measures to prevent interference with victims’
privacy and to protect victims, their families and witnesses and others who have intervened
on their behalf against intimidation and retaliation at all times before, during and after
judicial, administrative or other proceedings that affect the interests of victims. Failure to
provide protection stands in the way of victims filing complaints and thereby violates the
right to seek and obtain redress and remedy.

32. The principle of non-discrimination is a basic and general principle in the protection
of human rights and fundamental to the interpretation and application of the Convention.
States parties shall ensure that access to justice and to mechanisms for seeking and
obtaining redress are readily available and that positive measures ensure that redress is
equally accessible to all persons regardless of race, colour, ethnicity, age, religious belief or
affiliation, political or other opinion, national or social origin, gender, sexual orientation,
gender identity, mental or other disability, health status, economic or indigenous status,
reason for which the person is detained, including persons accused of political offences or
terrorist acts, asylum-seekers, refugees or others under international protection, or any other
status or adverse distinction, and including those marginalized or made vulnerable on bases
such as those above. Culturally sensitive collective reparation measures shall be available
for groups with shared identity, such as minority groups, indigenous groups, and others.
The Committee notes that collective measures do not exclude the individual right to
redress.

33. Judicial and non-judicial proceedings shall apply gender-sensitive procedures which
avoid re-victimization and stigmatization of victims of torture or ill-treatment. With respect
to sexual or gender-based violence and access to due process and an impartial judiciary, the
Committee emphasizes that in any proceedings, civil or criminal, to determine the victim’s
right to redress, including compensation, rules of evidence and procedure in relation to
gender-based violence must afford equal weight to the testimony of women and girls, as
should be the case for all other victims, and prevent the introduction of discriminatory
evidence and harassment of victims and witnesses. The Committee considers that
complaints mechanisms and investigations require specific positive measures which take
into account gender aspects in order to ensure that victims of abuses such as sexual violence
and abuse, rape, marital rape, domestic violence, female genital mutilation and trafficking
are able to come forward and seek and obtain redress.

34. To avoid re-victimization and stigmatization of victims of torture or ill-treatment,
the protections outlined in the preceding paragraph equally apply to any person
marginalized or made vulnerable on the basis of identities and groups such as those
examples listed under the principle of non-discrimination in paragraph 32. In judicial and
non-judicial proceedings sensitivity must be exercised toward any such person.
Accordingly, the Committee notes that judicial personnel must receive specific training on


the various impacts of torture and ill-treatment, including those on victims from
marginalized and vulnerable groups, and on how to exercise sensitivity towards victims of
torture and ill-treatment, including in the form of sexual or gender-based discrimination, in
order to prevent re-victimization and stigmatization.

35. The Committee considers the training of relevant police, prison staff, medical
personnel, judicial personnel and immigration personnel, including training on the Istanbul
Protocol, to be fundamental to ensuring effective investigations. Furthermore, officials and
personnel involved in efforts to obtain redress should receive methodological training in
order to prevent re-traumatization of victims of torture or ill-treatment. This training should
include, for health and medical personnel, the need to inform victims of gender-based and
sexual violence and all other forms of discrimination of the availability of emergency
medical procedures, both physical and psychological. The Committee also urges States
parties to establish human rights offices within police forces, and units of officers
specifically trained to handle cases of gender-based and sexual violence, including sexual
violence perpetrated against men and boys, and violence against children and ethnic,
religious, national or other minorities and other marginalized or vulnerable groups.

36. The Committee furthermore underlines the importance of appropriate procedures
being made available to address the needs of children, taking into account the best interests
of the child and the child’s right to express his or her views freely in all matters affecting
him or her, including judicial and administrative proceedings, and of the views of the child
being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. States parties
should ensure the availability of child-sensitive measures for reparation which foster the
health and dignity of the child.

 Obstacles to the right to redress

37. A crucial component of the right to redress is the clear acknowledgement by the
State party concerned that the reparative measures provided or awarded to a victim are for
violations of the Convention, by action or omission. The Committee is therefore of the view
that a State party may not implement development measures or provide humanitarian
assistance as a substitute for redress for victims of torture or ill-treatment. The failure of a
State party to provide the individual victim of torture with redress may not be justified by
invoking a State’s level of development. The Committee recalls that subsequent
governments as well as successor States still have the obligation to guarantee access to the
right of redress.

38. States parties to the Convention have an obligation to ensure that the right to redress
is effective. Specific obstacles that impede the enjoyment of the right to redress and prevent
effective implementation of article 14 include, but are not limited to: inadequate national
legislation, discrimination with regard to accessing complaints and investigation
mechanisms and procedures for remedy and redress; inadequate measures for securing the
custody of alleged perpetrators, State secrecy laws, evidential burdens and procedural
requirements that interfere with the determination of the right to redress; statutes of
limitations, amnesties and immunities; the failure to provide sufficient legal aid and
protection measures for victims and witnesses; as well as the associated stigma, and the
physical, psychological and other related effects of torture and ill-treatment. In addition, the
failure of a State party to execute judgements providing reparative measures for a victim of
torture, handed down by national, international or regional courts, constitutes a significant
impediment to the right to redress. States parties should develop coordinated mechanisms
to enable victims to execute judgements across State lines, including recognizing the
validity of court orders from other States parties and assisting in locating the assets of
perpetrators.


39. With regard to the obligations in article 14, States parties shall ensure both de jure
and de facto access to timely and effective redress mechanisms for members of groups
marginalized and/or made vulnerable, avoid measures that impede the ability of members
of such groups to seek and obtain redress, and address formal or informal obstacles that
they may face in obtaining redress. These may include, for example, inadequate judicial or
other procedures for quantifying damages which may have a negative disparate impact on
such individuals in accessing or keeping money. As the Committee has emphasized in its
general comment No. 2, “gender is a key factor. Being female intersects with other
identifying characteristics or status of the person…to determine the ways that women and
girls are subject to or at risk of torture or ill-treatment”. States parties shall ensure due
attention to gender in providing all the elements cited above in the process of ensuring that
everybody, in particular members of groups made vulnerable, including lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, must be treated fairly and equally and obtain fair
and adequate compensation, rehabilitation and other reparative measures which respond to
their specific needs.

40. On account of the continuous nature of the effects of torture, statutes of limitations
should not be applicable as these deprive victims of the redress, compensation, and
rehabilitation due to them. For many victims, passage of time does not attenuate the harm
and in some cases the harm may increase as a result of post-traumatic stress that requires
medical, psychological and social support, which is often inaccessible to those who have
not received redress. States parties shall ensure that all victims of torture or ill-treatment,
regardless of when the violation occurred or whether it was carried out by or with the
acquiescence of a former regime, are able to access their rights to remedy and to obtain
redress.

41. The Committee has consistently held that amnesties for the crime of torture are
incompatible with the obligations of States parties under the Convention, including under
article 14. As was pointed out in general comment No. 2, “amnesties or other impediments
which preclude or indicate unwillingness to provide prompt and fair prosecution and
punishment of perpetrators of torture or ill-treatment violate the principle of non-
derogability.” The Committee considers that amnesties for torture and ill-treatment pose
impermissible obstacles to a victim in his or her efforts to obtain redress and contribute to a
climate of impunity. The Committee therefore calls on States parties to remove any
amnesties for torture or ill-treatment.

42. Similarly, granting immunity, in violation of international law, to any State or its
agents or to non-State actors for torture or ill-treatment, is in direct conflict with the
obligation of providing redress to victims. When impunity is allowed by law or exists de
facto, it bars victims from seeking full redress as it allows the violators to go unpunished
and denies victims full assurance of their rights under article 14. The Committee affirms
that under no circumstances may arguments of national security be used to deny redress for
victims.

43. The Committee considers reservations which seek to limit the application of article
14 to be incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention. States parties are
therefore encouraged to consider withdrawing any reservations to article 14 that limit its
application so as to ensure that all victims of torture or ill-treatment have access to redress
and remedy.

 United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture

44. Voluntary contributions to international funds for victims of torture play an
important role in providing assistance to them. The Committee highlights the important
work done by the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, which provides
humanitarian assistance to victims of torture. The Committee highlights also the possibility


for States parties to make voluntary contributions to this fund, irrespective of the national
measures taken or contributions made.

 Monitoring and reporting

45. States parties shall establish a system to oversee, monitor, evaluate, and report on
their provision of redress measures and necessary rehabilitation services to victims of
torture or ill-treatment. Accordingly, States parties should include in their reports to the
Committee data disaggregated by age, gender, nationality, and other key factors regarding
redress measures afforded to victims of torture or ill-treatment, in order to meet their
obligation as recalled in general comment No. 2 to provide continual evaluation of their
efforts to provide redress to victims.

46. On the implementation of article 14, the Committee has observed the need to
provide adequate information on the implementation of article 14 in States parties’ reports.
Therefore, the Committee wishes to underscore that specific information should be
provided on the following:

(a) The number of victims of torture or ill-treatment who have sought
compensation through legal, administrative and other means and the nature of the violations
alleged; the number of victims who have been awarded compensation; and in what amounts;

(b) The measures taken to assist victims in the direct aftermath of torture;

(c) The rehabilitation facilities available to victims of torture or ill-treatment
and the accessibility thereof, as well as the budget allocation for rehabilitation programmes
and the number of victims who have received rehabilitative services appropriate to their
needs;

(d) The methods available for assessing the effectiveness of rehabilitation
programmes and services, including the application of appropriate indicators and
benchmarks, and the result of such assessment;

(e) The measures taken to ensure satisfaction and guarantees of non-
repetition;

(f) The domestic legislation which provides victims of torture or ill-treatment
with the right to remedy and redress, and relevant implementation measures taken by the
State party. Where such legislation is lacking, reports should include information on the
measures taken by the State party to adopt and implement such legislation.

(g) The measures taken to ensure that all victims of torture or ill-treatment are
able to exercise and enjoy their rights under article 14.

(h) The complaints mechanisms available for victims of torture or ill-
treatment, including how such mechanisms are made known and accessible to all victims.
States parties should also include data disaggregated by age, gender, nationality, location
and alleged violation, on the number of complaints received through such mechanisms.

(i) The measures taken by States parties to ensure that all allegations of
torture and ill-treatment are effectively investigated.

(j) The legislation and policy measures designed to positively identify
victims of torture in order to provide them with redress.

(k) The available avenues for a victim of torture or ill-treatment to obtain
redress, including all criminal, civil, administrative and non-judicial procedures, such as
administrative reparation programmes, as well as information on the number of victims who
have accessed such mechanisms, how many obtained redress and reparative measures, and
in what forms and/or amounts.


(l) The legal aid and witness protection available to victims of torture or ill-
treatment as well as witnesses and others who have intervened on behalf of victims,
including how such protection is made known and how it is made available in practice; the
number of victims who have been granted legal aid; the number of persons who have been
protected by State witness protection; and the State party’s evaluation of the effectiveness of
such protection.

(m) The steps taken to implement judgements by national, regional or
international courts, including the amount of time lapsed from the date of the judgement and
the actual provision of compensation or other forms of redress. States parties should also
include disaggregated data on the number of victims designated to receive reparative
measures in court judgements and the number who actually received redress, and for what
violations.

(n) The safeguards available for the special protection of members of
marginalized or vulnerable groups, including women and children seeking to exercise their
rights guaranteed under article 14 of the Convention.

(o) Any such other matters that the Committee may require.

Bill English and Lake Alice statements

HEALTH MINISTER Bill English 'HORRIFIED' BY LAKE ALICE
PATIENT-TORTURE ALLEGATIONS But now he is PM says was a long time ago and no point looking into it and dragging it all back up but dragging it up for who BILL the trauma as its never gone away for those of us abused in that place 


The National Business Review -18 Dec 1998
BY JOCK ANDERSON


Tales of terror and torture of children at Lake Alice mental hospital emerged from a Dominion newspaper inquiry and in a TV3 20/20 documentary more than 16 months ago.
It was not the first time media exposure had detailed and questioned the strange goings on at Lake Alice.
But in earlier years allegations were swept under the carpet because the hospitals and their staff were deemed to be right and beyond reproach.
The former child patients from the 1970s whose shocking stories were told, particularly on television on July 8, 1997, changed that.
Now lawyers were talking to former patients and gathering chilling stories of their experiences. They wanted someone to pay.
The next morning a clearly shaken and genuinely concerned Health Minister Bill English told National Radio's Kim Hill he was horrified by what he saw on television.
The people who told their stories would have been his age, Mr. English said.
"When I was getting on the school bus and having a healthy, secure childhood, these people were being terrorized...," he said.
Mr. English said he had no reason to disbelieve the former patients. until he became PM then and in a position to help them instead set lawyers on them to discredit what they were saying 
"The descriptions that they talked about of the places and the feelings and the fear, I found just awful," he said. and yet he refuses to help us by providing rehab
He said Lake Alice was being closed because it held a lot of terrible memories for a lot of New Zealanders. No, it was closed down to cover up what happened there 
He described what he saw on television as cutting across "all our concepts of the dignity of New Zealand citizens". But nothing to how he would treat survivors on becoming PM
Mr. English said the state should not hide behind a whole lot of "legalisms".
He said the things that happened at Lake Alice in the 1970's -carried out under the power and protection of the state -would not be allowed to happen today. Because we are much better at hiding abuse now and preventing inquiries 
Some of the claims made by former Lake Alice patients are barely believable. These were
children aged generally between 12 and 15.
The 20/20 documentary detailed the experiences of former patients subjected to ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and paraldehyde drug injections.
One man claimed punishment time with "the doctor" was 1 pm on Saturday.
He claimed his punishment was getting ECT, which he likened as having two Black and Decker drills on either side of his head, in pain, eyes clenched tight, tears rolling down and light going through his eyes.
Another told of allegedly curling up on the floor trying to hide when they saw a doctor's van come up the street.
One patient claimed a boy caught masturbating was electrocuted on the penis.
One told of a patient who allegedly made homosexual assaults on others and how staff allegedly allowed other patients to "zap" him with the ECT machine. The power was turned up and down the pain was unbearable the screams would frighten the hell out of other from misbehaving and one Nurse used to look after you until you regained consciousness and then while still groggy rape you 

The $38 million claim against the Crown, prepared on behalf of 76 former Lake Alice patients by Christchurch lawyer Grant Cameron, relies on this kind of evidence.
It relies on adult men and women, some of whom say they should never have been in Lake Alice hospital, standing up and demanding the Crown compensate them for the alleged state-inflicted horrors of their childhood.

�Fourth Estate Holdings Ltd (546 words)

my comments in blue

State abuse and your partner

most people seem to think the abuse you suffered in a state institution only effects you and only for a short period. Well, they couldn't be more wrong, I have had times where my wife has rolled over to cuddle me in the night and I have laid into her blacking her eye or shoving her onto the floor as dreaming I was been attacked by one of my abusers. The school has even called the police as didn't believe wife explanation and assuming she was been abused,so no not just me affected my whole family have had to endure the shame of there mother dropping them at school with black eyes or whole house woken at night with me screaming in my sleep for them to stop shocking me or waking up crying my eyes out and shaking in fear takes some time to be measured your home and safe in and out of work because you can't cope with the lack of sleep or the bullying for forgetting instructions due to the brain damage from all the ECT. And all the while trying to teach yourself to read and write as no schooling from 10 years old struggling to try to get some sort of rehab to be told you are not damaged enough to qualify and to top it off the govt refuse to have prosecuted your abusers and want to give you just enough compo to cover you legal fees as prevented accessing legal aid and people still say to me just get over it
It was a long time ago well to me it was just last night.

UN Committee against Torture finds NZ in Violation of Abuse Claimants

 Human Rights #lakealicenz 

https://twitter.com/NZHumanRights/status/833462350212526080

https://www.facebook.com/groups/190198281412498/ … 

The lost boys: New Zealand’s shame

For two small boys, a post-war scheme offering a ‘new life' in New Zealand provided slavery, abuse and rejection instead.

When 11-year-old Malcolm Axcell boarded the Rimutaka for New Zealand in early 1949, it was the beginning of a long, sad odyssey. This boy was to be the first of 600 child migrants to step ashore in New Zealand in the post-war years.

 He had been sent far from his war-tom and poverty-stricken family in London – his stepfather had lost a leg in the war – to a new life in what a New Zealand newspaper article described in glowing terms as the "space and fresh air" of his aunt and uncle's state house in Meadowbank.

Such was the belief in the ennobling power of hard work in the colonies that Malcolm was seen as lucky to have the opportunity to scrub out the washhouse and dig the garden, as he had done the day the reporter visited. But what nobody noticed was just how much work the boy was made to do. And what nobody asked was how a couple who had been reported to Child Welfare the year before for keeping an 18-month-old foster child tethered to a post in the garden and who had been judged "not satisfactory" as foster parents could be allowed to take Malcolm in a government-sponsored scheme simply because he was a relative.

"All of a sudden," says Axcell, "I was their slave. They had a new state house and the grass around it was waist high. It was my job to dig that quarter acre. I wasn't allowed to go out and play after school or at weekends. I had to get them breakfast in the morning, wash the dishes, sweep the floors, clean the house and get the section dug.

"Imagine," he says, "bringing a child in from Somalia, and putting him to work doing heavy digging all day. Nutritionally those kids are history, and people say it just couldn't happen here. But it did happen. It happened to me."

At 11, Axcell was just six stone (38kg). Child Welfare officers noted him as being "anorexic" and suffering from "numerous colds and general malaise". He was so unwell he couldn't attend school for the first two months in New Zealand; years later his constitution was still described by welfare officers as "frail".

But right from the start his aunt and uncle made it clear that he was there only to work. "It was like being in a strict camp. I had to knock before I entered the lounge. They wouldn't speak to me, they'd just give me orders about what to do. If I didn't do it properly, or the way they wanted it done, I'd be hurled out of bed and made to do it again."

Malcolm Axcell is one of the "Lost Children of the Empire", Britain's unwanted who were sent to the ends of the earth. From the 17th century to, astoundingly, as recently as the early 60s, 180,000 disadvantaged children were shipped off to the colonies; a fact seemingly forgotten until 1987 when British social worker Margaret Humphreys began to uncover stories of the "horrendous abuse" suffered in institutions by many of the 10,000 children sent to Australia after the last war.

Their experiences were dramatized in The Leaving of Liverpool, a television series that screened in New Zealand in 1993. At the time, Humphreys believed it would "lift the lid off" the treatment of child migrants who came to New Zealand under "this callous policy of exporting children".

In New Zealand, says Dr Dugald McDonald, senior lecturer in Social Work at Canterbury University, the child imports started with the boy convicts of 1842 and ended only in 1954. By taking these children – as young as five, but usually in their teens –  New Zealand was doing its "patriotic duty" in helping Britain out. "But the aim was also," he says, "to populate the empire with 'good British stock'."

Only now are many of the child migrants to the colonies able to find their families again: the Child Migrant Trust set up by Humphreys receives hundreds of calls a month from migrants who were told they were orphans while their mothers in England were told they were dead. Increasingly, Humphreys gets calls from New Zealand; from "people who've been holding the hurt inside for too long now".

As a young child migrant, Malcolm Axcell considered running away. "But where to? I had no money. I didn't know anyone. I just used to cry in bed at night, you know, for Mummy. But it didn't help.

"I idolised my mother. Before I left London, I used to buy her little bunches of flowers with the money I'd got from working in a butcher's shop on Saturday mornings. And all I kept thinking about was, 'What did I do wrong, that she sent me to New Zealand?’ If it was because they couldn't afford to keep me, why did she have another baby less than a year after I left?"

Axcell was to learn from his aunt and uncle the bewildering information that he had been illegitimate. And he could remember being "belted up" by his stepfather, and other attempted abuse. It had been recommended by the inspector of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children that this "well mannered" boy, so "alert and willing to learn", would have a better future in New Zealand. But still the 11-year old, who till then had been called Malcolm Barker, couldn't accept that his mother had changed his name –  "just as I got off the train to go on the boat she gave me a piece of paper with my new name, her maiden name, which I couldn't even pronounce" –  and sent him away. "Even now it just burns me up."

Axcell sits very still, holding his folder of precious identity documents as he talks. But his words pace up and down, up and down, like prisoners in a cage. "I always felt as though I was trapped; that they’d put me in a deep hole and I could never get out of it. If they’d just listened when I tried to tell them that I’d be better off back home, then maybe things would have been different.”

But nothing changed. “I knew within three months that they [his aunt and uncle] didn’t want to keep me. But the thing is, they couldn’t get rid of me.”

Why? The government had legal guardianship. But the record shows: “On the superintendent’s direction, they [the aunt and uncle] were informed that they had nominated him and they must keep him.” The problem was just assumed to be with the boy. A comment from head office said that “the boy would probably do with a good talking to”. The superintendent scribbled on a note that “apparently he wants ‘a little straightening up’”.

But when the Boys Welfare Officer investigated, he found that any misdemeanours the aunt and uncle had complained of “do not seem to be worth all the fuss…” They included such things as leaving dirty fingermarks on the wall. Yet the boy was threatened with severe punishment: the welfare officer reported that “Malcolm has been very good for the last few days, since my last visit, when [the uncle] told him that I said if he didn’t behave himself he would have to go to a Home.”

The school reported  that they had not had any trouble with the behaviour of this “bright, friendly lad”, although he was held back a class because of his interrupted schooling. Yet even Child Welfare were beginning to worry. One welfare officer reported: “I was rather disturbed by the way Malcolm spoke to me when I called. He seemed to accept too readily rather arbitrary restrictions on his movements and have me, parrot fashion, reasons why he should not play with other children or engage in normal boyish pursuits.”

“My uncle,” says Axcell, “used to box my ears, no harm done, but what was worse was he wouldn’t let me play with school mates.” The welfare officer noted that as a punishment Malcolm had been prevented even from joining one of the division’s own outings "for some very petty reason.”

Then, in July 1950, a neighbour called at the Child Welfare office and said "she was worried about a little British boy living  near her". The statement noted: "There is little affection shown towards this boy" ... all orders and words addressed to him are spoken in a cold manner. Recently [the aunt and uncle] went to Hamilton for the weekend and left 12-year-old Malcolm home to feed the dog and cats." The neighbour gave him meals. This woman was worried about the regimentation; about his health  –  "he has sores on his feet" –  and about the fact that the boy was "repressed" and upset by the way his aunt and uncle spoke badly of his mother.

In August the welfare officer reported "alarming developments". Malcolm's mother, worried about his happiness, had written to him asking if he wanted to go home. And he did. He desperately did. He told the officer “he has had a worse time in this country than he had in any of the homes or foster homes he was in in England and that he wants the return there; he is unhappy with his uncle and aunt, who he thinks are quite unreasonable and do not want him”. The officer, no doubt aware of what an embarrassment it would have been for the New Zealand government to send a child back from this “better life” in the Dominion, was quick to point out “I want to make it quite clear here that in all my dealings with the boy, and particularly on this occasion, I have been intentionally off-hand with him and have not given him any encouragement to make any complaints…” and nothing came of the attempt to get Malcolm home.

The boy understood the rules. “You weren’t allowed to say you didn’t like it here,” says Axcell. As another Boys Welfare Officer was to note in October that year: “He admitted that he was not happy, missed his mother, but had no word of condemnation to say about either [his aunt or uncle]. In fact, he admitted that he was to blame for the unhappiness which had been caused in the home.”

But in August the Child Welfare office received another “alarming” complaint from a “scrupulously fair” neighbour. This man informed them “that the whole street is very much concerned at the treatment meted out to Malcolm, who is generally regarded as a slavey or flunky” for his aunt and uncle. The neighbour said that he got up to go to work at 5.00am. Malcolm's aunt could be seen in bed through the blindless windows, while the uncle shaved and Malcolm was at this time preparing the breakfast, which he took in to his aunt.

The neighbour would then see him washing the dishes at 5.20am and often saw him shaking the mats outside the front door at 6.30am when the neighbour left for work. "Malcolm frequently works all day Saturdays on heavy work such as chopping wood, for which his physique is hardly suited, not to mention the loss of normal recreational activity. While he is doing his work [the uncle] is quite likely to be shooting at birds from a window, meanwhile shouting instructions to the boy, or else to be fishing for small fish for cat food in the stream." The neighbour told the welfare officer that "the fairly large backyard was a wilderness before Malcolm came but it is now looking a good deal better – due almost entirely to Malcolm's unremitting labour. The boy is prevented from forming normal associations with other local boys and is treated as a stranger in the house. He is not allowed to go to bed until he has completed his quota of jobs" –  a quota which the neighbour described as "out of all reason" –  and is "deprived of any small pleasure at the slightest provocation".

In September the neighbour put it in writing, concluding: "The boy has a good name in the street for conduct, but his health appears to be very much below standard."

And still it went on. On October 18 the Child Welfare officer noted that Malcolm was no longer getting pocket money: the aunt “made it quite plain that she and her husband are not prepared to make any sacrifice, financial or otherwise for him…” Malcolm had to earn the money to pay for glasses ordered by the school medical officer.

By November the Boys Welfare Officer was convinced Malcolm would be better off in a boys’ home. But the memo came back from Wellington: “The admission of this lad to the Boys Home cannot be approved, as this would not be in accord with the [Child Migrant] scheme.” The promise to the British government and to the children’s parents was that child migrants would only go to private homes.

There was another problem. The New Zealand government was not prepared to pay any board for these children, other than the 10 shillings a week child benefit, to foster parents. The Child Welfare division advertised in the newspapers for someone to take Malcolm free of charge. Nobody wanted him.

A note from the welfare officer dated December 5, 1950, says: "Not having any news to tell [the aunt and uncle], I have studiously avoided visiting the home ... " The welfare officers were in a trap. But they left the boy in a worse trap.

Malcolm Axcell has "blocked out" any memories of his last months at his aunt and uncle's. But just before Christmas the first neighbour "called at the office to find out whether something could not be done to remove Malcolm from his uncle's care very soon”. The neighbourhood was concerned at Child Welfare’s “deaf ears” stance. This woman “was most upset and gave a number of instances – of recent date – of unkind treatment: he was sent to collect pine cones while [the aunt and uncle] went to the pictures; he was given only two or three sweets of a large quantity given to the family expressly for the boy… There was a long list of a small child’s misery.

 The other neighbour had now reported giving the boy some of his own clothes,  since he appeared not to have enough. But within a day or two the neighbour had seen the uncle wearing them. This man also considered "that the boy is not properly fed; he says the family's meagre supply of milk has not increased since Malcolm arrived, that on the few occasions he has given Malcolm a meal, the boy has eaten quite ravenously and that he has heard [the aunt] tell Malcolm he is eating too much". Child Welfare officers themselves later noted that Malcolm “looked like he could do with a good meal".

By this time head office had decided that Malcolm was only “15 percent” to blame for his own unhappiness. Efforts were made further afield to find him free board. He was finally taken in June 1951 by a farmer near Palmerston North. As Dugald McDonald pointed out, "unfortunately a number of the placements were with farmers wanting an extra pair of hands. Labour was in short supply in New Zealand until the 60s and this was a way of getting workers. I think the Child Welfare division colluded in the hope that it would be a benevolent exploitation. But at the end of the day, if you were expressly forbidden to put the kids in institutions, then you just had to place them with whoever was willing to have them.”

The most damaging thing, says McDonald, is serial fostering – and that’s just what Malcolm Axcell was to experience as placement after placement broke down over the next few years. “Each placement,” says McDonald, “reinforces the sense of worthlessness; each one is a rejection. It becomes harder and harder to establish nurturing relationships with adults.” McDonald, who has spoken to Malcolm Axcell and other child migrants, believes that Axcell’s story of rejection and separation meant that as a teenager he was unable to make any firm emotional attachments with his foster parents/employers. “Most pitiful of all were the sudden departures. There was no warning that he was about to be moved on, no follow up. Nothing.”

Malcolm was given basic essentials. The Child Welfare officers, in removing him from his aunt and uncle, discovered that no clothes had been purchased for him since his arrival nearly two years earlier and they had to buy shoes, pyjamas, everything. “But I still had no control over my own life. I was told to milk cows – I’d never seen a cow before.” He was made to do dangerous work – breaking in horses – and was often hurt, requiring hospital treatment. Although dux of his local school, he was given no educational opportunities. In the photograph of the school fancy dress party, Malcolm has no costume - he was wearing his only clothes. “At 13 I was working for my keep. I got up at five in the morning, went out and got the cows in, milked them, 80 of them, cleaned out the shed, put the cows out, feed out if it had to be done, got changed, walked a mile to the school bus, and then did it all again in reverse about half past seven or eight at night. Homework? What was that?”

Although in one place there was an older son of the family, Malcolm was the only one who worked on the farm. “I can’t ever remember having a birthday present. Christmas time was the same. It wasn’t my right to expect presents. I just did as I was told. If I didn’t, it was, ‘I’ll get the Welfare man in and you’ll go to another home.”

One day Malcolm went home and told his foster father he wanted to do what the other boys at school were doing and go on to secondary school, “tech”, for two years so he could later be an apprentice. The farmer told Child Welfare he wanted Malcolm off the place “immediately”. Later when the lad told another farmer that he had signed up for the air force so he could learn a trade, the farmer “went ape and started knocking me around.”

Malcolm had always found it difficult writing to his mother “because I didn’t have any money for envelopes and stamps and didn’t even know how to get into town”. A letter his mother wrote to him in January 1952, saying she wanted to join him in New Zealand and signed "love Mummy", was given to him only in September 1990, when he was finally given copies of the documents –  including school reports, medical records, his birth certificate and entry permit –  held on the Child Welfare file. But in 1954 his mother, worried about him but unable to send the fare home, sought permission for him to work his passage home. It was denied. Child Welfare told Malcolm instead, in writing, that he had "a chip on his shoulder".

After that, he gradually lost touch with his mother. Then in 1987 his wife and son gave him a ,surprise trip home to England; his first in 38 years. He got off the plane in London and got a taxi to his mother's Brixton address. "I said to the cabbie, 'Wait', when we got there because I didn't know what was going to happen. I was apprehensive as anything.  I went up and knocked on the door. She opened the door and looked at me. I said, 'Don't you know who I am?' and she said, 'No. What do you want?' I said, 'I'm Malcolm.' She didn't cry. She didn't do anything. Being so far away all that time, something had happened. I had lost my mother. I stayed a few days but there wasn't anything left. There's just nothing there."

Axcell and his supportive wife, Vera, organised a reunion in 1990 of his group of 20 child migrants. Although most had been able to maintain contact with their families, three had died tragically, one of them alone and penniless in a Porirua Hospital.

Will Rogers, who came out at 15 on the same ship as Axcell, knew the anguish of separation and isolation. He had been in a Liverpool orphanage since the age of four, when his father was killed in the war. His mother was already dead. "One of the last things my father said was, 'If anything happens to me, don't split the children up.' When I went to New Zealand there were promises that my brothers and sister would be able to follow. But it never happened."

After a year at Flock House, the 16-year-old was sent to an isolated East Coast farm where he saw no one but the farmer and his wife. “I never even met the neighbours.”  He ate in isolation: "The lady of the house would not have me at the same table." Before breakfast he would have to milk the cows, separate the milk, feed the horses, saddle them, and dig the vegetables that the farmer’s wife had listed on a blackboard by the back door: “She didn’t talk to me.” At night, after a day’s heavy work on the farm, he would again milk the cows and attend to the horses. Dinner he ate on his own in the kitchen, before going on his own in the dark to his whare.

“The isolation was hard, really hard. Coming from an orphanage, I’d never been on my own before.” The only reading material he had were farming magazines. This was the young man whom a psychological assessment for a management position later described as having “an intellectual rating superior to 95 percent of the population” and who it said “impresses immediately” with his social skills and “somewhat infectious sense of humour”. Yet he was stuck in a place where, for him, there was not even a Christmas: "I'd spend it looking after flyblown lambs." There were no birthday greetings, no holidays, no sick leave: in fact Rogers eventually got the sack for having flu one day and not being able to work. Having to pay for a working dog, a saddle and all his clothes from his wages, he had literally no money for stamps and envelopes, even if he could have got to town to post a letter. "The saddest thing for me was that I lost contact with all my friends in the orphanage."

 A shift to Akitio sheep station meant Rogers was able to make "lasting friends"; "I regained my self-respect". But he questions whether anything can compensate "for the loss of family and the comradeship of my schoolfriends".

Rogers doesn't want to sound "like an ingrate". Nor does Axcell. But neither is at all sure that life would have been worse back in England. When Rogers went back in '57, his mates all had jobs and homes. "All I had was a saddle." Both are adamant that such a policy of child migration should never be carried out again. "Look," says Rogers, "we've just seen the case of one of the Croats who couldn't settle here even as a young adult." Axcell: "It's got to stop. But they're doing it all over again with the Romanian children. They haven't learnt. Taking children away from their families and their culture will never work unless there is a guarantee that they can be sent back if they want it, or for their families to come and visit them. But you can't just dump children in a strange place."

Axcell: "It tore my life apart, being sent to New Zealand. When I went back in '87, the tears, it was awful, not belonging there, not belonging here. I couldn't talk to my wife for three months after I came back." Axcell and Rogers speak of the high emotional cost: both say they have difficulty talking to their own children. "What you've been taught to do all your life," says Axcell, "is to just walk away when things go wrong. Any conflict, whoof, you're off. I just never learnt how to handle things." His two sons, he says, will read for the first time in this article of all the things he has "kept inside".

There are other grievances: Axcell is trying to get a British passport, but refuses to pay the $57 fee. "They took my identity papers off me when I arrived; it's my birthright to get my passport back. Without a British passport I'm only allowed a three-month visa." A woman at the consul's office once told him that he was just a "whinging Pom". "That hurt," says Axcell. 

The big question, says McDonald, who is researching child migration, "is should we ever do it again?" There are always humanitarian reasons for saying yes; always children somewhere in the world in need of care. "But, as schemes," says McDonald, "they're bloody terrible." New Zealand, he says, was enlightened enough to decline to take Hungarian children in 1956; and is enlightened enough now to have open records and to keep to its responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the principles of the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act, "which makes it quite clear that our philosophy is to keep children with their families”.

"Yet," says McDonald, "we've got this double standard for overseas adoption. Children can still be amputated from their culture." He believes that, thanks to the vigilance and caring of individual Child Welfare officers, "we didn't do too badly" with the 600 children who came out under the Child Migration Scheme. But what's interesting is that the most successful placements in many cases were not the homes offering social advancement to the children but the core of ordinary, caring, "grass roots" foster-mums whom the Child Welfare division called on to take the children when the planned placements broke down, as they so often did.

"The foster parents come out as the baddies," says McDonald, "but often the reality of having, frankly, a disturbed child in the family was more than they could cope with. Those situations were doomed to fail." Although there were also many "good fits", McDonald has come across a lot of former child migrants who are now "very troubled individuals". Many, like Malcolm Axcell, feel there must have been something wrong with them to have been sent away, and suffer feelings of unresolved guilt and rejection anguish. "There is a generalisation coming through now quite clearly," says McDonald, "that the separation trauma and adjustment problems are worse the younger the child -- and I've found children who came out as young as seven." There's also a gender issue: "It was okay for the girls to be nurtured and vulnerable, but with the boys it was, 'What the hell's wrong with you, get out and play rugby and get on with your life.'” The brutality of New Zealand children towards these "Pommie whingers" was also, he says, "part of the oppressor system at the time".

The worst thing, says McDonald, is that we have simply ignored the great unhappiness of people like Malcolm Axcell. It's time, he says, that we started to listen to the anguish of those who were raised "as someone other than who they were born to be".

Child Migrants Trust 

124 Musters Road 

West Bridgford 

Nottingham, U.K. 

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This article was first published in the July 24, 1993 issue of the New Zealander Listener. Follow the Listener on Twitter, Facebook and sign up to the weekly newsletter.

Children's home survivors sue Govt for $500k

Bevan Hurley is the Herald on Sunday chief reporter.

Children's home survivors sue Govt for $500k

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Sunday, 29 September 2013

The Glade, described by former residents as 'evil', was burned down in a suspected arson in 2003.

Former residents of a home for troubled kids have launched a $500,000 lawsuit against the Government for claims of physical and sexual abuse.

Eleven former residents of The Glade in the inner Auckland suburb of Epsom say the abuse included being pinned to the ground for hours in a controversial "human straitjacket " restraint known as a "Michael Whiting Hold".

The hold was among "unconventional" teaching methods promoted at the time.

Drug-taking and sexual relationships between staff members and residents were common, the Herald on Sunday has been told.

The Glade was home to some children who went on to become criminals, most notoriously Antoine Dixon.

Dixon attacked Simonne Butler, Renee Gunbie and James Te Aute in a P-fuelled samurai sword rampage, before killing himself in prison.

Some children never left the home: they died either by committing suicide or in accidents while still living at The Glade.

The doors of the historic homestead were closed for the last time in the late 1990s and it was razed in a suspected arson in 2003.

Katharine Ross, from Wellington law firm Cooper Legal, said that former residents had approached her firm over a period of time.

"It's not a case of a bunch of seven mates coming to us and saying we want you to act for us," she said. "It's more a case of us joining the dots.

"It's not serious, serious sexual abuse but it's still enough to warrant a claim being brought. As far as I'm aware none of (the complainants) know each other."

A former supervisor - who is accused in court documents of committing sexual abuse - denied any wrongdoing.

He said staff at social welfare homes were easy targets for historic abuse cases.

"It seems to be the flavour of the day, a lot of that sort of thing is coming out of the woodwork."

Many of the staff members were university students with no formal training or qualifications, said former residents.

Donna Jamieson says she was abused at The Glade. Photo / Supplied

One, Donna Jamieson, said residents were subjected to systematic abuse. Jamieson fell pregnant at the age of 16 to another resident and was told: "You either have an abortion or get out."

Continued below.

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"They made my life hell," she said. She recently moved to Australia and is not part of the court case, but said she had suffered ongoing emotional trauma as a result of her experiences at The Glade.

Father Felix Donnelly, the Catholic priest and former talkback host who founded the home, said he was surprised the historic abuse claims had been brought.

Now aged 83, Donnelly said he was familiar with the Michael Whiting Hold but had never used it himself.

"We had to restrain children at times to preserve furniture and people. They went wild. I personally never laid hands on people but some of the staff would have."

Donnelly said he remembered allegations of abuse at the time - but they were investigated and discounted.

"I would question the validity of the claims because I was always open to speaking to them. We were very careful with anything of the nature of what you are discussing. This is a worry."

Ministry of Social Development historic claims chief analyst Garth Young said The Glade was run by Youthlink although the ministry did place young people in Youthlink homes.

"Accordingly, we have an obligation to investigate these claims, which we are doing."

The ministry has received 1,229 historic claims between 2004 and the end of August this year. It has paid out $6 million to 297 people who were in a range of residences and private care.

Hold was 'very degrading'

Vanessa, 38, says she was put in a Michael Whiting Hold for hours by a resident of The Glade.

"One time, they brought a boy I had a crush on to watch them do this to me. All staff members and my parents sat around in a semicircle ... They were silently communicating with each other through paper and pen.

"Afterwards, to reconnect and calm you down, they would stroke you like a light massage. This caused more anxiety for me rather than calming me and then they put me in the hold again.

"I was held like this twice, possibly three times, in my stay there ... One time I had returned from school and they Michael Whited me in my uniform. I was screaming for them to at least let me change from my skirt as the hold involved having your legs apart. They wouldn't let me.

"It was not of a sexual nature but very degrading ... I fought and screamed so much that I burst a blood vessel in my eye.

"I also managed to free myself and I escaped down the stairs, slamming a door ... I was returned to the room, where they continued. I was told that this punishment was rarely used on girls."