New Zealand report on abuse at care facilities exposes "unthinkable national catastrophe"

A damning report, presented to New Zealand's Parliament on Wednesday, details decades of abuse by state and faith-based organizations. It says roughly 200,000 people, including children, young people and vulnerable adults, suffered abuse in care facilities between 1950 and 2019. The report calls it an "unthinkable national catastrophe."

The six-year investigation by the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, the largest and most expensive probe in the country's history, found that for generations, people at these facilities had been subjected to electric shock, medical experimentation, starvation, beatings, forced labor, and rape. Many of the victims were from the country's disadvantaged and marginalized communities, including the native Māori and Pacific Islanders, as well as people with disabilities. 

New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon apologized and said, "This is a dark and sorrowful day in New Zealand's history as a society and as a state. We should have done better, and I am determined that we will do so."