The Stolen Children of Aotearoa uncovers chilling history

It’s a part of our history that has been ignored, lost, and in some cases swept under the rug.

The Stolen Children of Aotearoa uncovers what happened to an estimated 200,000 tamariki, who were taken from their homes and placed in the care of the state between 1950 and 1999.

The documentary includes archival footage and discussions about violence, abuse and assault.

Related stories:

Some 2,329 survivors spoke to the Royal Commission about their abuse in care. Those spoken to in the documentary share raw, shocking memories in vivid detail.

These kids, now adults and kaumātua, were brought up on neglect, abuse, rape, and lies. They remember when they were taken from their homes, in some cases by a social worker knocking on the door and saying, "let’s go clothes shopping".

They describe how they would end up at an unknown location labelled as a school, where they were were hit, touched, forced to do unexplainable things to grown people, and ‘made to feel useless’.

Their only option was to abandon their real emotions. Everyday, they would wait for a parent or guardian to pick them up and take them home.

A common thread throughout the doco is that the majority of people in state care were Māori. It tells us that some of the mōrehu (survivors) didn’t know their marae and were disconnected from their whakapapa.

One woman, Nina only knew she was different from her foster family because of the colour of her skin. She was five when she started questioning who she was.

These painful recollections are intercut with interviews with advocates and researchers, such as journalist Aaron Smale and Sir Kim Workman, who revealed the facts about the systems at the time.

The documentary explains how these children ended up in the social welfare system. While one man reveals that taking tokens from milk bottles was the crime that led him into social welfare custody, others ended up there through the actions of a nosey neighbour, criminal behaviour, or the deception of social workers. In short, the system was rigged to target Māori youth.

Children as young as eight were caught up in police competitions to catch as many people as possible, as well as police claiming they were responsible for crimes.

When survivors, particularly tāne, left these unforgiving homes, gangs offered one refuge. The Mongrel Mob and the Black Power were created in the 1960s by those who bonded over state care trauma.

The documentary leads in the end to the Abuse in State Care apology which to many survivors, was an “apology too late.”

During the apology on 12 November, 2024, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: “We like to think that this abuse doesn’t happen in Aotearoa, New Zealand, but it did.”

The one hour 40 minute film is an extension of the RNZ podcast of the same name. Earlier this year it played in te reo Māori on whakaata Māori and at Māoriland.

The Stolen Children of Aotearoa is available for streaming on TVNZ+ on Sunday, 20 July.