Right, I'm going to tell you a story that makes me incredibly sad. And I want to know whether you think we’re doing things right in this country.
Today, the family of Moana have announced they’re going to give her up because fighting to keep her is too stressful.
Moana is a little girl, about seven or eight years old. Authorities took her away from her mum when she was three and placed her with a foster family in Hawke’s Bay. She'd already been taken away from her mum three times.
She showed signs of sexual abuse, she flinched at the sight of men, she had rotten teeth and an untreated club foot.
The foster family took her and raised her and she was then described as a happy, healthy, stable, young girl living in a loving relationship where for the first time she had a father.
But then Oranga Tamariki, aka CYFS tried to take Moana away from her foster family because her foster parents are Pakeha and she is Māori and Oranga Tamariki didn’t think her foster family could provide her ‘cultural needs’.
Legally they can do this, because the law requires Oranga Tamariki to consider ‘treaty principles’. Section 7AA, put into the law in 2019.
The case went to the Family Court, which ruled that Moana should stay with her foster parents. The judge slammed Oranga Tamariki for putting ideology ahead of the girl’s best interests.
It went to the High Court, which also ruled that Moana should stay with her foster parents. It was going to go to the Appeal Court too, but now her foster parents have given her up.
They say it’s the “hardest decision of their lives”, but it's too stressful.
There have been ongoing appeals, a number of reports of concern lodged against the family claiming abuse that was never substantiated and the birth family, they say, only see her for a few hours every few months, but gave the power to make rules around how she’s raised that affect her day to day routine.
So after years of fighting to keep her, they’re giving up. They’re giving her back to Oranga Tamariki.
Are we doing things right in this country?
Moana was reportedly happy and healthy and she will now be taken away from that family, her birth mother wants her to go to a Māori family.
Culture is important; we would all agree I'm sure. I’m sure we’re all very proud of our own culture, whatever it is.
But surely a child’s safety and wellbeing is more important. I think we’re doing things wrong.
I'm very sad about this news. If this is what Section 7AA does to little kids, then putting it in there was a mistake and it needs to be removed from the law.
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