New Zealand:
Other Issues
32. During our visit to New Zealand we explored various
other issues relating to the experience of child migrants.
33. We were told by the Director of the Department
of Social Welfare that parental consent was required for the migrants;
there had been a major effort to involve both parents. The signed
approval of a magistrate had also been necessary. We were told
that every child placement was agreed to by parents or guardians
prior to departure from the UK and that many children were placed
with extended family members. If siblings were to be separated
on arrival this would have been known in advance, but attempts
were made to keep siblings in the same area. Most children travelled
to New Zealand on a 'document of identity' which was a one-sheet
visa, and in many cases had no passport. On arrival the children
became wards of the state, an arrangement which, according to
one former child migrant we met, carried a stigma in itself. This
status did not automatically entail New Zealand citizenship, a
complication which has caused subsequent difficulties for many.
34. The Associate Minister of Social Welfare told
us that whilst former child migrants in New Zealand had had mixed
experiences, some had adapted well and enjoyed successful lives.
His sense was that overall the experience was positive. The limited
nature of the New Zealand scheme, and the fact that it appears
to have been better organised than some of the other schemes,
seems to have led to fewer cases of severe abuse. Nonetheless,
we met many former child migrants during our visit to New Zealand
who resented the way they had been treated. "Exported like
a commodity", "Exported as free labour", "No
adequate supervision", "Education stuffed up",
"Cut off", "Loss of identity", "Not informed
where siblings were", and "Why?" are some of the
comments we heard. One woman told us that her files indicate that
her mother soon recognised the mistake she had made in consenting
to migration and pleaded in letters for her child's return. The
response was that the mother was insane and would not a make a
good parent. A number of cases of abuse and neglect were described
to us during our visit.
35. Our discussions with Department of Social Welfare
officials and the Associate Minister of Social Welfare in New
Zealand were constrained by our interlocutors' awareness of litigation
being brought against the New Zealand Government. For this reason
we were unable to discuss with them the question of the adequacy
of monitoring of child migrants' welfare. Welfare checks do appear
to have taken place. We have received written evidence from a
former Child Welfare Officer who states:
"I encouraged children
to write to their parents—and likewise tried to have the
parents respond. Few did. I sought to help those who were homesick,
or moved the children where obviously the foster home was not
working out. All the time our social work notes were kept up to
monitor how the children were progressing. ... Schoolchildren
found their accents often foreign to the New Zealander ear and
often adjusted poorly to school ... At the time, and since, I
have regarded the parsimony of both governments in not making
money available to support these young people in this new country
as heartless and short-sighted in terms of human happiness ...
I am sure the quality of care of child migrants was variable over
the whole country, despite social work inspectors visiting each
district regularly."[35]
One common complaint made by former child migrants
was that they lacked opportunity to speak alone with the Welfare
Officer making the inspection.
36. An example was of a girl who went to New Zealand
at the age of 10. She gave an account of living on a farm, and
working hard both on the farm and in the house. She was beaten
for reading books. She was sexually abused and raped. At age 12
she ran away but was brought back by the police. She used an expression
we were also to hear in Australia: there was no one to run to.
She never saw the Welfare Officer alone. She had later managed
to educate herself, and said that "externally I am living
a good life, but not in myself". Another told us of scrubbing
floors at 8 years old, and being "available for the males
of the house from the age of 9 till 14". We were told of
a volunteer escort who at the end of the voyage wanted to keep
in touch with the two little girls of whom she had grown fond,
but was refused their addresses and told no contact would be allowed.
Many years later she managed to find them again.
37. Most of the former child migrants we encountered
during our visit to New Zealand had arrived via the post-Second
World War scheme which ran until 1953. But the problems of an
earlier generation of former child migrants were illustrated by
the experience of one woman we met (on the day she celebrated
her eightieth birthday) in Wellington. She had been transferred
from a children's home in Britain, at the age of four, to a children's
home in New Zealand. She wrote to us:
" Throughout childhood
and up to the age 18, whenever I raised the question of my identity,
I was always advised by the Salvation Army that my parents had
died on the journey to NZ and I had no known family."[36]
At the age of 72 the woman was traced, after much
detection work, by a niece living in the UK, who informed her
of siblings from whom she had been separated. The news "devastated"
her. Information concerning her background has been difficult
to come by and is still incomplete. A letter from the Social Services
Department of Oxfordshire County Council dated 21 November 1989
gives some basic details provided by the County Archivist at Berkshire
Record Office, but prefaces these with the remark that:
"Normally this information
is not available for public consultation until at least 2026,
which is why [the County Archivist] can't release the original
documents."[37]
We shall deal later in this report with issues arising
from former child migrants' desire to access records of this kind,
and make recommendations aimed at reducing the difficulties which
they currently encounter.
38. Since 1995 the New Zealand Government has made
it possible for former child migrants to obtain New Zealand citizenship
free of charge if they wish. We commend the fact that the New
Zealand Government has a civil servant dedicated to dealing with
child migration issues. We suggest that this should be better
publicised.
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