Chair of Te Kahui Mana Ririki Dr Hone Kaa said today that he is delighted with the government’s response to the citizen’s initiated referendum on smacking.
“Prime Minister John Key has maintained his position – the current law is working well and at this stage he has no intention of changing it.
“I am delighted that New Zealand will retain a law which effectively makes the physical punishment of children illegal.”
“This is especially important for Maori because our child abuse rates are so high.
“We must continue to promote a policy of zero tolerance of violence towards our young ones.”
Maori participation in the referendum was low with around a third of Maori voters taking part. 11.2% of those Maori voters voted yes to the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand”, and 88.8% voted no.
“We have always argued that the question was misleading.
“The debate has really been about the rights of children to live in homes that are free from violence and that right has been upheld.”
Chair Dr Hone Kaa of Te Kahui Mana Ririki said today he was shocked and saddened by a new report on child abuse published by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
“The report shows that Maori children are more likely than any other group to experience abuse, and makes for some sad reading,” Dr Kaa said in Auckland today.
Between 1991 and 2000 half of the children killed by their parents were Maori. They were killed by mothers and fathers.
Maori ethnicity increases the likelihood of abuse of boys by six times and girls by three times
“This is one of the first times I have seen a report make a direct connection between being Maori and child abuse. So our boys are six times more likely to be abused than other groups, and girls three times more likely. As a people this is the most critical issue we face. I urge every whanau in the country to become actively involved in the battle against child abuse.”
Te Kahui Mana Ririki is a member of The Yes Vote coalition, which is encouraging New Zealanders to participate in the upcoming referendum on smacking.
“The referendum question is misleading: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” This question links smacking with good parental correction, which it is not. I encourage all Maori to vote ‘yes’ so that the current law, which protects our young ones from physical punishment, is maintained.”
“This new report shows how important this issue is for us as Maori.”
Chair of Te Kahui Mana Ririki Dr Hone Kaa will tell East Coast Māori to vote YES in the upcoming referendum on smacking, during iwi workshops he is running in Gisborne and Hastings over the next two days.
“The referendum question is misleading: ‘Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?’ This question links smacking with good parental correction, which it is not.
“I encourage all Māori to vote ‘YES’ so that the current law, which protects our young ones from physical punishment, is maintained.
“Two years on from enactment, the law as it stands is working well. Police reports show that good parents are not being criminalised, while organisations belonging to the YesVote Coalition* report a huge upsurge in interest from good parents seeking alternatives to violence, including smacking.
“This issue is especially important for Māori because our child maltreatment rates are disproportionately high.”
Te Kahui Mana Ririki has been running workshops with iwi since last year – the workshops explore the alternatives to smacking.
“We have developed a six-step model for Māori whanau, which gives them techniques for parenting without hitting.
“The model which blends modern parenting practices with traditional Maori values has been very enthusiastically received.
“As a people we must transition to non-violent parenting so that our young ones can enjoy family life that is free from violence.”
Tapu Misa wrote a great article in today’s Herald, in which she talks about the ramifications of the Jimmy Mason case. She claims that the law is working well as intended.
No, the law isn’t a cure-all for child abuse, it was never meant to be. It’s nonsense to claim, as some do, that the law is a failure because it hasn’t stopped violence against children overnight.
[Jill] Proudfoot [who’s part of a child crisis team at Preventing Violence in the Home that’s routinely called on by police to attend to families after a domestic violence incident] knows as well as anyone the role of poverty and stress, drug and alcohol dependence, and family breakdown and dysfunction. But as she argued in a submission on the proposed law, if the Government was serious about preventing domestic violence and changing attitudes and behaviour, it had to include a strong mandate to not be violent to children; and it couldn’t do that while Section 59 was still on the books.
“The sense of entitlement with which adults physically assault children is no different from the sense of entitlement men have when they batter women, but it is more overtly socially and culturally sanctioned.”
The law corrected the bizarre situation where animals used to have more protection than children:
Proudfoot cites a boy whose father was arrested for beating his mother. He’d been beaten too, “all the time”, but his father was never charged for that. Later, when the father was fined for cruelty to their pet dog (he jammed its tail in the door and refused to release it), the boy was incensed that his dad had been punished for beating the dog but not for beating him.
Misa concludes that one of the key questions for those who want to reject the Child Discipline Law is “how we can tolerate some forms of violence against children, and not others.”
And that’s not helpful for those who are trying to forge a better way – like the Rev Dr Hone Kaa, who’s part of a child advocacy group determined to address Maori child abuse and maltreatment.
“We are actually asking our people to … make a major mind shift about the beliefs of parenting …”
“We believe that smacking is simply another expression of violence against Maori children. If we can break the habit that our whanau have of hitting children, then more serious forms of abuse and maltreatment will also reduce.”
Druis Barrett resigned from The Families Commission today in protest at Christine Rankin’s appointment.
In an excellent interview on today’s Morning Report (listen below), she says “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that [Christine Rankin] was racist, but she’s damn well close to it”. In the same interview, Hone Kaa agrees with her, saying that Rankin’s comments were unhelpful.
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The Herald reports that Rankin’s comment that so upset Barrett was “Maori whanau don’t look after their own, and that [they] should be responsible for the many children that are at risk and have been killed”, implying that Māori were doing nothing about the problem.
In fact, groups like Te Kahui Mana Ririki, Save The Children, Barnardos and Plunket have been running Māori led programs to attack these problems for years.
Te Kahui Mana Ririki1 is now in its second year of operation. Our organisation is committed to eliminating Maori child abuse and maltreatment, and year one was spent focusing on establishing ourselves within the sector and securing funding for our ongoing work. We have positioned ourselves as a national Maori child advocacy organisation. Many Maori providers have asked us what this means in practice. Do we intend to speak on their behalf? Do we represent their interests?
What is becoming clear to me as we continue on our journey is that our primary role is to voice and promote the needs of Maori children and young people at a national level. This will be based on our observations of the sector, and Maori generally. And our comment will be guided by the values that underpin our strategic plan. Here are our values:
Self-determination
Primary responsibility for addressing these issues lies with Maori. Over the last twenty years Maori expertise in child maltreatment has increased exponentially. Maori practitioners are now blending generic child protection expertise with Maori models of practice. Any solutions that are developed must come from a Maori base.
We have the leadership and professional expertise in place to develop strategies to eliminate Maori child maltreatment and ensure the ongoing wellness of our ririki.
The centrality of tradition
Historical accounts indicate that Maori were kind and nurturing caregivers. This new profile of violence and abuse resonates with the experience of indigenous peoples elsewhere – it is the direct result of power-loss, poverty and cultural alienation. Answers lie in reclaiming traditions and re-constructing a violence-free culture.
Focus on Maori strengths
A combination of unbalanced media coverage, and continual exposure to negative statistics has perpetuated negative stereotypes of Maori. New strategies need to challenge these stereotypes, frame the Maori experience positively, and motivate behaviour change.
Network and collaborate
Maori services and workers are located in a whole range Maori and mainstream agencies. Any strategies that are developed need to tap into this expertise and plug any gaps that exist.
Whanaungatanga
The concept of whanau is at the core of Maori thinking. Work in Maori child health and maltreatment must strengthen and empower whanau to be violence-free. This work is not the domain of wahine only – tane and ririki must be factored into all strategies and solutions.
Educate and Communicate
These are the two main areas of activity required to achieve the changes necessary.
These principles are not new and emerged out of the Maori Child Abuse Summit Nga Mana Ririki held in Auckland in 2007. There is a subtle shift however. Despite the continuing profile of poor Maori health we no longer see ourselves as victims of something done to us. Rather we are asserting that we have the knowledge and expertise to deal with all of the most complex issues facing our people.
One of the key messages underpinning Nga Mana Ririki was:
We must stop blaming colonisation. It is time for us to take responsibility and heal.
As Maori we must see ourselves as liberated: as experts who can wrestle with any critical social issue.
Here is the profile of Maori women and family violence:
Maori women receive higher levels of medical treatment for abuse, and experience more severe abuse than other groups of women
Maori women between 15-24 years old are seven times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of an assault than Pakeha women
Maori women are over represented as victims of partner abuse, more likely to report psychological abuse, to have experienced physical or sexual abuse in the last 12 months, and to have experienced more serious and repeated acts of violence (Kruger et al, 2004)
Maori and Pacific men, and Maori women were all more likely to have experienced violent behaviours from people well known to them than men and women of other ethnic groups
Maori are more likely than Pakeha or Pacific peoples to experience all kinds of violence
Maori are significantly over-represented as both victims and perpetrators of violence in families/whanau
Maori were more likely to report community violence (15%) than Pakeha (10%) or Pacific peoples (9%) and more men than women experienced this kind of violence2
And here are some facts about Maori child maltreatment:
Maori children are four times more likely to be hospitalised as the result of deliberately inflicted physical harm
Maori are twice as likely to experience abuse as other groups
New Zealand has the third highest rate on infanticide in the OECD, with around a third being Maori deaths
For the period 1991-2000 child most at risk was under one year old, male and Maori4
Some Maori don’t like me talking about this context of adults hitting adults hitting children. I have been accused of blaming our people – of deficit thinking. I believe that type of comment is further evidence of the problem itself. Any social worker will tell you that healing starts when whanau begin to talk about the problem. As Maori we must begin to discuss these issues and plan our way out of the mire.
Te Kahui Mana Ririki has focused quite specifically on the relationship between parents and caregivers and ririki. This is the point where we believe we can make a real difference. Smacking is simply another expression of violence against Maori children. If we can break the habit that our whanau have of hitting children, then more serious forms of abuse and maltreatment will also reduce.
Until now the positive parenting movement has been driven by Pakeha experts. I want to acknowledge the work of Beth Wood in particular who has advocated this issue for many years, and assisted us in the development of our work.
Using Choose to Hug which was developed by organisations like the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, Barnardos and UNICEF, our Strategy Manager Helen Harte has developed a six-step approach to non-violent parenting. The six steps are:
Stop / Kauaka: Take a breather. Calm yourself down.
Go / Haere: Make sure your child is safe. Then walk away.
Ignore / E aro ke: Let annoying behaviour go if everyone is safe.
Distract / Kia whakaware: Distract them with another activity, or remove them from that place.
Praise / Whakamihia: Be positive. Reward good behaviour with smiles, hugs and lots of praise.
Enjoy / Kia ngahau: Use play, singing, games and toys to change behaviour.
For the aficionados of non-violent parenting these six steps are nothing new. There are some subtle shifts however.
Firstly, we have taken account of the context of Maori Family Violence that surrounds the hitting and smacking of our ririki. Our parents are often grappling with their own anger management issues and the first two of the six steps deal with this. We are saying to our parents that they must deal with themselves before they deal with their ririki.
Secondly, we have taken these concepts and attached Maori words. The words are not a translation; rather they are an interpretation of these concepts. We have applied the principles from our strategic plan which I referenced at the beginning of this paper.
And finally because physical abuse is a more significant issue for Maori than other groups, rather than framing this as ‘positive parenting’ we have taken a very directive approach – Papaki Kore, No Smacking. As Maori child maltreatment reduce this approach may be modified, but feedback from focus groups we have run with Maori caregivers is that they like the clarity of the message and the six steps.
We are actually asking our people to make a major mind shift about the beliefs of parenting – away from thinking that ririki are fundamentally naughty, to thinking about ririki as intrinsically pure and perfect. So now we have prefaced the six steps with the following beliefs about ririki:
Ririki are perfect
Ririki have mana
Ririki are tapu
Ririki need warmth
Ririki need structure
Ririki need guidance
Ririki grow into happy, caring adults
Once again we used existing material; in fact at least half of these principles have been distilled from Rhonda Pritchard’s book ‘Children are Unbeatable’.
Are any of these ideas new? Not really. We have gone back to our traditions as Maori, or we have simply updated existing expertise and Western knowledge.
I am certainly not intimidated by Pakeha knowledge. In fact I feel privileged because through my life in the Ministry of the Anglican Church I have been exposed to a vast body of thinking, much of it international. My philosophical base is Ngati Porou but my world view has been shaped by many other cultures and will continue to be so shaped.
In terms of Papaki Kore what is evolving is a blend of Maori and Western knowledge, which we hope will motivate Maori to transition to non-violent parenting.
Footnotes:
Ririki is lifted from a famous Ngati Porou haka and means ‘young ones’. We use the term to describe Maori children and young people. Unlike the more commonly-used word tamariki, ririki is not gender specific.
Pihama, L. Jenkins, K. & Middleton, A. Te Rito action area 13 literature review: family violence prevention for Maori research report, Ministry of Health, Wellington 2003.
Meremere Tu Ahiaha – Kingi Taurua discusses with the Reverend Doctor Hone Kaa, proposed referendum to change the anti smacking provisions that were brought about by the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961. Broadcast on 1 April 2009 – Waatea 603AM.
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