An investigation has detailed “horrific and systemic” historical abuse of people with learning disabilities in state care facilities in New Zealand. Between 1950 and the 1980s, 100,000 New Zealand children and vulnerable adults were taken into state care, and earlier reports have revealed the abuse of more than 1,000 children in state care homes, and of mental health patients in psychiatric facilities. A new study for the Human Rights Commission focuses on accounts of the state’s treatment of people with learning disabilities. Gibson said some children with learning difficulties were forcibly removed from their families by police and social workers who put them into often violent and neglectful state care. “In New Zealand it started off with the eugenics movement – who was fit to be a citizen.

Source: The Guardian July 27, 2017 08:24 UTC