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[31 July 2007] - The case of a three-year-old girl who was allegedly hung from a washing line and spun in a tumble-dryer has reignited debate in New Zealand about the touchy subject of child abuse within Maori communities. Four adults including the stepfather of Nia Glassie were remanded in custody yesterday, charged with assault. She is in a serious but stable condition in the Starship Hospital, a children's facility in Auckland. It is the latest in a long series of shocking cases. A 22-year-old Auckland man, Chris Kahui, will stand trial later this year for the murder last June of his three-month-old twin sons, Chris and Cru. They died in hospital of severe head injuries. Family may know of mistreatment In many such cases, it has emerged that the victim's extended family knew the child was being mistreated. But it is Maori custom that people sort out their problems themselves, rather than report them to the police. Now there are calls for this culture of silence to be broken. The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, urged relatives to speak out. "People have got to start turning in those who are maiming and killing our children," she told Television New Zealand. The 1994 film Once Were Warriors helped to bring the issue of violence within Maori families to the fore. Although fictional, it focused attention on a taboo subject. Police statistics suggest Maori children are twice as likely as their white counterparts to be abused. Some agencies put the figure five times higher. A national 'scandal' A doctor at the Starship Hospital, Liz Segedin, told the New Zealand Herald that one child a month was admitted with brain injuries. "It's a national scandal, or should be," she said. Last Saturday a 12-week-old boy from Rotorua, Nia's home city, was flown to the hospital with head injuries. Ms Clark, whose Labour government relies partly on the Maori vote, shied away from describing the issue as specifically Maori. "It occurs in all our communities," she told Newstalk ZB, a national talk radio network. But Peter Dunne, leader of the United Future party, said: "It's time to stop pretending that the kind of child abuse suffered by Nia Glassie and the Kahui twins is not a Maori problem. Within some families there is a culture of cover-up and collaboration that condones long-term child abuse." Most experts attribute violence against children to poverty, unemployment, welfare dependence, alcoholism and alienation. Maori people are worse off than white New Zealanders on just about every social indicator. After the deaths of the Kahui twins, the government promised cross-party talks on domestic violence and action to identify families at risk, but nothing has yet happened. In the Nia Glassie case, five people have been charged. They are her stepfather, William Curtis, 47; his two sons, Michael, 21, and Wiremu, 17; Michael's girlfriend, Oriwa Kemp, 17; and a cousin, 19-year-old Michael Pearson. They have not yet entered a plea. ~ Further information
pdf: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article2819576.ece