Just over 30 per cent of all those who identified as Pacific islanders to the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care in Aotearoa identified as Cook Islanders, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

Most of them were children, either direct from the Cook Islands to a rapidly changing Aotearoa, and most, we can imagine, left with the same set of migrant aspirations our people still hold on to today.

Leaving to get better access to education, wages, and housing – aspirations that went from milk and honey to sour, rancid milk and honey that was dry, cracked, and had lost all its sweetness.

The number of those abused in care and in faith institutions like religious schools, Catholic schools, and within families is estimated to be over 200,000, but only 3000 came to the Royal Commission, and only 138 people from the Moana spoke, with just 38 identifying as Cook Islanders.

I wonder what that number would be if we had an inquiry into abuse in the Cook Islands or those who have been sexually assaulted by those they trusted or who were entrusted with them. What would that number be for us as a nation, as we look at Aotearoa now grappling with where to go from here as decades of survivors have now recorded their betrayal and tabled it in Parliament?

Would we have the courage as a country to investigate, to shine the light on our terrible past and present, or should we just dance for the tourists, smile for the planes, and remember our Kia Orana values for those who visit our shores – these same values and smiles we deny those abused?

Impeccable in our Sunday whites as we sing to God, do we hope that same God doesn’t see over the intergenerational walls of silence we have built to hide family members? Or maybe as we travel the world singing the song of saving our oceans and environment, we could confront the silence in our own families and save just one of our young women and men, left to self-medicate on a diet of shame instead of tending to our taro patch of akapapa’anga, now riddled with rotten taro.

What do we do when the village says nothing? Those same villagers we say are needed to raise a child sadly turned their backs and said and did nothing. And in that moment, gave permission to the abuser to abuse and keep abusing. Our silence said we won’t stop you, as long as the darkness you and your evil hide remains hidden and doesn’t bring shame to our family. Not realising that shame was now sewn deep into the akapapa of their families, because when we say nothing, shame, trauma, and abuse weave their way from one generation to the next and will manifest in the lives of our children not yet born.

And I say this as I remember a teacher talking about her abuse, realising the abuser sat in that same staff room, or as I watched a service conducted in Aotearoa by a former church minister from the Cook Islands, charged many years ago with indecently assaulting three young girls. At least we know the number of abused young women in our country is at least three; of that, we can be sure.

And as I write this, I know many of you would know just one person violated by abuse, be it physical, sexual, or spiritual, and if we connected them all together, as a country, what would that number be?

I personally believe in a God that restores and reconciles, but it is truth that sets us free – not lies and deception, not secrets, not things hidden, and not those things we collectively refuse to keep from the light of His word, love, and community. Healing and love are available; it is who we are, but it will take courage to climb together over the walls we have built of intergenerational silence.

Eia’a roa koe e ‘akatopa. I te roimata kia topa ki te one. E ni’o to te one. Ka’oki mai ka kaikati iakoe. Never let the tears fall in the soil. The soil has teeth, and it will return to bite you – because the land will not remain silent.