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Sapeer Mayron17:19, Jul 21 2021
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Survivors of abuse from the Pacific community will give evidence before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.
Joanna Oldham spent her entire childhood being made to feel worthless. But telling her story of abuse and neglect by the state has her feeling like she can do anything. As a nine-year-old in her grandmother’s care in Christchurch, the reverend at their church molested her and took indecent photos of her three times before an uncle found out and put a stop to it – something she only learned a few years ago.
Joanna Oldham.
Photo: RNZ / Andrew McRae
The Royal Commission is focusing on the historical abuse in care of Pacific people at its hearing in South Auckland.
Joanna Oldham was unaware of her Tongan ethnicity or culture growing up.
Her father was Pākehā and her mother Tongan.
She remembers, as a child, not knowing what her culture was or where she came from. I just knew that whatever I was, I was different and that whatever I was, was wrong. My father, grandmother and the whole side of my Pākehā family was extremely racist toward Māori and Pacifica people, including me.