Death of man in police cell, Vanuatu's new helpine for kids, and pioneering academic dies Death of man in police cell, Vanuatu's new helpine for kids, and pioneering academic dies.
The prime ministerâs emotional ritual entry into Aucklandâs Great Hall and her address to Pacific people and communities assembled there on Sunday drastically relived the shameful and unjust treatment of Pacific peoples by successive governments during the dawn raid era of the 1970s, when police, hunting for immigrant overstayers and armed with dogs and batons, would burst into the homes of Pasifika families in the early morning hours.
These experiences and the subsequent deportations have created layers of intergenerational shame and trauma for Pacific victims and families in New Zealand and in the homelands. Studies have since shown that Pacific people made up only 30% of the overstayers, and yet almost 90% of the deportations. The bulk of the migrants who overstayed their visas were from the US and UK. Since the apology was announced there has been a flood of victimsâ stories â stories no longer silenced by the guilt, shame and trauma of the raids and random c