- I think all adopted people have challenges. And I guess these things are around identity. And there was a whole narrative about unwanted children, unwanted babies, rejection, abandonment. These are common themes for all adopted people. For Maori, there's the added burden of wanting to engage in their taha Maori, or in te ao Maori... (MELANCHOLIC MUSIC GROWS) ...but without knowledge of whakapapa ` where you're from, who you're related to, where's your place in the world, you can't fully engage as Maori. I think at some level, it really breaks people. But coming from te ao Maori, you are never lost. You are never lost to your tupuna. Whether it's this generation, the next generation, the generation after, you will return. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - New Zealand is set to reform its 68-year-old Adoption Act. Between 1955 and 1995, more than 100,000 New Zealanders were the subject of closed adoption. The thinking behind it was that any connection between the child and the biological family should be completely severed. It was the ultimate nature vs nurture experiment, and as a result, tens of thousands of Maori have been completely cut off from their whakapapa. (UNEASY MUSIC) This is a story about one of those closed adoptions and the life-long ramifications thereafter. Leanne Brown was born in Palmerston North Hospital on the 20th of December 1962. She was adopted to a Pakeha couple from Levin and became Jennifer Katherine Small. Tell me about your adopted parents. - OK. My mum and dad were hard workers when we were growing up. I never went without anything. We always had everything. Always had food in the cupboard. Got pocket money every week. My mother was arts and crafts ` she made all our clothing, she knitted all our jerseys and our cardigans. But because I was Maori and my mother was a Pakeha, we used to go to mother-and-daughter evenings. And because she wanted people to know that I was her daughter, we wore the same cardigans. She knitted one ` what she had on was what I had on too. - That must have made you feel good. - Yeah, it did. It did because I wanted everyone to know that was my mum. - And so did you have siblings? - Yes, I've got three siblings ` two brothers and one sister. They're all Maoris. My oldest brother and sister are actually full-blooded brother and sister, and they have found their parents. And my younger brother, who's younger than me, he's also found his parents. - So when you were growing up and you had four Maori children and two Pakeha parents, did you think there was something a bit different? - Not at first. Just thought I was a bit different from what the other Maori kids did, maybe. - How were you different? - Because I was` When I was growing up, I always wondered why I wasn't in kapa haka. Obviously, I felt I didn't belong anywhere because I didn't have a marae, I didn't have an iwi, blah blah blah. I came to Shannon when I was` I think it was 15 or 16, came over for a weekend, and when I came to Shannon, I knew nothing about Maori at all. Never been to a marae. Nothing. (GENTLE MUSIC) - More than 40 years since moving to Shannon, Jenny plays a big part in the community. - Grab a basket, hon, and you just go around and grab you some kai. - She runs a local food bank and is a much-loved member of the local marae, which her children whakapapa to through their father. - I know that marae with my eyes closed. The kitchen, yep. I know everything about that marae, you know, because that was me. A big part of me was in the kitchen, always out there, awhi and... - So often when we go to hui these days, we do whakawhanaunga ` people stand up and they say their pepeha. - Mm. - What do you say? - I don't get up. I wouldn't get up. - What's stopping you? - Cos I haven't got a... (GENTLE MUSIC CONTINUES) (SNIFFLES) - You haven't got a..? - Cos I don't know where I'm from, so I can't get up and say, 'Oh, blah blah's my iwi, blah blah', cos I don't know, so... (COMFORTING MUSIC) Hey, guys. Hey, Mare. Hi, Sharon. - Today, Jenny is back at the marae she calls home. She has an important decision she wants to share with friends. - So today I've come out because I want to connect with my whakapapa. And... Whakatere is the only marae I know. I call it my home. So it'll be good to find out other stuff. - WOMAN: How long you've been thinking about it? - Not long (!) Nah. - Not long? - Um... long. - Years? - Yeah, years, but it's more for my kids. Just wanna do it for my kids, I don't really... Whatever the outcome is is the outcome. - To the world, Jenny clearly looks like a wahine Maori, but like thousands of other closed adoptees, Jenny has absolutely no clue what her whakapapa is. And that's how we came across her. Jenny had posted on a Facebook group where many New Zealanders impacted by closed adoption are searching for their whanau. Mata producer Annabelle Lee-Mather and I decided to help. What, if anything, do you know about your birth parents? - In the '90s I applied for my birth certificate, but back then, cos it was closed, the only info they gave me was my mum's name. The name she gave me, that she was from Masterton... and that she was 19, I think, when she had me. And then I misplaced that one and then I got another one about a year or so ago, and attached to that birth certificate was a letter that had all my grandparents on my mother's side, and that my father was a good rugby player and... he was an orderly at the hospital, and she was a nurse. (UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC) - Jenny's file also states that her mother was Pakeha and her father was Maori. Her parents' relationship is part of a wider story about what was happening in Aotearoa after World War II. - ARCHIVE: The Maori is beginning to move into the towns at a very rapid rate. The end of the Second World War, about a fifth of the Maori population lived in urban areas. Now it's something like a half. - Come on, children, hurry up! - There was... an increase of Maori coming from rural, predominantly Maori areas to the cities, primarily for work. So this was kind of the first time that there was a larger group of Maori in 'Pakeha' spaces. - Dr Maria Haenga-Collins is an academic who's spent much of her career researching and writing about adoption. Like Jenny, she too was adopted to Pakeha. - ARCHIVE: I thought we'd talk about adoption. - Maria says it was often the case that Pakeha mothers were forced to give up their Maori babies. - I think we see that primarily half of the women marrying in the '60s were already pregnant. So you either married the father or your child was placed for adoption. They were really the two socially prescribed pathways. So a Pakeha woman hapu to a Maori man, there was not only stigma that she was pregnant outside of wedlock, but the stigma of being associated with Maori. And so parents` and I've heard this story so many times` parents were very forceful in making sure that their daughter didn't marry a Maori. - Not only were many vulnerable young women bullied or coerced into giving up their babies, some received appalling medical treatment. - ARCHIVE: Many New Zealand girls are stupid enough to get themselves into that situation. Last year, nearly 7000 illegitimate births pushed this country to the head of the world illegitimacy lists. - DOCTOR: Two or three more pushes... will be XX. - I think the trauma was horrific and what happened as a punishment ` some doctors delivering these babies were very rough and damaged the women who were giving birth. These mothers were told, 'This is what to expect for what you've done.' You know, like... so there was` There were women who couldn't go on and have other children. (BROODING MUSIC) - Jenny says, for the most part, she had a happy childhood, but when she reached the age of 12, things started to change. - I think I started rebelling, trying to find my identity. And get mad at my mother. In one part there, I even... (GROANS SOFTLY) She was in the kitchen and I` not at her though, I just broke` smashed the window because, um... I don't know, I just didn't feel complete for some reason. - You were living in Levin then. What were you getting up to? - I was allowed to go out on a Friday night, as long as I was home by 9 o'clock, but that didn't always happen. I really, really hardly got into any trouble. I think, from my mother, I probably did, but apart` I never did anything... that involved with police or anything. - But the authorities were about to get involved with Jenny. Concerned about Jenny's behaviour, her parents reached out to a family friend for advice ` a constable and his wife, who was a nurse. They suggested a local program. - They told my mother that I was going to a summer camp where there would be horses, because they said horses because I loved horses. I didn't used to ride much of them, but I always used to have horse books to read and that. And, I'm like, 'Oh, yep, yep, yep. That'll be cool.' But then that wasn't the case. - So in 1975, on Jenny's 13th birthday, her parents packed her up and headed to the promised summer camp. - I do remember going there with my parents in my dad's Vauxhall car and we went to this place, had a big water tower and heaps of buildings, and then I could see all these weird people walking around and that. And that's when I learnt I was at a place called Lake Alice. - Lake Alice was a... psychiatric hospital, and it was set up to basically take the criminally insane. It was a high-security psychiatric hospital. It was like the maximum-security prison before there was a maximum-security prison. And so some of the country's most dangerous criminals resided there. - Aaron Smale is one of thousands of Maori who were adopted to Pakeha. He's now an investigative journalist who spent years researching and reporting on Lake Alice. - In the 1970s, there was an adolescent unit set up there by Dr Selwyn Leeks, which is bizarre, really, when you think about it, putting kids in amongst criminally insane adults. But that's what they were doing. He was kind of God, really, and ran the joint as a dictator, effectively. There are a number of psychiatric nurses that ran it, and they were as bad, if not worse in some respects than Leeks himself. - Some of the most dangerous criminals at Lake Alice were housed in villa eight. 13-year-old Jenny is placed next door in villa seven. - They took me in. I remember them taking me in with my suitcases and everything, but that's all I remember, and then I presume they would have just left. - And when did it start to get a bit odd? - Oh, straight away, probably. Like, they'd take me into` they'd take us into the medication room where they give out all the medication, and if you were naughty, whatever naughty was to them, they used to fill up this plastic medicine cup with this black stuff. It starts` The name starts with 'P', I forget what it's called now. And you used to drink it and it was the most ugliest drink you could ever, ever taste. But that wasn't the worst bit ` the worst bit was the injection. They'd give you an injection and it just paralysed you. - When you were medicated, do you remember what happened to you? When you were unable to move` - I couldn't get out of the medication room, I had to walk myself along the wall to get out because I couldn't walk. - How long would it last? - For ages. Like, a few hours. Because I think that was the punishment ` to paralyse you. - And would you just lie there? - Lie, sit, whatever I could do, but I just couldn't walk out of that room. I walked in, but I couldn't walk out. - And was there any other punishment? - Yep. Electric shock treatment. - At 13? Can you talk me through that? - What I remember of it ` all the other things I do remember ` I don't know why, but they took me over to the boys villa, they took me up the stairs into the dormitory and the first bed on the right of the dormitory, they made me lie on the bed. And then all I remember was these, like, earphones going on my head, sorta like earphones, and then them turning up some sort of machine. - Did it hurt? - Yes. It was like electric shock` you know, like being electrocuted. - Who was there? Who was doing that to you? - Dr Leeks. - Hundreds of former patients experienced medical abuse at Lake Alice. Jenny says the treatments she was subjected to have taken a toll on her health, especially her memory. But now she's ready to know more. - Kia ora. - Kia ora, Jenny. How are you? - We've managed to get hold of her Lake Alice files, and we've arranged for her to meet with Aaron Smale so he can explain them. - In the admission form, I don't know if you notice it here, it's got 'status', and it's... It says 'INF'. That means 'informal', and it basically tells me that you were never diagnosed with any psychiatric illness. You know, a doctor is supposed to diagnose when something's wrong, then they're supposed to prescribe some treatment, and then they're supposed to keep records about the progress. A lot of the criticisms are saying that Doctor Leeks did none of that. And when I look through your file, that's what's happening here as well. There's no real justification for you being in there. - Jenny ended up spending three years at Lake Alice. Her files show her parents admitted her, citing rebellious behaviour. Dr Maria Haenga-Collins says adoptees were often over-scrutinised with severe consequences. - So if you have a Maori child that you've adopted who starts to display normal angst, then that can be seen, one, as the 'bad blood' of the birth parents coming out. And I can see how then parents may seek help for that child. But the form that that help took could have been, and resulted in, removal, and we see that in the inquiries into abuse in state care. Maori children were picked up and placed in institutions at alarmingly high rates. - Another disadvantage Maori adoptees faced is they were often placed in homes with family problems. Jenny's records detail her father's heavy drinking and her mother's mental health issues. - In adoption, there's a hierarchy of babies, and at the top of that hierarchy were fair, blue-eyed girls, then fair, blue-eyed boys. Then down, we come to fair-looking Maori children who could pass as, and were often passed off as Greek or Italian, and then at the very bottom were dark-skinned children. And those children, the hard-to-place children, were often put into homes that would not normally be accepted. And it's talked about in terms of a 'glut' of Maori babies. - The nurses notes in Jenny's file list the heavy drugs being administered, including the sedative Paraldehyde and the anti-psychotic Largactil. These were often given as punishment for minor indiscretions. - Did you know why you were getting it? - No, cos I was naughty. That's all they'd say. - Right. Yeah. And the ECT, do you sort of recall how many times`? - No, I don't. I just know where I went for it. - Right. - Villa seven, upstairs, to the left. - To the left, yeah. - On the bed. - It's often talking about ` Here it is ` 'Settled and slept well.' 'Settled and slept well.' When I read that, I think, well, of course you're sleeping well. You've knocked her out, you know? He's given her enough to knock a horse out. - As a young teen, Jenny was also being given the contraceptive Depo-Provera. - So you've got a teenage girl who's been knocked out with anti-psychotic drugs, she's also been given contraception drugs, and she's in amongst dangerous psychiatric patients. Now... add all that up and you've got a young girl who's at extreme risk, extremely vulnerable and she's not the only one, unfortunately. - Do you worry that something may have happened to you? - Yes, now I do. As an adult, I do. Yeah, because I know a lot of scary things that happened there, so I don't know what happened when I was under that thing, cos once that machine went up, I don't remember anything after that. - Jenny's story is all too common for those unfortunate enough to have experienced Lake Alice. But what's remarkable is how Jenny's been able to move on. - I know a lot of Lake Alice victims and... it essentially destroyed their lives, many of them, and it destroyed their potential. It had massive impacts on their ability to hold down jobs. Their education was compromised, to say the least. They carried that trauma and still carry it to this day. I'm still always amazed at how human beings, one, can inflict that kind of abuse, but then the people that are on the receiving end of it can still somehow pick themselves up and carry on. And Jenny's one of them. - Without a name recorded on her birth certificate, Jenny's had to take a DNA test to try and narrow down the search for her father. So while we wait for those results, we make a start on finding Jenny's maternal family. We know Jenny's mother, Patricia, passed away in 2020 and she left no online footprint. So we focus on Jenny's grandparents, whose names were on the back of her birth certificate. Using their names, we were able to identify two of their other children; both are deceased. Through their online obituaries, we tracked down some of Jenny's first cousins, and they provide a phone number for Jenny's maternal sister. Well, thank you for being open to taking our call. I know this must be out of the blue for you. Did your mum ever mention anything? - Mm-hm. (STIRRING MUSIC) - Today we're on our way to give Jenny an update. Her maternal sister, Kim, has been speaking to friends and family to try and find out more about the circumstances of Jenny's adoption. She's also sent some photos of their mum. So, at a park in Palmerston North, Jenny gets to see her mother for the first time. - Wow, she's beautiful. - She is beautiful. That's your mama. - And, you know, like so many women who gave their children away, and had to at that time, she didn't tell anyone. Not even her best friends, you know? - But she is dead, though, eh? - She's kua mate, yeah. - She is dead, yeah. - Jenny's mum held her secret close. It's a powerful reminder of the stigma and shame experienced by the young women who adopted their babies. Today is about easing that hurt. (STIRRING MUSIC BUILDS) - Hi! - How are you? Jump in. 'Jenny has flown to Auckland and we're driving her to Hamilton 'to meet her sister Kim.' - They know I'm Maori, eh? - CHUCKLES: Yeah, they know you're Maori. - They do. - Don't wanna shock them. - You're crack up. - (CHUCKLES) (ALL TALK INDISTINCTLY) - It's believed 25% of New Zealanders have an adoption connection. - WHISPERS: Kia ora. (SMOOCHES) - And as Jenny meets her sister for the first time, it's clear closed adoptions don't just affect the adoptee. - It's lovely to meet you. - You too. - After 60 years, Jenny has finally come face-to-face with her whanau. - You like your mum. - (CHUCKLES SADLY) - And I can see my Nana as well. - To get to this point in the hunt for Jenny's whakapapa has taken hundreds of hours of research. It's required DNA testing, genealogy website subscriptions, and lots and lots of phone calls and emails ` resources that are beyond the reach of many adoptees. Do you think the government has an obligation to help those New Zealanders who were impacted by closed adoptions find their whakapapa and their whanau today? - I think they absolutely do. I think it's a serious form of abuse to cut people off. I mean, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we signed up, says every child has the right to know its identity; article eight. It's a fundamental, and to cut people off from that is tragic. So I think the government does owe a duty here to, to help people find those things, to use their resources to help find them, because the resources to do this are quite difficult ` getting tests done and all that sort of stuff, it's not easy. People sometimes don't have the energy or the resources to do it. So it is another form of state abuse, in my view. - University of Auckland law professor Mark Henaghan specialises in family law. He has long-advocated to have our 68-year-old adoption laws fixed. - I think we've put adoption in a cupboard and we don't wanna be embarrassed about it. It was such a bad law at the time. I mean, it passed a law which, for example, said we don't recognise Maori customary adoptions anymore. We got rid of those with the Adoption Act. It was put in place because, at the time, we thought that any children born outside marriage were illegitimate. In fact, we called them 'filius nilly' ` that's 'nobody's child'. So we shamed woman who got pregnant outside marriage and we just took their children off them, and they're expected to get on with their lives. - The introduction of the solo parent benefit and societal changes have seen adoption numbers steadily decline to around 100 children a year. The current review aims to put those tamariki at the heart of our adoption laws. It's the latest in a long-running series of attempts to reform an Act that's out of date and out of order. - There was a human rights hearing, which I was involved in and said it breaches about six human rights, our Adoption Act, the 1955 Act, and it went to Parliament and Parliament at the time said, 'We're too busy.' And I think they're still saying the same thing. It's kind of sad because if we don't address our past and learn from it, we're gonna make the same mistakes. - What changes would you like to see in the outcome of the review? - Well, I hope we (CHUCKLES) revise the law fairly quickly. I just can't believe that nothing has happened. I mean, I think the Justice Department did a very good job. They recognise the importance of open adoption, of having involvement with the birth mother. They even thought they might pass a Whangai Act, so I think their discussion paper was excellent. And it's just sitting there, and I don't know why it's not high on the priority list in this situation because it affects a lot of people. (TENSE MUSIC) - We made multiple requests to interview Justice Minister Kiritapu Allan, but all were declined. In a statement to Mata, she said... But for those who lived through closed adoption, change can't come soon enough. - HAENGA-COLLINS: I think an apology from the government would be a good start, because that's naming it; that's naming that something happened and there's been trauma in your life for a reason. And all these feelings of rejection or abandonment, of never knowing where you come from, there's a reason for that, and that was a state-sanctioned policy. So an apology, I think, would be helpful. - If there's one thing adoptees know all about, it's waiting. But finally, Jenny's DNA results have come through. She has more than 47,000 genetic matches on her father's side alone. One is a first cousin, and it doesn't take too long to figure out which set of grandparents they have in common. But Jenny's paternal grandparents have eight sons. Figuring out which one is Jenny's dad takes more time, but eventually the answer is revealed. (KAIKARANGA CALLS DISTANTLY) - Today is a homecoming 60 years in the making. - KAIKARANGA: Haere mai ra, haere mai ra! - Friends and supporters have travelled from Shannon to Greytown, where Jenny and her children are being welcomed onto Papawai Marae and into the arms of her father's whanau. - Mauria mai o tatou taonga, mauria mai, mauria mai. - Jenny didn't get to meet her father ` he passed away in 2018. But he had always told his whanau he had a daughter who'd been adopted. So when we made contact about Jenny, it wasn't a surprise. - Haere mai, hoki mai ano, ki roto i te poho o to whanau whanui. Te whanau o Hemi, te whanau Ngatuere, te whanau Matiaha. - Within weeks, the Hemi whanau had come together to welcome Jenny back to her turangawaewae and give her the answers she'd been searching for. - Hemi Te Uanga o Te Ra married Merepani Maika, and they had Te Pehi. And from Te Pehi came Uncle Duncan and from Uncle Duncan, his children and his mokopuna are all sitting at the back here, so they're all your whanaugna e nohonoho nei i konei. - What does it feel like to finally know your maunga, your awa, your tupuna, your whanau? - Um, overwhelming. I don't know. I can't explain it. Just gazing around, just looking at the photos and just looking at them. - How important was it to do this? - Very important. - Why's that? - For my kids' sake ` find their pepeha and their whakapapa. - For those still searching for their whakapapa, Jenny's story is a reminder of the whakatauki ` E kore au e ngaro, he kakano i ruia mai i Rangiatea. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) Captions by Kitty Wasasala. Edited by Jessie Puru. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Ko te reo te take.