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New Plymouth, Taranaki
Child sexual abuse victims re-traumatised in their fight for justice
Thousands of New Zealanders were sexually abused as children in state care and faith-based institutions, but will never get the justice they need to move forward.
He was 12 years old when the abuse started.
The principal at his elite Christchurch Catholic school would call the boys to his office to check their lunch boxes. When J arrived, the principal would take him into his office and tell him his parents had sent him to the school “to help him become a man”.
It started with the principal giving him a pornographic magazine to look at, and asking him how it made him feel. Over the next two years, J was raped weekly, mostly in the principal’s office, but sometimes in the cathedral behind the school or the changing rooms of the local community swimming pool.
When he raped me, I couldn’t ride my bike home.