Abstract
Me aro ki te ha o Hineahuone
“Pay heed to the dignity and essence of women”
The reference in the title to the ‘hara of not being believed’ is taken from Counsel assisting the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care (NZ) ("RCIAC"). At the RCIAC Māori public hearing at Ōrākei marae on 18 March 2022, Counsel addressed the RCIAC saying “[w]orse than the trauma itself was the hara of not being believed.” Hara has various meanings including sin, excess, foul (sport), crime, wrongdoing. It was meant in the sense of sin, crime or wrongdoing. Counsel’s statement is not meant to diminish the trauma experienced by survivors itself but it serves to highlight how damaging it is for survivors to not be believed. By examining the accounts of 7 female survivors of abuse in Anglican Care who gave evidence before the RCIAC, this thesis addresses the barriers to disclosure and epistemic injustice: two key areas that can stand in the way of survivors being empowered to speak, to be heard and to be believed, as well as highlighting trauma from abuse itself. In doing so it adopts a Pākehā Christian feminist approach.
This project seeks to develop and/or apply new ways of theological thinking that might at least in part undergird a response to the sexual abuse of children in Anglican care that has occurred.
In addressing the abuse, the author argues for a response undergirded by trauma theory, feminist trauma theology (particularly the work of Dr Karen O'Donnell) and informed by an imaginative reading of the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the compassion exemplified by the Good Samaritan. It encourages the Anglican Church to be a pilgrim church in its approach and to rely on the rich resources of its three tikanga (Pākehā, Māori and Pasefika cultural strands) in formulating its responses.