Rights Aotearoa Demands Urgent Investigation Into Alleged Torture Of Children At Gloriavale
Rights Aotearoa has today written to the Hon Louise Upston asking for an urgent investigation into claims of alleged torture of children at Gloriavale. The letter follows revelations in the New Zealand Herald that parents at the isolated West Coast community were systematically taught to cover the mouths and noses of infants to suppress crying – a technique described by legal experts as suffocation.
Chief Executive Paul Thistoll said the practice meets the definition of torture under the UN Convention Against Torture, to which New Zealand is a State Party. “The deliberate obstruction of a child’s airways to produce terror and compliance is torture. The international community recognises waterboarding as torture because it interferes with breathing to create the physiological experience of drowning. When you systematically apply that same principle to infants who cannot understand what’s happening or when it will stop, you are committing torture of the most severe kind.”
Under international law, New Zealand has mandatory obligations to investigate wherever there are reasonable grounds to believe torture has occurred. The UN Convention Against Torture requires States Parties to “proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation” and to “take effective measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.” The practice also breaches the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which prohibits torture and cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment.
Rights Aotearoa has requested that Minister Upston immediately direct New Zealand Police to open a formal criminal investigation, ensure Oranga Tamariki conducts urgent safety assessments of all children at Gloriavale, and commission an independent review into whether current regulatory frameworks adequately detect and prevent torture in isolated religious communities. “The Crown cannot be a passive observer where torture of children is credibly alleged,” Mr Thistoll said. “New Zealand’s human rights obligations are not discretionary.”
About Rights Aotearoa:
Rights Aotearoa is New Zealand’s leading non-governmental organisation devoted to promoting and defending universal human rights with a focus on transgender, non-binary, and intersex rights.