When Tupua Urlich – the first person to take the stand at a landmark Māori hearing on abuse in state care – is asked to talk about his upbringing, he puts his heads to his clasped hands and says he needs to take a minute. “This is an emotional thing to go through,” he says. “I don’t mind people seeing this because this is what we go through every day of our lives.”
Urlich, of Croatian and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga descent, was five when he was separated from his mother and seven siblings, and sent to live with a non-whānau [non-family] caregiver chosen by the state. “That’s when the gates of hell opened up,” he says. “I can tell you, I was far safer in those first five years of my life,” he tells the hearing.
