Empowering Māori voices in media: Ella Henry | TVNZ+ 

Here they are....... News 24 headline: "Shock over Maori infant brutality" They have been scalded, burned with cigarettes, raped, had bones broken and been beaten unconscious, sometimes to death. Horrific cases of Maori youngsters - some under two years of age - being tortured, abused and KILLED BY MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN FAMILIES Among the grisly headlines that have dominated the nation's media over recent weeks are stories of a 28-month-old Maori girl in a coma after suffering severe head injuries, a broken arm, cuts, bruises and cigarette burns over most of her body. The toddler's 52-year-old grandmother was being held in prison on assault charges. Police in the central North Island town of Carterton are investigating the death a week ago of 23-month-old Maori girl Hinewaoriki Karaitiana-Matiaha who was sexually abused, scalded with hot liquid and beaten before being taken to hospital by relatives. The child, who was put in the care of her grandmother by the Child, Youth and Family Service after consultations with the toddler's family just short of her second birthday, was dead on arrival at Masterton Hospital late on Sunday, July 23. And last week, a coroner in the east coast town of Tauranga found that two-month-old Marcus Te Hira Grey died from a brain haemorrhage following a severe beating by his father. These cases follow the recent release of a report into the gruesome killing last April of four-year-old James Whakaruru, beaten to death by his stepfather for failing to call him Dad. The stepfather had been jailed once for assaulting the boy, but the youngster endured a lifetime of horrific beatings, despite being under the eye of various child welfare agencies, and his hellish existence went unnoticed. The proportion of extreme cases of brutality towards children among the Maori population - which makes up about 15 percent of New Zealand's 3.8 million citizens - is far higher than for any other ethnic group.😂