Dear Editor,
In January 2024, a year ago now, on a beach at Mauke, two older teenaged girls kicked and bashed a younger teenaged girl with intellectual disabilities, while the third girl (friend of the other two) filmed it and put it on the internet.
Yet with all this evidence no charges have yet been laid. The younger girl was quite badly injured. One of the older girls was from Rarotonga; this is what she thought was holiday fun while she was visiting one of the outer islands.
The police attitude to this case is reminiscent of the attitude of a lot of Cook Islanders towards their fellow disabled citizens 50-60 years ago. There was not a village that did not have a so called “village idiot” who often got ridiculed and harassed by children and adults alike.
Have these attitudes really changed in spite of all the education and “inclusivity” over the past 60 years?
The police in Rarotonga were supposed to go to Mauke to follow up on the matter but so far nothing has happened on the case.
What kind of country are we when we let this act go unpunished? What sort of monsters will these teenaged girls grow up into when they are allowed to get away with this kind of behaviour towards a mentally disabled child? Can we call ourselves a civilised nation if this matter goes unchallenged? What are we celebrating when we talk about the 60th anniversary of the Cook Islands? What have we learned in 60 years? That the continued practice of cruelty and neglect towards our disabled people in the outer islands is okay?
The disabled people on Rarotonga have a Creative Centre and seemingly have a lot of attention paid to their welfare, while the disabled people of the outer islands continue to fall by the wayside. What are we celebrating: Raro-centric developments only? It certainly looks like it.
Tangapatoro
(Name and address supplied)
