Chapter 15 — Foster care

Emotional abuse

A number of witnesses described being isolated from support both within the foster home and in the wider community. They reported being forbidden to speak or interact with the biological children in the family and were discouraged from sharing confidences with other foster children. Witnesses described witnessing other foster children in the family being abused but feeling unable to defend them or offer them any support for fear of attracting similar abuse themselves. ‘We...foster children... didn’t talk to each other, we all lived in a sort of personal isolation because we couldn’t trust each other...

Witnesses also described being prevented or discouraged from interacting with neighbours. Three (3) witnesses regarded this as a protective measure due to the derogatory manner in which they were treated by the neighbouring children. Witnesses also reported being ostracised in the local school, subjected to offensive remarks from other children and, in four instances, from teachers. ‘Some of the local school children knew we were bastards, told us so and threw stones as we passed’. Other witnesses believed that being forbidden to speak to local children was a means of reinforcing their isolation and sense of being different from other children.

It was reported that the neighbours of one foster family were particularly kind and it was believed that they attempted to protect the foster children in various ways. A witness reported that she and other foster children were sent out at night to steal from these neighbours’ fields, causing much fear and anguish: We’d be sent to steal firewood from the neighbours...you’d be frightened and they’d ... (foster parents)... kind of absolve themselves of all responsibility because they’d say ... “you’re orphans, we won’t have any responsibility, that ... (stealing)... is expected of you kind of people”.... You knew you were doing something wrong, at school we knew the 7th commandment, “thou shalt not steal”.... I was totally confused by all this and the fact that they’d ... (foster parents)... report it was us who stole.... It wasn’t a nice feeling.

Denigration and humiliation was described by witnesses as taking several forms. Fourteen (14) witnesses reported being called names, with particular reference to the circumstances of their birth: ‘nothing but a bastard’, ‘you are whore’s milk’, ‘a black man’s bastard’, ‘Local people referred to us as... ‘X’s... (foster mother’s)... bastards’. Witnesses also reported being called derogatory nicknames with reference to personal features or characteristics. Three (3) witnesses had physical disabilities that they reported were the subject of constant ridicule and humiliation.

Other experiences reported by witnesses were being denied privacy for bathing, being subjected to derogatory remarks about bed-wetting and other personal matters in front of members of the household, and being made to eat apart from the family or outside the house with farm animals. One witness described being made to walk several miles to Mass each Sunday, while there were bicycles in the house that he was never allowed to use.

Five (5) witnesses reported that they did not know their own birth names or were not called by their birth names and three witnesses reported being misled about their biological family. The problem is I wasn’t registered when I was born, I have no birth cert. I was baptised twice, but I have no birth cert. When I was going to buy a house one time, they said I had to get a ... birth cert. I went in to Lombard House looking for a birth cert ... never heard of me. You can’t go away or anything, or you can’t get a passport. • I wasn’t ever called by my name.... It is hard ... (to talk about)... some of this thing, because it is so personal ...distressed... because it’s like remaining that person ...(with the derogatory name)... and I think they did a good job. I was called ...X (reference to physical attribute)... I’d only ever hear my... (real)... name when the authorities came. ... I can see this man, this tall stately person, coming down on a bicycle. I think he used to pay them their dues for foster care ... then I’d know my name. • She’d ... (foster mother)... say I was nobody anyway.... I felt this psychological abuse was very hard to take.... She succeeded in making me feel I was nobody. • I find my childhood haunts me. I’ve been searching for who I was...I sat for a week when I got the letter to say that I actually came from somewhere...when I go to Ireland I actually feel the pain of not belonging. • When I was 15 I thought that maybe someone would come and say “well here’s your letters and your papers and things about your mother” and all that but the people that knew my mother would never tell me anything. Up to less than 10 years ago there were people who knew her but they wouldn’t tell me anything.

One witness became aware that the foster mother knew the whereabouts of the witness’s siblings but refused to disclose this information. Another witness reported being told as a child that his biological parents were dead and subsequently learned that his foster carers had always known that this was not true. Another witness reported becoming aware in more recent years that a child who was in the same foster home throughout childhood was, in fact, a sibling.

Knowledge of abuse

Witnesses commented that the public nature of certain aspects of the abuse they were subjected to made awareness by others unavoidable. They reported being abused in front of others, being visibly neglected and unhappy and presenting to doctors and hospitals for the treatment of injuries inflicted through abuse and violence. They reported being aware that neighbours, teachers, visiting professionals and members of the local community knew they were being abused in their foster homes. Witnesses reported that disclosures of abuse were at times investigated with positive outcome. Other witnesses stated they were either ignored or punished when they disclosed their abuse.

Eleven (11) of the 24 witnesses reported that they disclosed their abuse to someone or confronted their abuser and successfully resisted any further abuse. When I was 17 I went to...professional...one day, I didn’t know where to go... I spent about 2 hours, I brought everything...(sexual abuse)... out to her, crying to her, non-stop... and although I didn’t know it at the time she obviously reported it to the Health Board and it was to get priority... I read that on the files... (afterwards)... but it never got priority, nobody ever came back to me.

Eight (8) of the 11 witnesses reported their abuse to professionals, including visiting nurses, social workers and the local family doctor. In each instance, with one exception, the disclosure was responded to in a positive manner in that the witness was believed and either moved from the foster home or the abuse ceased. In some instances the response was not immediate but did occur eventually. Four (4) of the witnesses were removed from their foster homes, two of whom were placed in residential institutions and continued to spend holidays with the foster parents. Another witness was removed from an abusive foster home and placed with a kind but elderly foster carer who died when the witness was 14 years old. As previously stated one witness reported that she ran away from her foster home where she was abused and was taken in by a neighbouring family where she continued to live, with the knowledge of the visiting inspector. Despite informing this person about the severe daily abuse she had experienced, the witness reported that other foster children remained in that foster placement. Another female witness reported that following a ‘savage rape’ she haemorrhaged and fainted in a public place, following which her foster mother became aware of her sexual abuse and although she remained with that foster family the foster father ceased abusing her.

One witness reported that her disclosure of physical abuse to the visiting social worker resulted in further abuse and a deterioration in the already conflicted relationship with her foster mother.

Six (6) witnesses reported that they either told their foster mothers that they were being sexually abused by their foster fathers or the foster mothers became aware of the sexual abuse as a result of subsequent events. In four instances the foster mothers were reported to either disbelieve the witness or blame them for the resultant problems in the family. One witness reported that her foster mother said ‘there are no bad men, only bad women’, when she learned that the witness had been sexually abused by the foster father over a number of years. Another foster mother was reported to blame the witness for trying to ‘come between’ herself and her husband. The witness reported that the foster mother was physically abusing both the witness and another foster child in the foster father’s absence. We said to ...foster mother... that he was always pulling on himself ... (masturbating)..., but she didn’t believe us. She said we were just jealous, that we didn’t want her to be going out at night time,... (leaving witness with foster father)... and she ignored it.

Two (2) witnesses reported that while their foster mothers were distressed by the disclosures of sexual abuse against their husbands, they accepted what they were told and assisted the witness to be protected. The witnesses acknowledged positive aspects of the general care they received in the foster homes and were afraid that the security of their placement would be compromised by disclosing the fact of their sexual abuse.

Three (3) witnesses believed that other adults were aware of the abuse they were subjected to by observing what happened. They reported that no action was taken to address the abusive situations. For example, one witness described being constantly assaulted by a member of the foster family. This behaviour occurred in view of the foster parents whom the witness believed exploited her presence in the family as a means of coping with their other difficulties. In a separate foster home another female witness stated that she was treated by the family doctor for burns to her arm having been hit with a hot poker by her foster mother. Eventually they called the doctor, she warned me when he came I was to keep my mouth shut, she would tell him what happened.... I thought, “at least, thank God, it will come out now” ...distressed... because I didn’t think she would tell a lie.... But she told the doctor that she couldn’t keep me away from the fire and that I had come down and put my hand straight on the bars...(of the fire grate).... The doctor told me off.

A witness who reported being taken to hospital for treatment of burns and a head injury following different assault incidents reported being asked no questions by the hospital staff regarding how his injuries were sustained. This witness also reported being sent to school with his arm in a sling following a beating without any questions being asked by the teachers regarding his injury.