Abuse and violence against children in New Zealand is getting worse. Hundreds of children require hospitalisation each year – and the number of victims reported each year is exploding, according to a new report from Salvation Army. Here’s what you need to know.
Content warning: This article discusses child abuse and violence against children, which some readers may find distressing.
The abuse, violence and neglect our children and tamariki are facing in Aotearoa has gotten worse – substantially worse, according to the State of the Nation 2026 report by Salvation Army.
It found there were almost 108,000 reports of concern to Oranga Tamariki for possible child abuse (that covers emotional, physical or sexual abuse) or neglect in the year to June 2025. This is a staggering 44% increase on the previous year.
Of those reports of concerns, there were 15,000 instances of substantiated reports of abuse or neglect – an 8.5% jump compared with 2024. About 12,000 children were identified as victims – a 7.7% increase from the year before – revealing some children experience neglect or abuse multiple times.
The Bigger Picture
The State of the Nation report is a collection and analysis of publicly available statistics including data from the Police, Oranga Tamariki and Ministry of Justice, as well as internal data from Salvation Army.
It provides an overall picture of the social wellbeing in Aotearoa, and it dedicates a chapter on how our children are tracking.
Ana Ika is the co-author of the report and senior social policy analyst at Salvation Army. She says indicators for education, psychological wellbeing, violence against children and child poverty have gotten worse or remained the same. The positive to come out of it, she says, is that youth offending has been on a downward trajectory.
These statistics are “sobering”, says Ana. “It doesn’t paint a great picture in regards to how our children and young people are doing.”
Violence Against Children
A “big red flag” from the overall report, says Ana, is these worsened statistics on violence against children.
In 2025, police recorded more than 10,000 violent offences (assault and sexual assault) against children under 15 years of age. While those numbers have held steady over the past three years, it is almost a 50% higher than five years ago in 2020 – an increase the report attributes to the harmful social legacies of the social and economic disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report also highlights there had been 354 hospitalisations of children under 15 as a result of assault, abuse or neglect in 2025. It hasn’t budged much from the record-high 359 children hospitalised in 2024.
“If this is how a portion of our children in New Zealand are being treated, then that’s not just a reflection on that community, that’s a reflection on us as a society – how [did] we allow in a first world nation for hundreds of our kids to be hospitalised or … be victims of violence? We need to do better,” says Ana.
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What’s Driving It
Ana says there’s no simple or straightforward reason why these children end up in unsafe environments, and it’s a myriad of factors coming together.
“The biggest issues we’re seeing on the frontlines are particularly around addictions and mental health.”
The report also shows an increase of methamphetamine use, says Ana, which presents significant challenges in how that plays out in family dynamics and how it contributes to the harm against children.
She adds that frontline teams are not resourced well enough to address those mental health and addiction needs.
“It contributes to the severity of the family dynamics we’re seeing coming through our frontlines and it’s right across the spectrum.”
Child poverty
Housing, financial hardship and unemployment also play a factor that could create unsafe environments for children and tamariki, says Ana.
Stats NZ data shows almost 170,000 children – roughly one in seven children – were living in material hardship in the year ended June 2025, with no statistically significant change compared with 2024.
Ana says this isn’t good news. “That just means we haven’t moved in regards to making things better for children in New Zealand that live in the most highly deprived situations.”
The hardship is not evenly distributed. Tamariki Māori experience material hardship at approximately one in four, Pacific children at approximately one in three and children living with disabilities at around one in four.
Working Together
Ana is clear that you can’t look at the state of our children in silo. Housing stress, unemployment, mental health and addiction all intersect – and unfortunately, children bear the weight of it.
She paraphrases a famous Nelson Mandela quote: you can tell the soul of a society by how it treats its children.
Ana says these children and their whānau aren’t just statistics – she and her colleagues can put faces to these numbers. At the frontlines, she says, it is possible to turn things around and provide better futures for our children.
There are charities, iwi and philanthropic trusts all doing “the hard mahi” to change things.
“It’s a call back to the community that the solutions lie within ourselves… What we can do to be able to address [some of these numbers] wherever we are and in whatever capacity.”
“If we work together – government, business, the charity sector – we can change these numbers. We know that we can, because we see it on a daily basis.”
Where to get help:
- Need to talk?: Free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor.
- Healthline: Call 0800 611 116, available 24/7
- Safe to talk: a 24/7 confidential helpline: 0800 842 846, text 4334, webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
- Women’s Refuge: 0800 733 843
- Barnardos: 0800 227 267.
- Get Help – 50 Obstacles to Leaving – The Hotline
- If it is an emergency or you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.
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