Wellington police have set up a specialist team to investigate child abuse cases.
The District Child Protection Team, with 24 staff including detectives and interviewers, will investigate all reports of serious child abuse in Wellington, Wairarapa, Hutt Valley and Kapiti.
"Child abuse is so prevalent, but it's still a silent crime in the community," Detective Senior Sergeant Tusha Penny, the head of the team, told the Dominion Post.
"It's a distasteful crime. People don't want to know about it and that helps offenders get away with it."
The team was to have started a year ago, but then police discovered a backlog of more than 100 uninvestigated historic child abuse files in Wairarapa. Resources were diverted into investigating those, and several of cases are now before the courts.
Ms Penny said that she was confident that the child protection team was going to make a difference.
