Key Takeaways:
- The Ministry of Education’s failure to report the extended absence of two children from school meant their disappearances went unnoticed for years.
- The children, Yuna and Minu Jo, were murdered by their mother in 2018, but their bodies were not found until four years later.
- The Ministry of Education has commissioned an external review to discover how the failure happened and to tighten procedures to ensure it does not happen again.
- The ministry has identified issues with its attendance systems and processes, which contributed to the delay in referring the case to attendance services.
- Changes are being made to improve the support provided for school attendance and to ensure that children missing from school are found, including establishing an information sharing agreement with police.
Introduction to the Tragic Event
The tragic case of Yuna and Minu Jo, two children who were murdered by their mother in 2018, has highlighted a significant failure by the Ministry of Education to report their extended absence from school. The children, aged eight and six respectively, attended a local primary school in Auckland before their disappearance. Their bodies were not found until four years later, concealed in suitcases inside a South Auckland storage locker. The Ministry of Education has released documents under the Official Information Act, which show that the children’s absences took years to be referred to the Attendance Service, rather than months.
The Ministry’s Protocols and Failures
The Ministry of Education’s protocols stipulate that when a student is withdrawn from school and does not enrol at another school within 20 school days, the Ministry’s ENROL system creates a task, asking the school to fill in a Non-Enrolment form. However, in the case of Yuna and Minu Jo, the system failed to require the school to submit a non-enrolment notification. The children’s school had followed the ministry’s processes after 20 days of unexplained absence and tried to track down the children themselves, but were unsuccessful. Deputy Secretary Helen Hurst told RNZ that the ministry had worked internally to analyze how the school attendance systems had operated in Minu and Yuna’s case, and issues had been identified that contributed to the gap between the children returning to New Zealand in May 2018 and the case going to attendance services in 2020.
Investigation and Review
The ministry has commissioned an external review to discover how the failure happened and to tighten procedures to ensure it does not happen again. The review will examine the attendance systems and processes that were in place at the time of the children’s disappearance and identify areas for improvement. The ministry has also increased the frequency of requests to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Immigration New Zealand, which checks for the return to New Zealand of students who were unenrolled with a reason of ‘gone overseas’. This process is now done monthly, as of August 2025. The changes aim to improve the timeliness of the Ministry becoming aware of school-aged children who have returned to New Zealand.
Changes and Improvements
The Ministry of Education is committed to strengthening the role that the ministry plays, alongside other social sector agencies, in providing a system of support for the safety and wellbeing of children. Work is underway to establish an information sharing agreement with police, to ensure children missing from school are found. Additionally, the ministry is working with police and Oranga Tamariki to provide simplified processes and guidance for steps to be taken any time an attendance service provider has concerns about the welfare or safety of children. The ministry is also committed to improving the support provided for school attendance, and any findings from the external review will help to inform this ongoing work.
Conclusion and Future Steps
The case of Yuna and Minu Jo is a tragic reminder of the importance of effective attendance systems and processes in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children. The Ministry of Education’s failure to report the extended absence of the children meant that their disappearances went unnoticed for years, with devastating consequences. The ministry’s commitment to reviewing and improving its attendance systems and processes is a positive step towards preventing such tragedies from happening again in the future. The establishment of an information sharing agreement with police and the provision of simplified processes and guidance for attendance service providers will help to ensure that children missing from school are found and supported in a timely and effective manner.