New Zealand passes Mental Defectives Act

1911. The Mental Defectives Act in New Zealand was implemented in 1911 and it authorized the segregation of “mental defectives.” It later added a sterilization clause to the law. Although New Zealand passed this law and established a eugenics board to oversee the confinement of “defectives,” it had little success enforcing the law.

-Erna Kurbegovic

  • Garton, S. (2010). Eugenics in Australia and New Zealand: Laboratories of Racial Science. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. P. Levine & A. Bashford (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

New Zealand passes Mental Defectives Act

1911. The Mental Defectives Act in New Zealand was implemented in 1911 and it authorized the segregation of “mental defectives.” It later added a sterilization clause to the law. Although New Zealand passed this law and established a eugenics board to oversee the confinement of “defectives,” it had little success enforcing the law.

-Erna Kurbegovic

  • Garton, S. (2010). Eugenics in Australia and New Zealand: Laboratories of Racial Science. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. P. Levine & A. Bashford (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.