Six years ago, Sharon Armstrong (Ngāti Kahungunu) published Organised Deception, the story of how she came to find herself in an Argentinian jail in 2011 as the result of an online romance scam.
Vilified as a “drug mule” by media at the time, her book tells how she survived that experience and resurrected her life.
Recently, Armstrong uploaded a digital version of the book to Amazon Kindle.
She has had a regular e-book available on her website since 2018.
Te Ao Māori News spoke with her about why she chose now to upload the Kindle version and how life is treating her all these years later.
“My driver really has always been about trying to support others because of the way I was treated right at the beginning,” Armstrong says of her decision to make the Kindle version available.
“It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for ages and was really just taking out the time to do it.
“I thought, oh, maybe I’ll stick it up there [on Amazon Kindle].”
‘Worrying stories’
Although it has been more than a decade since her life changing experience, whānau still contact Armstrong searching for support.
“Netsafe refer particularly relationship fraud - or romance fraud, romance scams, whatever you wish to call it - victims and families to me.
“I’ve been doing this probably since 2015, a little bit under the radar for a few years.
“I’m probably not overestimating by saying I would deal with one a week. I might go three weeks without anybody contacting me, and then I might get two or three in one week.
“I’ve never actually gone back and counted but I would say I’ve worked with hundreds over the years.”
Armstrong says people would be shocked by the stories she has been told.
“They share their stories. It’s often more than anything what they need, a level of reassurance that they’re not dumb, stupid or any of the other terrible things others sometimes call them.
“In the last couple of years, I’ve probably dealt more with whānau of victims than actual victims themselves.
“They’re worrying stories, terrible stories, people would be shocked. I think that’s what concerns me is that there’s still this level of complacency that it will never happen to me.
“They are all the reasons really why I decided I’d write my story. Why I agreed for Greenstone to develop the drama [The Tender Trap] off my book.
“All of those things really are about trying to get people to understand the psychology behind the scammers, how sophisticated they are, and that this is still a [massive issue] worldwide.”
‘I love my mahi’
Armstrong says “life is pretty good” for her these days.
She has worked for Ngāpuhi Iwi Social Services for the past six years, leading out the organisation’s Mahuru youth remand programme.
The programme is an iwi-led early intervention initiative in which taitamariki on remand for serious offences - which would ordinarily see them remanded to youth justice residences or remand facilities outside of the region - are placed with Ngāpuhi caregivers.
“As far as we know, we’re the only ones globally that run our remand programme the way we do. Our driver is to ensure that we don’t continue to institutionalise our taitamariki.
“I’m in a position where I can love our kids, I can care for them. No one can tell me I can’t do these [things].
“So that work keeps me busy, focused and committed to the kaupapa, especially in this political climate, it’s very challenging.
“So, yeah, I love my work, love my mahi. I love working for the kaupapa.”
‘Doesn’t define who I am’
Armstrong has done a lot of healing since she was released from prison in 2013.
“I was totally vilified in the media. I remember headlines, ‘Senior public servant turned drug mule’. People were nasty. People came after my family. People said things like, lock her up, throw away the key, terrible, terrible, terrible things.
“I knew I had to go back and confront all of that stuff. So I did. I knew that I needed to be strong enough to be able to challenge a lot of the rhetoric that was said back then.”
She spent 18 months after her release “finishing my healing process”.
“I can talk about my experience. I don’t feel, you know, nothing gets pulled up for me any longer. I know I’ve dealt with the whole experience.
“It doesn’t shape my life. It doesn’t define who I am.
“The experience has probably shaped a lot of what I’ve done in the last 11 or 12 years or however long it is. Because, I mean, I wouldn’t be advocating for this, of course, if I’d never had that experience.”
Armstrong is devoted to her mahi.
“Looking forward, yes, I’m past the official age of retirement. Now, am I looking at retiring anytime soon? Possibly not. It’s really hard to give up kaupapa-driven mahi when you are passionate about it.
“I guess in the future, most of my whānau - my daughter, my mokopuna, my sister - all live in Brisbane, and their whānau, my nieces and nephews.
“So I imagine I will probably end up in Brisbane, but I don’t imagine that to be for the next couple of years.”
‘Warms my heart’
Armstrong is full of hope for whānau Māori.
“I’ve been in Brisbane for the past month. So I had massive ‘fomo’ [fear of missing out] with everything that was happening with the hīkoi.
“I marched in the foreshore and seabed in 2004. I was working in Wellington at the Māori Language Commission at that time.
“And so what I’ve witnessed over this past year in particular, honestly warms my heart.
“I think, yes, when we look at equity, we’re overrepresented in everything we know of. And if we stay in that space, it’s really negative.
“I think we’re a resilient people. I mean, look at us.
“Look at what’s happened in the last 40 years. Look at the things that have turned around in terms of our reo, in terms of our culture, in terms of knowing who we are.
“Watching the [Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s] of this world stand up and claim it. To see everybody internationally supporting what’s happening here in New Zealand.”
With her own lived-experience behind her and mahi working for iwi with youth, she’s optimistic about the future.
“I guess my message is yes we still have some dark days ahead of us, and I’m sure that there are many whānau out there that are impacted every single goddamn day by some of the systemic things that we know go on.
“Engari, I also believe that we’re a strong people. We’re resilient.
“Aroha, pono, tika, all of those values that we carry, those are the things that will take us into the future.
“I’m so excited.”
This article has been updated to clarify that the e-book was recently uploaded to Amazon Kindle.
